| Look pretty, don't taste very good |
That's not always the case, but I have generally found that desserts made with the best intentions are often lacking in the qualities that make a pastry seductive and delicious. And the items in the pastry cases at the local Whole Foods stores always look so pretty but taste so bland. They're expensive, too.
Over the years I've eaten many sweets from the Whole Foods bakery section, and a few have actually been tasty. But I've noticed that the prettier the pastry, the less satisfying it is to the taste.
The other night, I had been dining in a Johnson County restaurant that didn't really have much in the way of desserts, so I asked my friend Truman if we could stop at the Whole Foods at 7401 West 91st Street in Overland Park. I like this store a lot and needed to do a little shopping anyway.
There's a refrigerated pastry case that has full, unsliced cakes and shiny fruit tarts and a few smaller items, like miniature cheesecakes, and another case with take-out treats in clear plastic boxes, including toasted-almond cake from New Jersey-based Taste It Presents Inc. I was much less entranced by the tiramisu, if you can even call it that, made by the in-house bakers at this Whole Foods store. It looks and tastes like a very ordinary, unmemorable layer cake: if there was a hint of marscapone cheese, espresso, shaved chocolate or liquour, I couldn't taste it. The pretty little miniature cheesecakes -- Key lime and raspberry -- were nearly flavorless too. What gives?
"It's a psychological experiment," explained Truman. "If desserts don't taste as spectacular as they look, you won't finish eating them, you'll lose weight and you'll be healthier. Desserts that taste good make you fat."
As crazy as that sounds, it actually makes sense.
Home page image via Flickr: Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake
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I agree, but always summed it up to the desserts being "healthy". However the Crazy Jeff's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie is the best choco chip cookie I've ever had...
Meesha, do NOT get the vegans aggravated. Hell hath no fury...
Oh, I forgot to add: Whole Foods customers have no sense of humor. Probably vegans or something.
This is the most useless article I've ever read in my life. Whole Foods isn't strictly a health-food store, though they do sell healthy food. You may have noticed they also sell butter and eggs and cheese and sugar and beer and chips and cookies and a host of other unhealthy things. Whole Foods' standards aren't about health, they're about quality (which do happen to go hand-in-hand). In any case, even if I agreed with the author's tastes (which I don't), I think Truman's "theory" is pretty ridiculous (I don't think Whole Foods' goal is to make anyone dissatisfied with their products - Oneida is right - they take ANYTHING back if you don't like it), and I also have a very hard time taking seriously any author - who writes about food, no less! - can't spell "mascarpone" or "liquor." Try harder, Mr. Ferruzza.
Me? I take it back. Waste it? What about wasting my hard sought income.
Take it back.
Whole Foods pastries were a lot better several years ago. Then suddenly there was a shift in the kitchen. The pastries came out dry and tasteless, the breads likened to cardboard.
Whoever took over needs to go back to culinary school....particularly baking and pastry.
Whole foods doesn't have to try hard,they have dedicated customers who would buy anything they put in the case and overpay for it in the process. Also at least in my case unless it tastes like crap I'd finish it anyway-I am conditioned not to throw away food.
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