Becky Selengut was not happy. On Friday night, a chef, food writer, in progress instructor as good as tolerable seafood disciple stood in her Capitol Hill kitchen contrast recipes for her upcoming cookbook -- tentatively patrician "Good Fish." Unfortunately, a seafood she was preparing for a trio of "guinea pigs" wasn't good, as good as she sussed which out prior to plating a dish. "I lifted a lid off a pot as good as now we knew," Selengut pronounced after a fact. "It smelled similar to baby diapers!"
That homely aroma didn't manifest itself until a shellfish, sealed prior to they were cooked, began to steam. "I attempted to [mentally] deny it, since it was rather of a high-pressure situation." Those guinea pigs were fellow food writers. Selengut was equal parts ashamed as good as steamed. Her recipe, a brew of locally farmed mussels, Israeli couscous as good as bacon, should have tasted as great as it looked, though a mussels were "off" -- approach off. Into a garbage they went.
If we could scratch-and-sniff, we wouldn't eat these mussels.
Her mortification was unjustified. She'd already served 3 fabulously uninformed seafood meals whose main part was purchased during a same fish-counter earlier which day during Shoreline Central Market -- where dual of her 3 tasters, myself included, continually buy glorious seafood (and where she's given been promised a full refund). But her worsening was understandable.
I, too, have been stung by food-gone-bad during a far-reaching swath of area supermarkets as good as featured item food stores, corner groceries as good as furnish markets, as good as other selling venues. Countless times I've brought home as if uninformed seafood, meat, poultry, produce, bulk goods as good as dairy products among other ingredients, only to find which my food might have been value eating during a little point, though whic! h point had patently passed. And we bet that's additionally happened to you.
So, what do we do when it happens? Do we take a product behind as good as complain? Sometimes we do, as good as sometimes we do not -- depending upon how put-out we am, how most income I've outlayed or where (a prolonged drive?) we purchased a ingredient. But I've decided which from here upon in, when I'm sold an defective product, I'm starting to have a stink. Because any time I've done so (politely, of course), I've been tender with a approach internal purveyors deal with a problem. Case in point:
On January 29, we purchased a rack of vacuum-packed baby behind ribs during Uwajimaya in Seattle. we went true home to have dinner, opened a package as good as -- P.U.! -- was impressed with a smell which nearly turned me in to a vegetarian. According to a label, a ribs were packed January twenty-five as good as had a "sell-by date" of February 8. we immediately done a phone call, explaining my problem. Uwajimaya done no bones about crediting me a full volume for which sale when we came in -- dual months after -- as good as we didn't even have to uncover them this photo. Which we took in box we indispensable proof of squeeze given I'd already tossed my receipt.
Credit where credit was due: a full refund, no bones about it. (And in box we were wondering, a customer-service rep as good as a butcher who OK'd my refund when we came in for it, had no idea what we did for a living.)
I often emporium during my area QFC, where we continually squeeze formerly frozen wild-caught shrimp in a shell. And I'll confess we was stompin' insane a whilst back, when we unwrapped a just-bought seafood only to be hit with a putrid perfume of ammonia. "Damn it!" we yelled, throwing a offending squeeze in to a Zip-Loc bag as good as high-tailing it behind to a fish opposite (a three-minute expostulate from my front door)! . Big-ti me apologies as good as a uninformed batch later, we was behind in my kitchen in progress dinner.
The plum pictured below, imported from Chile, sold for $4.99 pound. I'd discuss it we where we paid for it (Top? Central? QFC?) though we can't recall, given we emporium for food daily. we can discuss it we since we paid for it -- along with dual others: since I'm a softie as good as my child begged. Even though we insisted a plums were as well expensive as good as substantially not value eating. And yes, we pronounced "I told we so!" after he took a bite of a first a single a single as good as pronounced "Eewww!"
Slap me, I'm a softie. Ditto for these plums, rotten to a core.
I'm all for selling seasonally for a best food products, though hold me when we contend this: I've bit in to gorgeous uninformed Washington peaches, in season, paid for during strict supermarkets as good as area farmers markets, only to get a mouthful of mealiness which had me cursing a large bucks we outlayed upon a fruit. Ditto for uninformed melons, apples as good as umpteen varieties of tomatoes. Which is to contend which shopping locally and/or seasonally is not a pledge of furnish perfection.
Sumitra Rosella, internal organics as good as specialty-food buyer for Rosella's Fruit & Produce Company -- as good as an aged pal of cave from my waitressing days, when she was a cook during Saleh al Lago as good as we knew her as Erin -- explained how we could have outlayed 5 bucks a bruise upon which rotten-centered plum.
Purveying produce, as a company or as an individual, "we're during a mercy of our environment," which explains since we're still shopping asparagus from out of state.
This winter has been a doozy, she said: We've had freezing in Arizona as good as Florida, earthquakes in Mexicali as good as in Chile. That Chilean earthquake shook plums off a trees, ships were subsequently delayed as ! good as by a time those Chilean plums arrived in Seattle, shipped off to market as good as my child pronounced "Pleaaase, Mom!" it wasn't only my pocketbook which had taken a beating.
When it comes to returning furnish -- or anything else a single might buy from a reputable wholesaler or retailer -- Rosella abides by a adage, "the patron is regularly right." That aged saw is what has kept her family in business for 65 years among stiff competition, she insists. And it's what makes as good as breaks businesses everywhere, generally when it comes to a perishable product similar to uninformed foodstuffs, which, by nature, are dying products from a moment they're caught, killed, or harvested from field, orchard or hothouse.
As a former restaurateur (she was a original chef/owner of Madison Park's Sostanza) as good as cheesemonger (for Whole Foods) Rosella has dealt with a complaint of patron satisfaction from both sides of a counter. Yesterday, she sent out a box of internal arugula to a patron who complained about a California product, as good as this winter she lost a patron who was frustrated by a company's incapacity to get a decent "spring mix" (salad greens) when torrential rainstorms affected a supply.
"When we worked for Whole Foods, if a patron didn't similar to a ambience of something, even if it was perfect, we took it back," Rosella recalls. What's more, when she walked in to Whole Foods not long ago -- as good as anonymously -- as good as complained about a couple of "slimy" buffalo-meat prohibited dogs she'd purchased earlier during a beef counter, they credited her a income as good as gave her dual uninformed ones for free. "It comes down to patron use as good as a attribute with we as a consumer," pronounced a third-generation furnish purveyor. "That's a bottom line."
Buying behind a customer's certitude is paramount when a complaint occurs, though distinct returning a pair of boots to a department store since a stitching is unraveling or an ill-fitting siren to your area ha! rdware s tore, returning marred fruit, stinky seafood or weevil-ridden grains is a far reduction mouth-watering task, as good as as well most of us -- myself enclosed -- just toss a stuff, eating a cost rather than a product.
So discuss it me: What do we do when "good" food is bad? Have we brought food back, or complained? And if so, how have those complaints been handled during a places we shop?
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