Robyn's Phood Philosophy
The short version
Eat whole foods, simply prepared as fresh as possible.
Love animals, don't knowingly eat them.
Do no harm.
Eat when hungry.
Give back as much or more than you take in.
This weekend was food centric even for Asheville.
Whole Foods
Friday found me invited to the Press sneak peak at the New Whole Foods Asheville across front he Mall.
This recycled shipping container cum food truck is
parked in the parking lot and serving lunch and dinner till the store opens on Tuesday.
Vegan Alert- they cook the animal products and veggies on the same grill.
I found folks waiting around outside for a tour for the general public and decided to tag along on that tour instead to see what WF had to say to consumers.
Jayne our tour guide was professional and told a good company story.
You can scroll around and see what I thought was most interesting.
Honestly, if you have seen one Whole Foods you have seen them all.
Decent bulk area
Lots of soap.
Concierge shopping- that might be useful if you need that sort of thing.
The tastings were very lame- some mini cupcakes that had no taste- a cracker-their 365 brand with peanut butter- and a chip with some salsa on it.
Purified water machine.
The speciality area- not much you couldn't find at Ingles.
I asked Janye about their policy on separating animal products from veggie in the prepared foods and since that wasn't part of her talk she invited me to a chat with Nick, the regional prepared food manager.
Nick was a nice guy and said they do what they can. When possible he will chose to prepare, why he called vegetable options rather than protein. That's nice.
Nice- yes Whole Foods looks nice.
I find when a new store opens there are lots of happy employees and best intentions.
They do have a more open policy than when they took over Greenlife on using local providers, and they have foundations to give money to various causes.
I'm sure all of that is on their website, and you can look it up.
I probably will not shop there, unless there is some compelling reason or a specific product.
We have lots of other options in the Asheville area, and I know who the grocer and farmers are and where the money goes.
The press was being wined and dined in the upstairs bar and cafe- I passed.
I'll stop here, as I am trying to be nice.
Asheville food & wine
Saturday, I was gifted with two tickets to the Asheville wine & food festival by man about town and food critic Stu Helm.
I highly recommend you check out his
blog and
FB page, if you enjoy food, witty, often hilarious writing, and other fun Ashevillian antics.
I admire Stu's lack of driving and drinking lifestyle, haven fallen myself to the former and not big on the latter.
I love his reviews because, he tells it like it is, I mostly agree with him! and I often LOL -truly -huge belly laughs and you need a good abs workout after all this eating.
If you are offend by four letter words- get over it! Stu uses fuck, shit, hell and damn as nouns, verbs, adjectives and dangling participles and if it bothers you just ignore them.
I bet you go to the movies. Do you keep your eyes closed and put your fingers in your ears?
Any hooley(as Stu would say)
I met my daughter and after getting shuffled around a few tables at the entrance to the Civic Center(what is it called now?) we waded into a sea of people already dangerously swaying and wielding glass weapons- wine glasses!
There were 150 some vendors and it seemed most of them were alcoholic .
Why does anyone build event spaces like this? The upper tier was verging on dangerous and it was difficult and messy to get the vendors.
The downstairs is a bit more spacious and still a very uninviting space and very difficult to get good photos.
Forgive me in advance for the crummy photos.
Our fav vendors:
These folks have heart and do so much for the community
Blue Blaze- delicious unsweetened sodas( not covered by phood philosophy!)
Support this non-profit- they are growing our children's healthy food awareness.
Crackers from Black Mountain
Second best tasting hummus in the world, 1st in ingredients and mission- every batch is sacred-
and they gave me a whole Lima Bean to take home!!
Best booth visuals and Best water urns.
Only booth rating two photos!
Food fight
We didn't stay not really being interested in what happened to a pile of dead bunnies.
We had a good time, aside from the crush of the crowd, tasted a lot of interesting food, met a lot of great folks and learned a few things.
Thanks Stu.
If you want to see what other folks around the world are thinking about, food related, do pop over, give Mr Linky some love and with drink in hand enjoy your visiting.
The plan is to do more food writing on Tuesdays, so now that you know where we are don't be a stranger!
Comments and Questions always welcomed.
