Dear T.J....

Our love affair is teetering, the romance has cooled in spite of your seductive charm. Friendly faces. Colorful shirts with their tropical motif, a service philosophy that is generally very good. How many  such boutique groceries exist these days? TJ's is the quintessential urban foodie lure, except.....except...
Maybe it's because I have begun to worry you think more about packaging than content, that the corporate mojo is winning out over customer needs.
I have tried for a long time - ever since anyone stopped wondering about the origins of your name - to embrace the full range of your products, many of which could have no other  home.  I am a faithful responder to the tasty temptations employees dish up for passing shoppers. I appreciate the gesture, but somehow the goods never taste the same when I am trying them out at home. And I wonder: Is it some secret cinnamon scent waffling throughout the interior that goads me to buy? Some subconscious come-on? Or do I just like tiny portions and am too hungry to have any perspective when I sho?
A few big and little quibbles: That the chicken pot pie - ostensibly  a bargain since who could afford to make the dish at that price at home - has little chicken bits, not enough carrots and no taste of home. Offered for three, it is barely enough for two hungry people.  The chicken chunks are not flavorful. What is the problem with not employing more flavor - some herbs, red pepper?
When I asked for bulgur wheat over a long period, I was told it wasn't available. Then one day I found 'instant bulgur - surely an abomination. There is abundant quinoa but none of the old-fashioned tabouli ingredient I so love.
And cinnamon sticks: I was told at one store that it wasn't around until 'the season' = presumably when bakers make cakes. But that is any season, not just Christmas. Should I persevere?
The take-home salads in their square plastic box, so tempting but then so sad to find the promised cabbage in the 'low fat' chicken, etc., salad barely exists and the dressing is sugary. Really, the promise fails the reasonable price. I'm left wanting..
Taste matters. Really. I fear your reluctance to err on the side of boldness. Or on the side of the customer who wants his/her cantaloupe to taste like more than orange gelatin. Are these and many other fruits picked too early to ripen fully - doubtless a  product of the distribution system - and offer up the distinctive aroma and flavor.
And must you package parsley in tiny plastic envelopes that are an affront to the eye? Especially when most of the contents are stems.. Some vegetables have slightly brown edges when I get them home.
PS Note on Friday, Nov. 4/16 today's New York Times business section, front page. How some of those  TJ employes' happy-go-lucky smiles have turned to frowns in at least one Manhattan store. The rules on how hired hands should behave at all times indicates a  bit of a Dickensian  mode.  Enforced cheer and low morale. Complaints about such practices, along with some safety issues, are now being aired publicly by at least one former longtime member of the TJ 'crew' who was fired.  The article cites both sides - of course - but weighs in mainly on gripes from others, some of whom requested anonymity. There now more than 400 stores, mainly on the East and West coasts, since the chain began in 1967  in Pasadena, CA. Let the criticism fly. Helps the consumer in the end.
UPDATE Nov. 22/2017 -
Can a written complaint from a consumer about a certain product to the high and mighty TJ authorities carry any weight? I deplored in public (online to TF) a product labeled Panang vegetable curry with jasmine rice, a colorful little package for one person that can be microwaved in a jiffy. But so few vegetables and so tasteless overall. An insult...
UPDATE Dec. 4. Back comes a 'Hello Ann' email to me from 'Hazel, Trader Joe's Customer Relations' (see most recent post on blog re 'custom service'), in which I am thanked, am guided to the company's 'Product Guarantee' whereby I may return any product, even an empty package, even just a receipt, to any 'neighborhood' store - and get a 'full refund.'  This would help TJ 'complete a Product Incident Report' - and I would thereby be exchanging favors. Lots of 'want to assure you that we truly believe that quality and integrity are both essential to good value, and that's what we are all about!'  The word apology appears in the second sentence thanking me, in the first sentence for my 'valuable feedback.'
How any of this matters is beyond my knowledge.  I can only tell others within vocal range: beware.

CULTURE VULTURE

CV: A splendid bird preying on the delights offered best in large urban settings.
This week in DC, April 17-23 for instance - Filmfest (International scenes and themes); play reading and discussion about Jews and Catholics in a Corner Store arts center (donation basis); jazz at Library of Congress by 82-year-old South African pianist marvel Abdullah Ibrahim with brilliant 'sidekicks'; lecture on plants in NY's Central Park at US Botanical Garden; Shakespeare's birthday at The Folger..
Enough  to make my point? Washington DC no longer the city with Northern charm and Southern efficiency - except, dear readers and commiserators, ayr Metro and that is partly a problem stemming from our dependency on the US Congress which fears giving us the freedom to vote Democratic...

Now just for fun, notes about the plants of Central Park , that bountiful city treasure - 843 acres, 2 1/2 miles long by  3/4 mile wide with five bodies of water, numerous woodlands and wetlands and meadows and 40 million visits a year. Think plantings (not trees) and you have 1148 specimens among 554 species: native, non-native and waifs Some of their names are a song or maybe characters in an old-fashioned drama: honesty, patience dock, trout lily, fox grape. Even cantaloupe and fig leaf gourd. Who knew or could have imagined the variety now being compiled by botanists in that realm.
Don't expect to go picking up fruit for your next meal, however. Many are elusive, some shy. 

Metro Soundings #2

 Never say never... but the squabbling  over DC Metro funding seems to be the ultimate long sad story about transportation hubris. A never ending pass-the-buck between and among the various government parties involved. I beg those interested in the subject to look at the New York Times article today  - April 21/16 -on page A24 regarding New York's moves to shore up and improve  M.T.A. Lots of chest pounding, of course, amid uncertainties but overall  there is the notion of progress lurking in comments about action on a capital funding plan by the innumerable agencies involved.  
Meto DC currently offers riders the chance to fill out surveys while the violins are playing....

Woe Upon Woe Upon Woe...

How much evil is sustainable, endurable? Is it even possible to know?
Two shows currently running this spring under DC Shakespeare Theatre Company's umbrella are, in  what seems a coincidental way, exploring just such a theme. With the ultimate question: is human nature  open to change?
There is racial  and gender prejudice, domestic violence and state-sponsored terrorism - not to mention murder - on full display across the Lansburgh and Harman Center For the Arts stages through early April .(See www.shakespearetheatre.org) If nothing else -  if your emotions can stomach the display - both '1984' and 'Othello'  are epic illustrations of mankind's most depraved ambition for power. Curiously, both are standard reads in high school English classes but what  effects they have at a singularly  impressionistic age is impossible to know. Both are  cautionary tales that apply to present day events: the overreach of government intelligence agencies investigating civilian correspondence as brought to light by Edward Snowden and  the unthinking paranoia exhibited in attacks on Muslims and on migrants both here and abroad.
In the George Orwell epic, set in some presumed future day that could be now, Big Brother in the form of masochistic overlords subverts the core values of democracy, using torture to achieve its ends. (The U.S. government's sanctioned behavior towards prisoners in Iraq.)  Shakespeare's classic tragedy relentlessly drives home the corrupting influence of envy and jealousy, as Iago sets out to destroy Othello, the dark-skinned Moor,  whose wife Desdemona becomes the victim. (One among many.)
 Rumor and suggestion alone turn Othello into a mad man obsessed with revenge to satisfy the aspirations of Iago. But to what end? Truth and justice are employed too late. Similar manipulation occurs regularly in the halls of Congress, where powerful interests are endlessly competing for influence. Similar disregard for truth reminds a person, too, of behavior  by some candidates  in the current presidential contest hoping to sway the voters by whatever means at their command.  

Eighth Street SE - the new weekend White Way

 The more famous  White Way, the Great one, is Broadway where the night light show is incomparable around Times Square. theater district.  Our DC SE strip hardly compares in color although in fair weather on weekends a few blocks are thronged with enough evening crowds to resemble a tourist invasion....even if there are no comparable theaters here  and the sole entertainment venue soon to open is a Miracle movie house for "family fare."

The landlady hoping to rent the gorgeous gray Victorian structure that is Shakespeare Theatre Company's present headquarters says she is having a hard time finding a new tenant for when STC moves on to the planned Bard complex being built in Southwest DC next to Arena Stage. She happens to be - longtime Capitol Hill residents take note - daughter of the man who owned District lock and hardware store, now occupied by Ted's Bulletin. Now THERE's a very good tenant, she says of the latter.

What does  this  portend for future businesses in the area? Do small family owned operations have no chance?    When is enough enough? Hard to predict when property taxes keep going up and local residents keep  hyping the advantage of a TraderJoe's coming next year- another chain store enterprise. Will TJ pretend to have neighborly feelings or faith and should they?

Keep On Truckin' DC!

     One year ago this month the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities put out an open call for artists to submit proposals for truck art - yes, large murals to wrap around the sides of recycling trucks. (http://dcarts.dc.gov/page/designed-recycle)

 Yes, Movable Art! Beauty amidst waste! 

(At left: "French Trip" by artist Erin Curtis.)

Ten of these colorful murals have been rolling (and clanking) through the streets of Washington and are expected to be there for two years as another example of public   art work funded by DCCAH. (Remember the elephant and donkey sculptures that still may be found occasionally, mainly in residential spaces.) You have to be lucky to catch a sight of one of them, as even the chosen creators themselves have found, but they make a dazzling display when you do. Large dimensional mainly abstract designs covering all sides of these monster vehicles - a reason to stop and pause while  hard-working collection men (any women?) drag and tip the blue recycling bins into back bins that  open and shut  automatically like a mighty maw.

Artist Pat Goslee submitted a dream-like painting entitled 'Tale of Three,' inspired by some recycled fabrics in keeping with the general theme. (She found detritus such as netting on city streets.) "The fabric of life as a field of interconnected energies," she writes. "Three small seed forms - each representing significant family roles: parent, child, sibling...." intended to 'invite the viewer to dream and to make imaginative associations." 

 Recycling is "'a key part of the cycle of life' she adds A digital image of the original painting was printed large on vinyl material similar to what is used for ads on Metro buses.
She felt honored to be selected, she says, calling the project "an interesting way to use an existing work of art. Its public art, it addresses an important environmental issue." Those chosen received $2500 for their effort.

   Only problem is Goslee has yet to see hers in action...

Easy Times in The Big Easy

Also known as Crescent City, NOLA,  but NOT the capital of Sportsman's Paradise as license plates dub the state (Louisiana)..
And what a city it is, especially  between seasons, as I and my friends found it the second long weekend of January, starting on the 6th - officially the first night (Twelfth Night, Epiphany, if you follow church calendars) and first parade of Mardi Gras with a casual ambulatory march honoring Joan of Arc, New Orleans' patron saint (she liberated the citizens of Orleans, France, from the British in the 1400s) , that included bagpipers in Scottish dress, great numbers of costumed folk heroes (cardboard, foil, fanciful touches of all kinds), horses with knights aboard, and  even angels fluttering their wings. Brassy and solemn at the same time. Spontaneity on every side of the evening procession witnessed by residents and tourists in equal number. This was  a legitimate 'crewe' or Krewe as the traditional celebratory groups or clubs are known. Mardi Gras itself is Feb. 5-9, with Fat Tuesday the last of Carnival before the first day of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
Famous if seemingly unlikely folk of all sorts put down roots in past days, including the French  painter Edgar Degas who lived  here in 1872 visiting the American branch of his family for five months at a key time in the city's cultural history. And British architect  Benjamin Latrobe,  (designer of the U.S. Capitol among other significant American buildings) who ended his life here, a victim of yellow fever in 1820
How to resist a city where a  funky restaurant with the odd name of Jacques-Imo advertises itself in neon as having "Warm Beer Lousy Food Poor Service." Not yet on the wholly Discovered list except to locals and friends. Paintings on the ceiling, Watermelon mojitos. duck breast with - what else? - pecans and mushrooms. Louisiana has plenty of all these.
The high point for visitors is being identified as  locals. Our party of four sat in Mr. B's bistro on Royal St. drinking our wine and Sazerac (rye whiskey, absinthe, bitters and an orange peel, no ice) when two women interrupted to comment  with words to the effect "oh you all must be natives." Because we were, if nothing else, wholly engaged in the ambiance and they were a pair of visiting physicists from the state of Washington, coming to town for a convention.
In NOLA, it's easy to pass for legitimate, since the mix of insiders and outsiders is  throughly blended. And make note too: the streetcars work - oldest continually operating trolleys in the world, going back to the early 1900s.