Going to Costco? Take a calculator

Which Vita Coco Coconut Juice package is a better buy?

My wife and son like pure, unadulterated, unflavored coconut juice, and I had it delivered every month through Amazon.com's Subscribe and Save program.

Then, Costco Wholesale in Hackensack started stocking it at a lower price.

On Tuesday, there were two packages of Vita Coco juice available -- 6 1-liter containers for $14.99, after an instant $5 coupon, and 12 11.1-ounce containers for $15.79.

I pulled out my iPhone and used the calculator to determine the 6 1-liter containers are cheaper by the ounce, even at the full price of $19.99.

After weeks of eating lettuce from our garden, I bought a 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Half & Half Organic Baby Spinach and Spring Mix, and was pleasantly surprised to see the price had gone down a bit to $4.79.

Two pounds of sliced Jarlsberg Light Swiss Cheese has held the line at $9.99 after a price increase last year. 

Trader Joe's jumbo and regular hot dogs aren't created equal.

At Trader Joe's in Paramus, a calculator comes in handy, but what you really need is a magnifying glass to go over some of the labels.

Both Trader Joe's Jumbo Franks and Trader Joe's All-Beef Hot Dogs are uncured and free of harmful preservatives.

But only the smaller hot dogs are made with beef that is free of animal antibiotics and growth hormones.

At Trader Joe's, heirloom tomatoes from Pennsylvania and corn from the Carolinas.

Trader Joe's in Paramus seems to have forgotten New Jersey is the Garden State, which grows world-famous blueberries, tomatoes and corn, among other crops.

At the Paramus store, I went looking for Jersey corn, but found ears from the Carolinas. Heirloom tomatoes came from Pennsylvania.

So, I picked up 3 16-ounce packages of Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti, Fusilli and Penne at the excellent price of $1.39 each.

Fresh wild salmon with ripe peaches

Fresh wild salmon with sweet peach slices, tomato and capers.

Fresh wild salmon and ripe peaches are perfect together, so I added the fruit to a Mark Bittman recipe I've tried once or twice before.

His recipe calls for 1 pound of sliced tomatoes with extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons each of capers and chopped red onion and 1 and a half pounds of fish fillets, with chopped parsley and lemon wedges as garnish.

I added crushed Aleppo pepper, fresh lime juice and chopped herbs from the garden. 

But this time, I skipped the herbs and added sweet slices of California peaches sprinkled with the mildly spicy pepper.

The wild sockeye salmon was $8.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale on Saturday.

Red onion, lime, tomato and California peach slices.

The fish and peach slices are ready for the oven.

I used a 400-degree roast/convection oven setting, and the thinner-than-usual fillets were cooked through in 12 to 14 minutes.

The dish is sweet, sour and mildly spicy all at the same time.

Unfortunately, the skin-on wild salmon fillets I bought at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Saturday were packed the day before, and they have tasted a little fishy.

This is the first time in years of buying fresh haddock, flounder, wild salmon and other fish at Costco that I encountered this off taste.

Later, I removed the skin from three remaining portions of salmon and the fishy taste has gone away.

World's best salad

Half & Half combines Organic Spring Mix with Baby Spinach.

Earthbound Farm's Organic Spring Mix is the best-tasting salad in the world, but it's even better when it is paired with Baby Spinach. 

Half & Half, as it is called, was $4.99 for a 1-pound container at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

Cooking ahead

Seasoned vegetables for bibimbap from H Mart in Little Ferry.

I prepared 2 cups of organic brown rice in an electric cooker.

When I was working and single, I would devote Sunday evenings to cooking five meals -- that night's dinner and four others to take to my night job on the copy desk of a daily newspaper.

I had takeout or dined out on the other nights of the week.

I tried that this past Sunday, using an electric rice cooker to prepare a meatless version of the Korean comfort dish called bibimbap that I've been eating for breakfast and dinner this week.

I skipped the labor-intensive part of bibimbap by buying seasoned vegetables from the Little Ferry H Mart for $6.49.

When the brown rice was ready, I added the vegetables and chopped cabbage kimchi, as well as sesame oil and two or three tablespoons of gochujang, a red-pepper paste, and mixed up everything.

Bibimbap with two organic eggs make for a filling breakfast.

The night before, I prepared wild salmon with ripe peaches and a large bunch of baby mustard greens, so I've been eating all three this week.

I washed the cut-up baby mustard greens, blanched them for a few minutes in boiling water with the cover on, drained the pot and added a little soy sauce and sesame oil.

Seedless watermelons were $4.99 at H Mart on Sunday, a savings of $2.

One-stop food shopping -- some day

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I buy a great deal of food at Costco in Hackensack, but it still has a way to go to become the only store I visit.


This morning, I picked up three half-gallons of 1% organic milk ($8.99), but I have to go to ShopRite for lactose-free milk.

Five pounds of lemons from Chile were $5.99. Three pounds of wild-salmon burgers  were $12.99, and Costco also stocks fresh and frozen wild sockeye salmon, wild-caught flounder and haddock, whole red snapper and other seafood, including prawns and crab, so I don't really have to buy fish anywhere else.

Sunset-brand Roma tomatoes were two pounds for $2.99, lower than they were at the beginning of the summer; and three, large burpless cucumbers, also from Sunset, were $3.49. All Sunset-brand vegetables are grown without herbicides. Earthbound Farm organic salad mix was $4.49 the last time I bought it, a price you can't beat elsewhere.

Three pounds of conventional bananas were $1.32. A pound of organic spinach was $3.99 -- great sauteed, in a salad or piled on top of a pizza or foccacia.

We're not eating poultry or meat now. If we were, I'd have to go elsewhere for antibiotic-free turkey and dark-meat chicken and Australian free-range beef. Costco only carries grass-fed ground beef and organic breast meat or whole chickens. 

Drug-free chicken sausage, organic ravioli, and fresh and frozen pizza are just the tip of Costco's food iceberg.

The selection of bread and rolls is terrific, including two loaves of 100% whole-grain, sliced bread for $3.99. Ditto for spices, juice, cheese, vegetables and fruit, though some of the large sizes are not suitable for a family of three. Ketchup, mustard, diced tomatoes, pasta sauces, dried pasta, maple syrup -- it's all there -- plus everything you need for the clean-up.