Letters to Jeff
Susan Nash, 2/8/21
Dear Jeff,
I’ve just received my Whole Foods order for the week. Only a few weeks ago did I finally sign up for grocery delivery, and then only after the line at the store down the street began to stretch around the block, and only after the last time I shopped there in person and a woman with long gray stringy hair – not me but it could have been me – picked up and put back every single cremini mushroom before scavenging in the way back to make her choice.
By the way, it would not have been me to pick up every mushroom. But it could have been me to have some sort of neurotic episode in the supermarket, so it is just as well that I don’t go there anymore.
Of course, now I am hooked, and the deliveries are like Christmas. The first part – choosing what to order – is like having a blank check. There is almost nothing I can do, even given the eye-popping prices of Whole Foods, to seriously threaten my financial wherewithal. It’s not like the local seafood store, where the scallops are $31/pound, but even then. The pandemic has completely changed my spending habits. I have $6000 in United travel certificates and nowhere to go. My only purchase in the last eleven months was a pair of Smartwool yoga pants. Now I buy your Sancerre wine at $20/bottle. This last time I splurged and bought pate for Valentine’s day. The world is my oyster when it comes to ordering groceries. The sky is the limit.
So I order with abandon, just in case I might need something, or to ensure that I don’t run out. It bothers me to run out of things, especially half & half. Although if I’m honest I haven’t run out of half & half in at least 10 years now. It’s not possible, as I always overstock it.
Today’s bounty feels lush to me, almost too much. Although last time the pork chops were delivered the day after the day they expired, and a full eight days after they were packed. The orange juice, too, had expired. I was disappointed but happy with the way my quick clicks for refunds on those items were instantly accepted, no questions asked. Quite an efficient system you have set up there, Jeff.
In this order I bought feta and comte cheeses, turkey with cracked pepper, dozens of brussels sprouts, and a very large bag of limes, since for some reason the website would not sell me just one or two. It was the second time today that I unpacked bags of produce and other delights, as a friend moved out of an apartment in my building and brought me all the food in her refrigerator. That included fresh thyme and marjoram and leeks and shallots and a head of cauliflower. Her bags spilled over with apples and onions, both of which will serve well in cooking the non-expired organic pork chops that arrived in your bags today. She also gave me a bag of root vegetables that I can’t identify (golden beets, maybe?) but that I’m sure will be good, and some sweetened yoghurt that I wouldn’t allow myself to buy but will happily eat.
In my bags from you (which, inexplicably, have no handles), there were more onions and broccoli, fresh unexpired orange juice, and crunchy peanut butter, the healthy but annoying kind that gets oily and has to be stirred. But I am trying to be a better person, and part of that involves giving up Jif and Skippy.
I’ve been watching a competitive cooking show called Chopped during the pandemic. The contestants are given four seemingly random items from which, depending on the stage of the show, they must assemble an appetizer, an entrée or a dessert. My double deliveries today make me feel like I’m in a massive Chopped challenge.
So far, as a side dish for the pork, I am considering a pasta using all the fresh herbs. I think I will make an applesauce with both pears and apples, is that a thing? I have lemons, fresh and preserved (another pandemic activity), which could be added to the sauce. I’m finding that preserved lemons can be added to almost anything.
And then there are all those limes. In my last order I replaced the standard bottle of gin that lives in my freezer, but I mixed up the size and now have a gallon jug of the stuff. Perhaps this container is what the term bathtub gin refers to. The large number of limes could be a match for my gin behemoth, but it is not yet gin-and-tonic season. It may be that the huge bottle will sit in the freezer for some time before even being opened. It may be that I have bought a lifetime supply of gin, which really is not at all what I set out to do.
That’s what “no limits” will do to a person, especially someone like me. And now, thanks to you, it just takes a few clicks of a button.
Best,
Susan
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2/11/21
Dear Jeff,
I write to you today on the subject of buttermilk and avocadoes.
First, the buttermilk. Something must be done. The smallest available size – a 1-quart carton – is far too large. No one needs that much buttermilk. Indeed, 1 cup of buttermilk, a mere ¼ of the available size, will suffice for almost all recipes. My grandmother’s cornbread recipe calls for exactly that amount. I make the cornbread, then two weeks later, take a whiff of the by-then very pungent remaining buttermilk and pitch it. This is sheer waste that I would prefer to avoid.
While we are on this topic, it’s worth asking what, in fact, buttermilk is. Originally, buttermilk referred to the liquid left over after butter had been churned from milk or cream, sometimes sweet and sometimes sour, depending on the condition of the milk or cream when the churning started. In the early 1900s, health-conscious Americans bought into a theory that buttermilk would prevent aging and went wild for the stuff. I have read quite a few books and articles about longevity, and that is simply not true; exercise, not buttermilk, is what we all need more of.
Anyway, today’s buttermilk is cultured through a complex process involving lactic acid and resulting in something called “clabber,” a sour-tasting concoction that is basically undrinkable on its own. The only things to do with today’s buttermilk are bake my grandma’s cornbread, marinate chicken before frying, or make pancakes. These are all enjoyable activities but a steady stream of this diet is not good for us, not at all. So if only for public health reasons, I’d appreciate seeing buttermilk sold, perhaps exclusively, in smaller quantities. That way we will not be tempted to use too much of it.
As for the avocadoes, I am in despair. They arrive together in a bag, firm and green, and then, at some unpredictable but definite moment a few days later, they turn to gray tasteless gunk. All of them, at precisely the same instant. I don’t understand it, but, surely, you can do better.
And again, all of these items arrive in paper bags that could be re-used but for the fact that there are no handles on the bags. Hoping you can look into that soon.
Thanking you in advance for your help on these matters, I remain,
Yours,
Susan
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2/12/21
Dear Jeff,
I want to share my recent experiences at CVS with you. I know this is not yet part of your empire but on the off-chance that you are considering an acquisition, I would strongly advise against it.
CVS is a problem. Its shelves seem both chock full and yet pierced with gaping spaces where the useful items used to be. The signage for the items is a mess. I am told that I can get 2 items, with the second one 50% off, but I am not sure what I will be getting “2” of, and I fear that I will find after a long checkout line that the “2” deal is only for people who carry a hard plastic card in their wallet on the off-chance that they might stop in.
I had come in to buy a brace for my sore knee and was keen to avoid the long checkout line, particularly since the young woman at the cashier station was having an animated and loud conversation with her customer, who I believe was showing the cashier pictures of her latest vacation on her phone. I spied an empty self-checkout station and decided to try my luck. It was a no-go. The station neither accepted my scan nor billed me for anything; the only function that seemed to work was its insistence that I place the non-existent item on the scanner into a bag and leave.
My friend Bill has had similar experiences with other CVSs, except that he is unable to actually consummate a transaction at these stores before being driven, for fear of his own sanity, to deposit whatever merchandise he has been able to scavenge from the shelves in a heap on another shelf and walk out. People like Bill may be part of the explanation for the shelving mishmash mentioned above, but CVS should anticipate and have people to help with that.
Imagine, then, my trepidation at hearing that CVS is about to become a prime delivery source for Covid vaccines. As you know from your own generous offer to help out by vaccinating all of your employees, families, friends and pets, the vaccine rollout has been a bit of a mess. There is not enough supply, and what supply there is is doled out through spotty and inconsistent appointment systems that have people everywhere turning to 13-year-olds for help. The idea that CVS will enter this mix, perhaps making piles of money while sacrificing shelf space and cashier attention to the goal of distributing millions of shots, does not make me feel better about the world situation.
Perhaps Amazon can figure out a home vaccine delivery system? That would surely be useful for an anxious population and reduce the need to drive to large stadiums where crazy people are holding up signs and yelling. Just a thought.
If not, it would be great if you could get some handles on all those brown paper bags, especially since opening them tears up the top portion and makes the bags basically useless. I’m sure you can find a better way.
In solidarity,
Susan
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2/13/21
Dear Jeff,
This will be my last letter. I realize that you are nearing your set retirement date – just a few months to go, so congratulations! I’m glad you finally feel that you’ve made enough of a nest egg to let go of the reins.
Retirement is a transition, though, and perhaps a bigger one than many people think. I have spent the last four years studying retirement and write to share what I have learned.
First, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of books on this topic. Most of them are not very good. Almost all of them try to boil things down to some number of governing principles. One way to parse through all the literature is to skip over any book offering a list longer than three. I recently attended a program at Stanford where the next phase of life is considered through a 3-pronged lens of Purpose, Community and Wellness. My friend Bill has recently retired and come up with his own set of three, which he is currently calling Leisure, Food and Fucking, although I am urging him to refine these a bit.
Second, it sounds from the news like you are on the right track, not really retiring but moving on to another set of ventures and adventures. That is pretty much what all the books recommend. I would just add that retirement is an evolving process. Per the Social Security actuarial tables, at the age of 57 you can expect to live another 23.9 years. I understand that you plan to use those years to fix the problems of homelessness, the climate, space flight, and the press, but maybe just pick one at a time and leave a little white space on the calendar. Or maybe just start with the Amazing Amazon Vaccine Home Delivery Program.
I’m spending much of my next phase writing, even if it involves writing letters that I know I’ll never actually send. Combining words in a new way is a little bit like figuring out what to do with a Whole Foods shipment.
On the subject of words, I have one last request. I have finally figured out that each grocery order from your stores is given a randomly assigned name – surprisingly, not the customer’s first name and not an order number but a word, like “dream” or “door” or “beer.” The assigned word is printed on stickers, and a sticker is then placed on each bag of the order with a number denoting how many bags there are (e.g., “Dream, 1 of 3,” or “Beer, 2 of 4”). I’ve read that the reason for this methodology is to give the delivery person a clear signal on which bags to grab and bring to the customer. “Dream” is not bad, but other less fortunate customers report having their orders named “algae” and even “dirty.” So you may want to take a look at that random word list before you go. Like food selection, words matter.
And also IF YOU COULD PLEASE PUT SOME HANDLES ON THE PAPER BAGS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE I think that would cement your legacy.
Go bold or get old,
Susan