Date: April 19, 2008
To: the Crossroads QFC
From: Claire Petersky
Re: My ruined Pesach dinner
CC: Corporate QFC office
On Friday, I took at day off from work, and went first thing in the morning to purchase food items for Pesach. I bought approximately $127 worth of groceries to feed 16 people for dinner this evening.
The centerpiece for the evening was going to be Moroccan brisket. I use the recipe from the Foods of Israel cookbook. This recipe is a never-failing wonderment for dinner parties, and I have made it many times. It takes all day but it is worth it. It would not be surprising to you that I had the purchase of approximately 8 pounds of brisket on my shopping list.
While I was at the store, an employee from behind the butcher counter asked me if I needed help. I said I couldn’t find the brisket. I was ready to purchase pot roast instead. But no, he said that the brisket was at the far end, near the hams. When we got there, I protested that this wasn’t brisket, it was corned beef. He said, no, brisket = corned beef, and that the corning materials were in a plastic packet which I could discard, and then I would have brisket.
This employee was wrong.
I was stupid. I believed him. I proceeded to make recipe, with all those lovely Arab spices, the Moroccan preserved lemons, onions and garlic, and roasted it in the oven for hours.
Just now, I took the “brisket” out of the oven and started to slice it. IMAGINE MY HORROR WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT WHAT I HAD WAS CORNED BEEF AND NOT BRISKET.
I gamely sliced it up, but I started to cry. Then I started to sob, sob in earnest, sob so hard that all the other members of the family came rushing into the kitchen. I sobbed for some time. Then, pulling myself together, I decided to call the QFC. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. It probably rang 30 times before I gave up. Cowards. I called the corporate headquarters, and then found no way to even leave a message. Then I called the store again, and the phone rang again, continually, not answered by any one.
I thought about putting my shoes and confronting someone, but really, what would be the point? You would just have to witness me sobbing in front of you, maybe with my ruined dinner that I’d take along, but the reality is, my dinner is still ruined, I still am expecting guests in less than two hours, I’m still in my mom jeans and t-shirt with my hair back in a pony tail, and I have nothing to offer them other than some bastardized Moroccan corned beef.
Yes, it was my fault for believing the employee. Now, this is all I can do – berate myself for trusting him, not sufficiently sniffing the meat when it came out of the package, not examining more thoroughly the contents of the packet, and cry cry cry again.
One of my earliest memories is sitting in the shopping cart tot seat, when I was probably two years old, and shopping with my mother at the Lake Hills QFC. When I moved back to Bellevue in 1989, I became a QFC customer again. I have shopped at the Crossroads QFC since it was constructed. Over the years, I have come to know many of the employees, and despite the stupid Advantage Cards, the Kroger take-over, and the loss of the previous manager Harvey, it is still my main grocery store.
But frankly, I feel betrayed. I feel like I never want to come to your store again.
