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I've been asked to come out of retirement to review Tacoma's newest and most talked about grocery store - IGA's (Independent Grocers Alliance) Tacoma City Grocer. The word "retirement" can bring up all sorts of visuals: relaxing on the front porch, gardening, long walks on the beach with your special
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I haven't told any good stories lately. I mean this column is called "Grocery Stories" after all. What's the deal? So this week I have a good story and some suggestions for shopping attire etiquette. Do you I have your attention? Yeah, it's pretty weird. Last night I was invited over
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There are many things we leave until the last minute when it comes to our holiday meals, and we shouldn't. It could be the cranberry sauce. Who was supposed to bring that? Nobody wants to because no one eats it. AH! Whip cream for the pumpkin pie! Who is supposed
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Let me get one thing straight. I love cheese. Cheesy, cheese, cheese. I like stinky cheese, gooey cheese, hard cheese, soft cheese, goat cheese, sheep cheese; even that crappy nacho cheese in the jar. You name it, I WILL LIKE IT! And what better time of the year than the
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Weird things are happening. It's like I've entered some parallel universe or something. Worlds are colliding. Cats love dogs, rain is awesome, and to some of us, Bret Michaels is attractive (yeah, Steph DeRosa, that's for you). There's something way cool in Federal Way. First of all, I don't drive to
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You know the saying, ‘Sometimes you can find what you're looking for right under your nose?" Well, clearly I've been finding my mouth just fine, based on my recent weight gain, but not in such a literal way, I finally really looked under my nose and discovered Sunshine Liquidators. I've been
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Retail practices crack me up. Don't get my wrong - I get the psychology behind the game, but at times it does seem rather excessive. Halloween isn't even here yet and stores are cutting half their seasonal display space back for Christmas decorations. It just doesn't seem right. There are no
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My fat little fingers are having a tough time typing this morning, all due to a morning run that left them swollen and slightly numb. All thanks to Jenny Fab and her long-legged boyfriend who kicked my ass all the way down Ruston Way this fine, foggy day. So to
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For the last few days the temperature in my house has hovered around 63 degrees and that is NOT acceptable. I am a warmth whore and this whole "waiting until we get paid before we can buy a furnace" thing, is wearing thin, REALLY thin. So I began to think about
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So, Oktoberfest isn't official over until the end of this weekend, but it's really quite over for me. I needed to shake-off the sauerkraut and gut busting brats for something that reminded me of vacation. I haven't been on a real vacation in over two years, and at this rate,
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I've been rather under the weather lately and it's my own fault. I was cocky and exclaimed on Facebook that I had not been sick in over a year. You'd think I would know better than that. One week after my mighty proclamation, I was struck down with a gnarly
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Well, it's finally here. For those of you who live near downtown Tacoma or the Stadium District, your newly revamped neighborhood grocery store Stadium Thriftway, is finally having their Renovation Celebration beginning today. What's not to love about these guys and this grand accomplishment? It took more
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Yours truly has been called a snob. Yes, it's true - that I have been accused of being a snob. Apparently, one of my past reviews hit a nerve with a few readers (thankfully they are reading) partially because I desire a clean environment when I shop. Does this
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I sense a theme forming here. Small, independent, neighborhood grocery stores are getting my undivided attention these days, so as not to abuse the genre, this will be the last in my unintentional "series" for a while. It's clear these little stores fascinate me and wield more power than you might
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Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live in the days before big chain grocery stores? Where we shopped at small neighborhood markets, and did our laundry at the corner Laundromat? It was a simpler time, and this week I received a small taste of it. The Corner
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How do you know you're a "foodie"? Or better yet for you normal people, how do you know if you're a "food nerd"? Simple. You wait with great anticipation for a friend to give you the golden ticket for the recently opened restaurant super store. Restaurant Depot is not just ANY
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So, I decided to go dumpster diving for this weeks Grocery Stories. My beloved boss Pappi Swarner threw the idea at me a few weeks back and I completely laughed it off, but then I got thinking - why not? They deserve a look-see, just as anyone else, so I
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I like surprises. The good kind of surprises, like a birthday party or finding an extra bottle of premium vodka in the cupboard. And certainly not the bad kind, like a spider in your shoe or absolutely NO vodka in the cupboard. This week's grocery story was a bit of
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As we all know, these days it's all about local, and Tacomans are incredibly fortunate to have four farmers markets spread-out through out the week to make our shopping accessible. What I would like to see is a year-round market in a permanent structure like Olympia. Why do they
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I stumbled across an article on the web recently that got me thinking. It was about grocery trends in 2010 and what to expect. The article was pretty accurate as to what was happening currently in the business, but that's not to tough to predict when you write the
