Vinegar Man to the rescue and other tales from the Food Shrine

I confess, I love shopping at Food Shrine. Yes, I had my time of mourning for the old store and my frustration with the crowds that came with the grand opening. But now, I have moved on and thoroughly embraced the Food Shrine and all its exoticness. Someday I even hope to find the ricotta cheese. But I digress . . . on to today's tales.

Vinegar Man to the Rescue!
There was trouble on the baking aisle. Big trouble. Two little boys wrestling loudly in the confines of their race car shopping cart. Most disconcerting. But then . . . Vinegar Man to the rescue! The store worker in charge of the vinegar bar area that day came over and asked if we would like to try some bread with vinegars or olive oils (and yes, I do mean the plural for both). The boys calmed down fast as the vinegar man handed them little slices of baguette bread with a little bit of olive oil in a cup for dipping (the Mediterranean version of bread and butter). I tried something a little more exotic that I'd been eying for awhile: peach vinegar. It was remarkably tasty, and surprisingly peachy. Mayhap I'll try the berry vinegar next time, just for fun. The best part of it all, though, was that thanks to Vinegar Man, the rest of the shopping trip went much more smoothly. Thank you, Mr. Vinegar Man. You saved our day.

Wild, Wonderful Waffles
Ah, but the vinegar incident is not our only tale from Food Shrine today. Our first bit of foodie fun today came from one of the waffle makers from the waffle station. He left his station to give samples of his wares to customers in the produce section, where we happened to be. Today's flavor: pumpkin. Surprisingly tasty, actually. We were also surveyed about our feelings regarding gingerbread waffles, which may be next month's exotic waffle, assuming they come up with a suitable recipe.

Chocolate dipped WHAT?
The visit from the waffle man reminded me that some baked goods might be nice, something in the kaiser roll department, perhaps. It just so happens that such rolls are located within view of the candy section (the one that looks like it should have "The Candy Man" as perpetual background music). Naturally, the boys wanted to pass through the candy section when they saw it, and so we took a little detour. One of the features of the candy section is the wide selection of stuff hand-dipped in chocolate. The first time I saw the place, it looked like the employees had gone on a sweet-grabbing spree through the store and then dipped it all in chocolate. Today, however, I found out that they will dip ANYTHING in chocolate. Having found samples in the candy section before, we looked for them again today and found what looked like chocolate-dipped potato chips. I asked the lady at the counter what they were. And that's exactly what they were. And they tasted like potato chips, dipped in chocolate.

All in all, a fine day of shopping at Food Shrine.