An Exercise in Avoiding Boredom

Today, at work we had a produce tasting. We compared four different sources of produce, namely Piazza, Whole Foods, Costco, and Trader Joe’s. The produce were tomatoes and strawberries. Not quite in season yet, but already very good.

I had called for this tasting after one of my colleagues had made fun of my loyalty to Costco. Having compared tomatoes, my main veggie staple, across a broad range of sources, I had challenged him to bring better tomatoes than those I get from Costco. We then had extended it to strawberries. Also, for fun, after the core tasting, we added baguette and cheese to the tomatoes to have an enjoyable lunch. One of my colleagues even brought out a bottle of red wine in plain daylight!

The result? Costco won the tomatoe competition hands down. Four out of four tasters declared the Costco Campari tomatoes the winner in terms of taste and general quality. Also, Costco won the strawberry competition, even though there was a bit of discussion. In general, Costco came in first, with Piazza and Whole Foods tying for second place, and Trader Joe’s coming in a distant last place.

I need to add that the tasting wasn’t quite as scientifically structured as you might assume knowing me. In particular, we had not agreed on which type of tomatoes to bring, and so it was probably a bit unfair that I brought the Campari tomatoes, which are clearly better tasting then the Roma tomatoes (not to speak of the beef tomatoes) you can get at Costco. The Piazza tomatoes were heirloom tomatoes, the Whole Food tomatoes were just tomatoes and the TJ tomatoes were Roma tomatoes.

In any case, Costco left a lasting and good impression, and no colleague is likely to challenge me any time soon on the quality of the produce I eat.