Attention, shoppers: Someone is lost in the healthy foods aisle!

Perhaps someone could show her back to the processed and preserved section?

I have this recipe I've been wanting to try out - a salad made with quinoa, carrots, red peppers, and a cinnamon vinaigrette.  It sounded (and looked) really yummy, and it's suppose to be good for weight loss because it has a bunch of foods that minimize blood sugar spikes.  (Also for diabetes, just FYI.)  I've had quinoa in the past, but I've never actually cooked anything with it.

No problem, right?  I'm decent at following a recipe, and I don't mind being a little adventurous.  Only I have to buy some first.  So it's off to the organic/health nut corner of the store, which I freely admit I have never set foot in before!  Holy cow!  The aisles are uber-tiny, as if the only people who shop there use the little baskets and only buy what they can carry home on their bicycles.  And I'm wandering up and down them with my normal sized basket full of diet Coke (sale!), which pretty much shouts that I'm grocery-displaced at the moment.  And there isn't much of any one thing, so I'm having to scour the shelves lest I miss my target item.  (Of course, I have no idea what the packaging looks like, either....)

But on my second aisle of searching, SUCCESS!  Only it's really expensive - the first package I found was $12 for a pound and a half.  That may be a perfectly reasonable price - not like I would know - but I only need a cup, and I don't want a ton left lying around if I don't like this.  Not at $8/lb, anyway!  So I dig around some more.  And way in the back of the shelf is a bag that is only $6 for a pound.  Still more than I thought I'd be spending, though, so I'm standing in the tiny aisle dithering (because, as you all know, I am CHEAP!, and I may not even like this salad, and I'm not sure I'm the health aisle type to begin with), and this lovely employee stumbles across me and asks if she can help me find anything.  (Incidentally, she was looking at me like I'm definitely not the health aisle type - maybe it's not the cart that is too big for the aisle - maybe it's me?)  And normally I'd say no, even if I do need help, then kick myself for 2 hours afterwards for being a wuss and not allowing her to do her job, or alternatively, for being so ridiculous I can't admit I don't know something and could use assistance from another human being.  But today?  Today I blurted out "I've never cooked with this before, but I have a recipe, but I only need a cup, and don't you have any smaller packages?"  I realize I could have jumped right to the last phrase there, but it is what it is, and I am who I am.

And lo and behold, Hyvee has a small bulk food section!  Hidden in the back corner!  Protected from all of us over-processed, gluttonous, too cheap to eat organic people!  With some stuff (although much of it I didn't recognize...) I really like - like steel cut oats and trail mix - and it's cheaper than the packaged stuff that isn't even organic!  And there, in it's little bin, is quinoa - for only $4.50 a pound, and that I can buy in one-cup increments to see if I like my salad.  So tomorrow I'm eating healthy.  Today I had pepperoni pizza, because I had a free offer that was about to expire.  Baby steps, people!  :)

But now that I know it's there - just watch out, you skinny little health nuts, because me and my cart of diet Coke will be visiting again.