After letting Will sleep in while she looked at an exceptionally disappointing downtown flat, Winona decides to take a peek into Moore Wilson’s. She has heard that this wholesale distributor – cum- gourmet retailer has renovated their central store.

Fifteen minutes later, she is in mild shock.  The former dark, cramped grocery, with its snaking lines, now gleams with the airy brightness of expensive retail. She went past the serried ranks of ruffled vegetables and rare fruits and is now ordering an espresso at the cafe next to the refrigerated cheese room. It does not escape her that she is being served by the city’s best-looking grocery staff. Most of all, she is dazzled by the way that some of the customers are, clearly, doing their “weekly shop” here.

Anyone from the UK hoping for an in-depth food hall would find it familiar, but they would look in vain for the counters of prepared food. Most of the shoppers in Moore Wilsons’ are tall and thin. They are also, it is a given, able to cook, for Moore Wilson’s sells chiefly ingredients. After the horrid rental kitchens Winona has been looking at, she recognizes space to cook well as a luxury itself.

After firing off a few texts, Winona picks up some salad greens and bread, and takes her place in a queue. As she watches the well-groomed older woman ahead of her unload a full trolley of the best groceries in New Zealand, Winona stiffens her shoulders. She had  had enough of this wistful gazing when she’d been unemployed in London for six months. Will was happy enough to support her, she thought, but she was ground down by the empty winter days and endless rejections.  And then there were her student loans, from back when a graduate degree in journalism had been a good idea.

She thought that she’d be freer of this jealousy back in the land of the corner dairy, but locavorism and designer clothes have followed her home. There’s enough room for her modest shopping at the end of the counter. As she unloads her basket, Winona privately vows that, some day, she too will do her “weekly shop” there.

Tags:   food · real estate · willow · winona2 Comments