GROCERIES: No Parrano, But More Cheese

One of the reasons why I was bittersweet when moving out of Glover Park was abandoning a three-minute walk to the neighborhood Whole Foods. (Yes, call me a 24-year-old yuppie, call me part of the organic bourgeois, but for those of you who are content with the Soviet Safeway on 17th Street, I have no sympathy for you if you complain that the store is sold out of bread.) Now that I'm living farther uptown, the Tenleytown Whole Foods is somewhat more convenient to my new location.

But the store is located inside a parking garage, the layout is cramped and the customers are slow. But the cheese sample selection is excellent. This evening, gruyere, smoked provolone, comte were the featured samples at the Tenleytown location. Typically, the spacious Glover Park Whole Foods would feature only parrano and goat's milk gouda, which are good, but over and over again get a little old.

So if my theory is correct, the more cramped and inconvenient the Whole Foods is, the better cheese sample selection is. For those who have ever ventured out to the River Road Whole Foods in Bethesda (I will sometimes go there to shop for my 85-year-old great aunt who has very particular food demands.), you may agree. The parking lot is tiny (they will have private traffic cops direct cars in and out), the layout is tiny, but the food samples can be vastly superior than is what is offered at the Glover Park and P Street locations.