This excerpt originally appeared in the May 2012 edition of The Washingtonian

"Most of us are familiar with the American supermarket--maybe too familiar. The Safeway or Wegmans or corner market supplies a lot of convenient food--and a lot of those aisles are full of things that are only a rough approximation of food--but that very convenience can make the local supermarket a rut. The deadening hand of routine takes over our shopping lives: We know what we want, where to find it, when to get it, and what to do with it. These habits can be the biggest obstacles to discovering new regions of the food universe."