Eating a steady diet of government cheese... down by the river!

Tonight, Whole Foods officially made #1 on my list of cool stores...
I went in actually looking for some high end bread flour for my current experiment in bread making. Sadly, with the exception of the house brand, organic bread flours, and specialty grains in tiny packages, Whole Foods is not much different than Kroger when it comes to flour.
Now, I can't go in there without a trip around the back wall... Seafood - smelly but in a good way, meats - dry aged - assault your wallet - ribeyes... yum, and CHEESE...
The "Cheese Pimp" was there as usual. Pimpin his dairy products from France, Spain and Italy... and not the Government.
He offered me a taste of Mostarda Mantovana di Pere (pear mustard) on a teeny piece of cheese. It was sweet and biting and spicy like good mustard should be. Not something I would slather on a hot dog, but paired up with a nice cheese or charcuterie... NOM!
He pimped the cheese and other products like a good pimp will, even offering me a cheese that was... ummm, how to be polite... pungent... uumm odoriferous... oh hell it was just plain stinky. I declined that particular variety but accepted the offer of Burro di Bufala (buffalo butter).
So I imagine at this point you are asking yourself, "Didn't he make a statement about how cool Whole Foods is?" and thinking all along, that nothing I have said is out of the ordinary for Whole Foods. Having someone try to sell you cheese is pretty standard practice there.
What made tonight stand out were two events.
First Event, after pimpin the Mooostaard di Pear, it turns out they were out... Using his discretionary powers, which it seems all Whole Foods employees have, Cheese Pimp used a common Sharpie to mark out the bar-code on the jar and handing it to me said, "Free. If they have a problem with it up front tell them to talk to me."
The Cheese Pimp rocks!

Second Event I would think at this point everyone within 100 miles of a Walmart has heard or used this tired old joke in a store - "Oh look, it doesn't have a price, I guess it must be free." to which the inevitable but polite response from the less then impressed cashier is "Sorry, I wish that was the case."
Not so tonight at least not in practice. When I scanned the buffalo butter, the self serve checkout station freaked out and asked me to wait on assistance from a cashier. The perky little blond took the butter an attempted to look it up. Turns out its either not in the system or some management type person hadn't entered the price. She asked me if I remembered the price, which I did not. When I said I could walk back and find out she whipped out her discretionary powers and said "Naw, it's free cause it doesn't have a price." You could have knocked me over with a baguette.
Self Service Checkout Cashier You Rock!

And now for an image to finish up the post. Stuff de Gratuits
I haven't tried the butter yet, but when I do I will post if it is worthy.

Cheers

Chris


*UPDATE* - Burro di Bufala doesn't taste like much... Land O Lakes standard offering has more flavor... The Amish Roll Butter on the other hand, that I didn't write about, WOW! Good Stuff.