Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: Riddle me this, Mr. Foodie: What is it about the Wedge Co-op that gets us so riled up? It's just a grocery store, right?

RN: Hardly. It's one of the nation's largest touchy-feely, member-owned, locavore Meccas. My theory? Its too-small facility is too popular for its own good, starting with the city's most poorly designed parking lot. It's worse than the one at Trader Joe's in St. Louis Park, no small feat.

CP: I can break out in a prickly heat just thinking about venturing there on a weekend.

RN: I hear you. Throw in the store's proximity to the majorly screwed-up Franklin-Lyndale intersection and a barely plowed neighborhood jammed with parked cars, and it's Roadrageapolis, baby. Last weekend -- following a white-knuckled, invective-laced search for a place to stash my salt-stained car -- I gave up. Ten minutes later, I was pulling into the Seward Co-op's lovely lot. Bliss.

CP: One moment I'm thinking the Wedge is a whole-foods utopia, filled with friendly, energetic, committed staffers, plus killer molasses cookies, Peace Coffee and Kenwood/Isles people-watching.

RN: Let's go buy a dozen of those fantastic cookies right now, and a carton of Cedar Summit Farm skim. There's no besting the shiny, happy people punching the Wedge time clock. Could they be any sweeter or more helpful? I just wonder where they park. They're probably greener than moi and walk, bike or bus it.

CP: The next minute I feel like high-tailing it back to Rainbow, where the everyday is A-OK. Where moms lacking a major stock portfolio go to shop because they could never afford the Wedge.

RN: The Wedge isn't Neiman Marcus. The Wedge's huge bulk sections have competitive prices, although getting to those bins requires navigating through legions of fellow shoppers. For one thing, Neiman's has valet.

CP: Rainbow has a big bulk section, plus organics -- maybe thanks to the co-op movement. But let's talk turkey -- sliced, that is. Rainbow: $6.49 per pound, often less on sale. Wedge: $6.99 for 6 ounces. It's turkey, people, not caviar.

RN: Well, poultry can be produced at a factory farm, or it can be raised with tender loving care on a free-range, organic, Minnesota family farm. Taste-test the latter. You'll thank me.

CP: I bought wonderful fresh ingredients for minestrone chez Wedge recently, and paid almost 40 bucks. For a peasant soup. Can me up some Progresso, baby.

RN: Stop it, you're killing me.

CP: Do you bring your reusable grocery bag, woven from hemp?

RN: Forgotten back in my car -- four ice-slicked blocks away. Besides, if I do, it'll trigger the 'Do you want to donate your 5-cent bag credit to X charity?' question. I know I should, but I did just drop $6.69 on a pound of butter. Fabulous butter, but still.

CP: I ask for the double-plastic.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com.

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