I am a native New Englander in the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia area. We've had a Fresh Market for about a year. At first, I was very excited, but I wouldn't be sad to see it go away. I don't consider it a high quality market.

Things I'm not fond of:
-The bread and baked goods are stuffed with artificial ingredients. Yuk. I'm a sucker for good quality baked goods and i never buy them here. I might as well go to our local equivalent of Stop and Shop - same quality,
-For a small, specialty market, they could do a better selection of prepared food.
-Not all the meat is hormone free - they "stop" the hormones on the beef 90 days before.

On the plus side:
- Ours is easy and quick to get in and out of, so it makes it an upscale 7/11.
- It's never crowded
- Generally good fruits and vegetables (although the Rainier cherries I bought last weekend were bruised so badly i could barely eat them).

Is "Iron Chef" still that big a show that the chefs on this "competition" would REALLY want to be on it? Or are they all on it for just a little extra publicity - It must be one sweet gig...Take Alex G-my-what's-schi, she has those easy critic roles, why would she want to be an Iron Chef? Isn't it kind of over, this "Iron Chef" thing? Or is any tv exposure such a $$ bonus that they are clamoring for it?