Food prices go up and down

You can find wild Alaskan sockeye salmon three ways at Costco -- canned, smoked without preservatives and frozen in fillets. I picked up the last two yesterday at the Hackensack store and one pound of the wild lox rang up at $14.79 -- a hike of 80 cents and the first price change in a long while. Even at the higher price, you won't be able to find smoked wild-caught salmon for less at Trader Joe's or Fairway Market.

Three pounds of frozen wild salmon runs about $8.50 a pound at Costco. I put these fillets into a glass dish and place it over a steamer. I cover the fish after adding cheap sake, sesame oil and some fish sauce, and steam them for about 15 minutes for medium. I've cooked them frozen and defrosted.

Also at Costco, small, round Campari hot-house tomatoes were $4.99 for two pounds -- 50 cents less than a couple of weeks ago. These are not herbicide-free, however.

At H Mart, the Korean supermarket near the Little Ferry Circle, five pounds of Earthbound Farms organic carrots were $5.49 on Saturday, according to the sign on the shelf, but mine rang up at $4.99, the old price. Green Swiss chard was $1.49 a pound, according to the sign, but mine rang up at 79 cents a pound. I bought collard greens there in previous weeks that also rang up less than the price on the sign, but eventually the store computer caught up. At ShopRite, my experience often is the opposite -- the register charges you more than the sign price -- and you curse if you don't see that until you get home.

Also at H Mart, I bought 20 pounds of Kokuho-brand, yellow-label, California-grown rice for $12.99, on sale from $19.99. This rice also was on sale a month ago and that's what we've been eating ever since. In the southern United States, some rice is grown in old cotton fields and carries traces of the arsenic used to kill pests.

Chuck, one of my readers, reports that Murray's free-roaming, antibiotic-free boneless chicken breast is on sale this week at Kings Super Markets for $1.99 a pound, a great price.