the hunger
Can someone please tell me where I am supposed to get food in Southern California? I mean, I thought I was coming to the land of bohos and co-ops, but there is a bit of a shortage of affordable natural foods in Long Beach.
Today I went to shop at Wild Oats, because that is the first thing Google spits out when you enter the search terms"Natural Food Long Beach CA". Other than that all I found was a farmer's market that doesn't happen again until later in the week and our cupboards are bare.
Anyway, I went to the Wild Oats, because it is at least something recognizable and I know what to expect from them. The shopping experience itself was fine. It was a bit larger and more expensive than the Wild Oats that I was previously acquainted with, but so is everything else here. The real rub was at checkout when I pulled out my ebt card, aka electronic food stamps. I swiped my card as instructed by the machine, followed all the prompts until it got to the part that said, "wait for cashier." It was at this point that the cashier expressed with profound puzzlement that she didn't know how to complete this transaction because she had only done a transaction of this sort once before. She turned to the cashier in the next line, who also had no idea what to do when confronted with a food stamp card. Wha--?!
I guess I should provide a little context. So far I have only been able to acquire natural food in Long Beach by crossing over into the yuppie kingdom. I actually only found this place by accident when I got lost one of the first nights that I was here. I knew something was amiss when all the cars on the street started looking better and me in my beater beemer go the stink eye at at traffic signals. As far as I can tell, this place is where they keep all the Starbucks, as well as the Natural Food Stores and movie theatres. I hope that I am wrong, though. Occasionally I see a boho walking down the street and I know there must be some place here where poorer people with a social/ environmental consciousness get food. Can someone please point me in the right direction? I already commute to school. I don't want to have to commute just to stock my pantry.
Today I went to shop at Wild Oats, because that is the first thing Google spits out when you enter the search terms"Natural Food Long Beach CA". Other than that all I found was a farmer's market that doesn't happen again until later in the week and our cupboards are bare.
Anyway, I went to the Wild Oats, because it is at least something recognizable and I know what to expect from them. The shopping experience itself was fine. It was a bit larger and more expensive than the Wild Oats that I was previously acquainted with, but so is everything else here. The real rub was at checkout when I pulled out my ebt card, aka electronic food stamps. I swiped my card as instructed by the machine, followed all the prompts until it got to the part that said, "wait for cashier." It was at this point that the cashier expressed with profound puzzlement that she didn't know how to complete this transaction because she had only done a transaction of this sort once before. She turned to the cashier in the next line, who also had no idea what to do when confronted with a food stamp card. Wha--?!
I guess I should provide a little context. So far I have only been able to acquire natural food in Long Beach by crossing over into the yuppie kingdom. I actually only found this place by accident when I got lost one of the first nights that I was here. I knew something was amiss when all the cars on the street started looking better and me in my beater beemer go the stink eye at at traffic signals. As far as I can tell, this place is where they keep all the Starbucks, as well as the Natural Food Stores and movie theatres. I hope that I am wrong, though. Occasionally I see a boho walking down the street and I know there must be some place here where poorer people with a social/ environmental consciousness get food. Can someone please point me in the right direction? I already commute to school. I don't want to have to commute just to stock my pantry.