A Foodie Supermarket

The new Ralphs La Brea is exactly the sort of supermarket you would expect in a neighborhood sprouting with trendy eateries. Ralphs’ neighbor to the north is City restaurant, and the three blocks to the south house Ca’ Brea, Flora Kitchen, Campanile and the La Brea Bakery. In a show of neighborly cooperation, Ralphs features La Brea Bakery breads and stocks the sort of rare ingredients that chefs dote on, along with a full supply of everyday foods.

It has, for example, what may be the largest selection of mushrooms in the city--more than 20 varieties, fresh and dried, packaged and in bulk. They range from dried morels at the awesome price of $99 a pound down to medium white mushrooms for $2.19 a pound. Others on hand are fresh and dried chanterelles and shiitake , fresh morels, portobellos, pom poms, oyster mushrooms, enoki and wood ears and dried porcini, matsutake and trumpets. Along with ordinary brown mushrooms, Ralphs carries white mushrooms in three sizes--jumbo, medium and button.

Kerry Hodges, vice president, produce, for Ralphs Grocery Co., says the chain has been experimenting with the mushrooms in order to assess consumer interest. Ralphs Beverly Connection, across from the Beverly Center, and a Ralphs in Del Mar are also loaded with the fungi, but Hodges says the La Brea store has the greatest variety.

After a 20-year absence, Spreckels sugar has returned to California markets. The brand dates back to 1898, when Claus Spreckels opened a sugar factory near Salinas. Spreckels had been a pioneer in Hawaii’s cane sugar industry, but in this new venture he switched to beet sugar. In 1967, the company was sold and the Spreckels name vanished. Sugar production continued, but for private labels.

The present management bought the company back in 1987 and restored the brand, adding new and innovative packaging. Instead of in a sack, Spreckels granulated sugar now appears in cartons similar to those used for milk, making the sugar easy to pour and measure. Resealable and stackable, the homey blue cartons come in three sizes: one pound, two pounds and four pounds. The sugar was reintroduced first to northern California and this spring went into Southern California chains.

Commenting on the difference between cane and beet sugars, marketing manager Tom Fritz says: “The crystals are the same. They just process the two products in different fashion.” In actuality, Spreckels sugar combines the two types, adding cane sugar to make up for any shortage of beets, which occurred in the current drought. “If plenty of beets were available,” Fritz says, “Spreckels could be all beet sugar.”