In The Whole: Ghetto or Organic?

The cooked food buffet at the Aventura Whole Foods is ghetto. Have you seen the chicken wings swimming in grease? Even Wing Stop has its limits. All you see now is a sea of dried out rice and beans, pastas covered in cheesy pimples, and oily vegetarian dishes with cultures like India and Thailand haphazardly tagged to them. Is this stuff really organic or even all-natural? I bought a vegan blueberry muffin and the oil soaked through the paper bag. I hate to sound like such a sour puss, but if I'm going to spend $1.79 for a vegan muffin, I want some illusion of good nutrition. Nowadays, I stick with the simple delicacies. I had a long, perilous affair with the vegan chocolate chip cookie, not the dull-colored chunkie one, but the dark, crumbly one. I used to fantasize this beast of a cookie that was so rich and yummy, I often wondered if I was better off eating Oreoes? I loved dunking pieces in Blue Diamond Vanilla Almond Milk while watching some pointless Lifetime TV Network drama about a woman who's sleeping with her best friend's father's brother's son who's a murderer and a psychic. Have you had the vegan chocolate chip cookies?

Dating Mr. Carrot (A Carnivore's Confession)

Vegans can be so self-righteous. You know who I’m talking about. Those burlap bag-toting, tofu Nazis who scope out your basket for meat-contraband as you navigate the Whole Food aisles filled with cashews that were supposedly hand-picked by Brazilian leprechauns. Mr. Carrot was no different. But I liked him. He was the typical wheat grass-renegade-holy-roller with his part-the-Red-Sea-style beard and raggedy, burning bush-slacks that swallowed his dried seaweed-thin frame. Veganism was his calling, his gospel, and his Miramar vegetarian restaurant was like a cool church that could have easily been confused for those vegetarian weed spots back in Harlem. Mr. Carrot looked more Rasta then Seven Day Adventist with his thick, long, gnarly-vine-looking dreds. Anyway, so I visited his spot a few times because I loved his passion for pushing healthy food lifestyles in poor, black communities. And I thought he was sexy. He finally asked me out and I was thrilled when he suggested Andiamo—my favorite pizza joint in Miami. I’m food-agnostic. I can hang with the carnivores and the herbavores, but for the past few months, my culinary romps have taken place in the land of almond milk and barbecue seitan. That Saturday night he picked me up in his wilting Winnebago and I imagined us camping in the woods eating grassy pizza while I took the occasional swivel of sparkling wine I had hidden in my purse. No such luck. When we arrived, Mr. Carrot had several demands: #1 He didn’t want the pizza to be sliced with the same cutter that was used to cut cheese pizza. #2 He didn’t want mushrooms on our sparkling veggie pizza. #3. He inspected my soda order for…I don’t even know. And he’s anti-wine. So how does the evening end, you ask?

Andiamo Bricken Oven Pizza, 5600 Biscayne Blvd., 305-762-5751.