Central Market

So what do you do when you're little and stuck in your carseat on a long trip?



You take your skirt out of your bag and wear it on your head of course. Does she not look like one of those scary lizard-dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? Okay, maybe it's just me but that's what I thought of the instant I saw her. By the way, that's actually an adorable skirt that the grandma (my mom) made for her last week. Hopefully we'll have some action shots soon. That would require the rain in Texas to stop for five minutes.

We've finally made it to Fort Worth (actually we made it yesterday) and after much unloading and rearranging we headed out today to do some shopping. On our way to the fabric store we got sidetracked by Central Market. This is by far the best grocery store on the planet. It doesn't even seem right to call it a grocery store since it's just so much more. From the moment you walk up to the door to see a rack of small paper bags that are ready to be filled with the even smaller pumpkins (and yes the Sweet Pea did get one) you know you are in for a treat.

Next is a huge array of organic herbs, tons of produce, fresh meat and seafood and then a bakery. A bakery filled with yummy breads and sweets and even a tiramisu cupcake (I resisted and it was hard). I can't forget the cheeses, deli, fresh fruit salads, olives, sherbet and more.

By far my favorite section were the bins filled with dried fruits, nuts, rice, grains, spices, tea and coffee beans. I loved the option to pick and choose small amounts of new items (and some of our old favorites) and not get stuck with a huge package of something we end up not liking.




The Sweet Pea got to pick some of her favorite treats to make her own yummy snack mix. It is so nice to be able to control exactly what is in her snack mix and not end up with a lot of things she won't eat or worse, things that melt and ruin the entire thing. She chose banana chips, dried cranberries, peanuts, sunflower seeds and diced dried pineapple. I was able to get all of this to make her yummy snack for just over $1.00 and it's exactly what she likes. You can't beat that.

I loved finding pickling spices and mustard seeds in the bins. I was able to get a much better price than I can at home buying pre-packaged spices. Seriously they were ridiculously cheap and I have no idea why I didn't get more. We're discussing going back tomorrow and if we do I'll get more then and more of the yummy pimento cheese we ate for dinner. Oh and some of the awesome flavors of organic granola they had.

I was seriously blown away by the sheer amount of organic food they had on hand. It makes me really jealous. I called the Hubby while we were shopping to inform him that we would be moving to Fort Worth so that this would be our permanent shopping place. He told me I was crazy and he was not moving just for a grocery store. Fine. I feel really sad for all of us in Oklahoma who don't have a grocery store like this though. It would make it so much easier to eat more organically. I have yet to find something like this in our area but it really makes me want to start doing some research. Even the Sweet Pea loved it because they had so many samples all throughout the store and she just ate her way through the shopping. It made it go so much smoother.

Is it sad that I'm this excited about a grocery store? Probably, but it was really great and I really think I'll be going back again tomorrow. Maybe I should get out more?