I wonder....do daily trips to Whole Foods count as an addiction?

Listen, I just need to get my fix.

After 8 years of shopping in grocery stores that just smell weird, with shelves full of items I do not use, with labels I cannot read, with ingredients I do not recognize, I am basking in the glory of Whole Foods.

It is clean and bright and shiny and new. It smells nice and things are pretty and the selection is good and the prices aren't too bad, but in the end (as always) It's All About the Meat. Carnivores unite and celebrate our good fortunes. If I had a turkey leg right now (pausing to jot that on my grocery list, because THEY DO INDEED have turkey legs) I would be cooking it over fire, then gnawing on it and waving it around for emphasis.

Trust me, when you get a look at what I have been buying for the last 8 years you'll understand.......The meat at most local stores is encased in plastic and frozen solid (or slowly defrosting, letting you know just how long it has been sitting there as it leaks through 3 or 4 layers of plastic wrap). Occasionally it is vacuum sealed, sometimes a funny color, and many times it only comes in 10 pound packages. At my beloved Whole Foods, it comes however I like it, wrapped in pretty brown paper. Since I do not hunt, or grow my own food, I have to rely on others to provide. And Whole Foods is totally providing, baby.

Providing so well, in fact, that I find myself there Almost Every Day. And not in a crazy, Whole Paycheck kind of way....it's just that the food they are selling is fresh, and so I want to go there every day and buy that fresh food, and then eat it - while it is still fresh. So we go. I get the staples that we are out of (yesterday it was peanut butter, today it is milk) and then we get some meat, and maybe some olives and perhaps some grains or cheese. A fresh-baked loaf of focaccia. A few little somethings, all packed in my re-usable grocery bag, and then I head home feeling fulfilled and strangely victorious. As though I had gone out and foraged and brought home this nutritious food from the woods and the wilds in order to nourish my family.

I am practically Ma Ingalls, I know.

The only thing that would make my life any better would be if I had a Trader Joes. But I can't even allow myself to *dream* about it. That would just be too much to bear. My heart would explode with joy, I think.

So in the meantime, I am heading to Whole Foods. I need something to gnaw on.