UPDATED.....If you give people a choice, a lot of them will choose the good stuff. Like fresh mozzarella, or wonderful goat mozzarella, over the bland and rubbery downmarket hunks or tasteless shredded bagfuls. Abominations also include one-handed food such as chili-macaroni on a stick - shudder. For healthier others, the appeal of dicing and slicing remains considerable. Oakland is abuzz, the San Francisco Chronicle reports today, with the opening of its first big gourmet supermarket. Farmer Joe's, owned by a Chinese imigrant who was first a fieldworker, began as a corner market and at customer request began stocking organic produce - something I buy periodically because it tastes great, not because it is always less free of chemicals. When a large grocery site became vacant in the Dimond district in Oakland's foothills, they were persuaded to open up there. These days, large grocery stores selling organic produce are apt to have a lot of other fine food items, which are in growing demand as consumer tastes become more discerning.

For years, Oakland residents who wanted fresh, high-quality produce had to drive out of town. But not anymore. Due to changing demographics and evolving tastes, several large, upscale grocery stores are setting up shop in Oakland, much of which until now has been served by chains and corner liquor stores. Fresh sushi, olive oil bar, heirloom tomatoes -- usually the hallmarks of Noe Valley, Mill Valley and Portola Valley -- can now be found in Oakland's decidedly unglamorous Dimond district....Residents were so excited about Farmer Joe's opening last weekend they threw an all-day festival, with live music, craft booths and face painting, and have pledged to keep cash registers humming. "It's been exciting, but I have to keep reminding myself of an old Chinese saying: 'It's easy to build something, but hard to keep it going,' " said owner Joe Tam, an immigrant from China, who started his career working in Bay Area flower and vegetable fields. "Now the hard part starts."

..."Oakland needs this place," Dawnelle Armstrong said as she surveyed the cantaloupes and nectarines Tuesday morning. "We need something positive like this. Until now, if you wanted good organic stuff, you had to drive" to Berkeley. Farmer Joe's isn't the end of the food revolution. Whole Foods will open its first Oakland store in summer 2007 at the former Cadillac dealer at the corner of 27th and Harrison streets near Lake Merritt....."What we're seeing is that gourmet foodies aren't the only ones who want fresh, high-quality produce. Everyone does," said Samee Roberts, Oakland's marketing manager.

At the same time American obesity is reaching alarming levels, the choices are ever more clear on diet. You can eat healthy or mainline crud that's high fat, salty, greasy or sugary. However, sometimes eating healthy is much harder based on your surroundings. While on vacation and staying in rented homes, I've been to grocery stores in the inland Northwest that were downright scary. Mushy brown produce, green-ish chicken, brown "red" meat. Thank goodness for the spaghetti carbonara fallback strategy. You can always get pasta, bacon, eggs and Parmesan; even in one of these gruesome shrines to food as an afterthought. Salad may have to be cucumbers though, when the lettuce is only wilted iceberg. During harvest season in rural areas and year-round near larger cities, at least you can opt for quality. Which doesn't have to entail upscale prices; just a decent produce stand. Like, say, MacPherson's on Columbian Way South in Seattle's Beacon Hill. No one in Birkenstocks there. Just a whole lot of different-colored folk buying up scads of ethnic and mainstream produce for rock-bottom prices. Not an organic anything in the house. For a true boutique experience, try a farm stand on an island a short ferry-ride from Seattle. Most convenient of all are the weekly farmer's markets all over many cities these days. Including Seattle.

Rainier Cherries, anyone?

TECHNORATI TAGS: OAKLAND, SEATTLE, VASHON ISLAND, HEALTHY FOOD, GROCERY STORES, FARMER'S MARKETS, PRODUCE STANDS, FARMER JOE'S, WHOLE FOODS, GOAT MOZZARELLA, RAINIER CHERRIES

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 28, 2006 08:55 AM