Why Grocery Stores are Like the New Kids on the Block

**Stay tuned for the cutest giveaway drawing EVER — tomorrow, Lucas is using our dogs to pick the winner of his Stella Artois contest and it is sure to please. I’ll be posting video tomorrow!

Like the title of this post? Well, if you were born in the ’80s. you used to rock out to sweet, timeless jams like this:

Oh my goodness, the memories … truth time: I used to have a Homeboy shirt fashioned after Donnie Wahlberg. It was homemade, natch.

Anywho, I found myself wandering into a new grocery store today, and after an epiphany (what? Winn-Dixie isn’t the crappiest store in Florida anymore? It’s actually kind of … awesome?) I realized that grocery stores are a lot like my favorite boy band of all time.

Here are the main options in Central Florida, with their NKOTB counterparts, ranked in terms of desirability:

• Whole Foods=Joey McIntyre
  • Delicious to look at, wonderful to spend hours with … when you’re in Whole Foods, you feel like you’re in foodie heaven. Organic foods, massive amounts of local produce, great workers and free samples. Plus, the hot bar? Much like Joey, steamy and mouth-watering.
• Publix=Jordan Knight
  • A great option if you just need some pantry staples. Decent produce, and enough organic/natural options that if Whole Foods is out of the question, Publix will get the job done. Like Jordan, Publix can easily become the leader, is always clean and never disappoints.
• Albertson’s=Jon Knight
  • Albertson’s has some great deals, especially if you have a coupon, and once in a while, I try and go there to stock up on things like pasta sauce, canned beans, etc. Again, some organic options, and just like Jon is a watered-down version of his brother Jordan, it gets the job done. You won’t brag about going to Albertson’s, just like you wouldn’t brag about meeting Jon.
• Wal-Mart/Target Supercenters=Danny Wood
  • Just like Danny is forgettable (I think maybe he sang “Happy Birthday” on the Step by Step album?), it’s easy to forget that these two big box stores even offer food. On principle, I don’t like to buy food here. I prefer to support stores with a local slant (like Publix, which is based in Lakeland, or Whole Foods, which buys as much local produce as possible.)
• Winn-Dixie=Donnie Wahlberg
  • Dirty, smelly and a place that makes you cringe to even consider. The produce is never fresh, the cashiers are bored and will let you know it, the store is full of no-name brands that have skeevy labels and even skeevier nutritional data. And yet, like Donnie, Winn-Dixie has done everything it can to makeover its image.

And guess what? It worked. Check out the bounty that greeted me today:

And the organics … oh, the organics:

There was even a full line of natural products by Winn-Dixie, including this soda sweetened with cane sugar:

I had stopped in to see if there was truth to the rumor that W-D carries VitaTops, which I normally have to order online (it is true, but it was more expensive in stores, even with shipping, once you factor in the always-available VitaTops coupon code). And I walked out with this:

Those two packages of plantains were $1.66 total, so I got some to stick in the freezer. The organic peaches and nectarines were $1.49/lb (what non-organic peaches cost at the other stores), the pound of whole-bean organic coffee (surprisingly hard to find) was less than $10 and I found two beauties that have eluded me for several seasons:

Boniato, which is a cuban sweet potato. Plus:

Calabaza squash, which is like a pumpkin but much, much better.

I already put the coffee to work, making the french press coffee that Caitlin so beautifully demonstrated on her blog.

And I’m calling on another blogger, Jenna from Eat, Live, Run, for “The Best Pizza Dough,” which I am using for dinner. The dough rose beautifully, and I put half in the freezer, and the other half is awaiting its mushroom, cheese, roasted pepper, red onion and yellow squash destiny. A delicious destiny, for sure. I’ll be having it with the okra that I couldn’t finish at lunch:

I’ll leave you with a cute picture taken at work today — the girls and I dressed up for College Colors Day. Go ‘Cuse!

Tagged as: Food, groceries, New Kids on the Block, Silly Tater Tot, Silly Tater Tot, Winn-Dixie