Going nuts and getting soaked at Costco Wholesale

These 2-pound bags of raw hazelnuts at Costco Wholesale are imported from Canada, but the label says, "Product of Turkey or USA." They are $10.99 a bag.

Northern New Jersey had another day of on-and-off thunderstorms on Monday, but the rain had stopped when I got out of the car at Costco Wholesale, armed with a full-size umbrella.

As I write this, even more heavy rain is falling today, just as it did on Monday and last Friday.

On Monday, by the time I had checked out with more than $106 worth of fresh wild king salmon, smoked wild salmon, beefsteak tomatoes, seedless watermelon, canned fish and other items, Hackensack was hit by another wind-whipped rainstorm.

Back of the lot

It was a long walk to the car, which I usually park at the back of the lot to avoid the congestion of lazy shoppers who insist on a space closest to the door.

The umbrella kept my head and shoulders dry, but the wind-whipped rain soaked my shirt sleeves and the back of my pants, not to mention everything in my cart.

When I opened my car doors, the seats got wet, and when I grabbed the soaked box of 4 Tropicana half-gallons, the box broke and flew out of my hand onto the carpeted floor in front of the back seat.

A heavy, oblong seedless watermelon (no bargain at $7.49) nearly slipped out of my hands before it landed on a car seat.

One shopper abandoned a bag of sweet peppers at the Heinz Tomato Ketchup display. Did he or she think ketchup is a vegetable?

Kirkland Signature spices come in the same size jar, but their weight varies.

Snacking nuts

In the store, a display of raw, sodium-free hazelnuts caught my eye.

I decided to try a 2-pound bag for snack food, and roasted them at home in a 275-degree oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes, then dusted them with Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon from Vietnam.

We've been doing the same with  Costco's salt-free raw almonds, and four of us usually finish a 3-pound bag in about 10 days.

At 2 pounds for $10.99, the hazelnuts are more expensive than the almonds, but they have a distinctive taste.

At $2.59 for a 10.7-ounce bottle, Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon from Vietnam is one of the cheapest items in the Hackensack warehouse store. Only 3 pounds of bananas at $1.39 are cheaper.

Leftover wild king salmon with steamed organic quinoa, both from Costco.

A canned-fish salad over organic spring mix, with beefsteak tomato and hothouse cucumber, all from Costco. Canned tuna, pink salmon, and sardines are combined with chopped celery and apple, and dressed with hummus, Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin.

A quick egg-white omelet with Trader Joe's Jalapeno Yogurt Cheese and Kirkland Signature Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon from Costco.

Doing the arithmetic at Costco

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When Costco Wholesale in Hackensack is crowded, as it was on Saturday afternoon, I just grab what I need and pay little attention to signs, even though prices fluctuate a good deal.


I do find time to try some free samples -- cheese, nuts and guacamole -- if for no other reason than to quell hunger pains that could drive me to buy more than I need, and overspend.


I picked up seven items on Saturday, all at prices I would have a hard time matching elsewhere, especially in view of the quality Costco is known for. The warehouse store is close to my home, and I go there at least twice a week.


Best of all, cash rebates from the no-fee American Express-Costco credit card more than cover the annual membership fee, and you also get 2% or 3% cash back on gas, restaurant and travel purchases.


Let's look at my receipt.


I bought four half-gallons of Tropicana OJ at $2.84 each, and these are a full 64 ounces, not the stunted 59-ounce containers you see elsewhere.


Three half-gallons of organic, 1% milk were $3.16 each. 


A large, seedless watermelon was $4.99, the lowest price of the season.

Image by JasonUnbound via Flickr

A jar of Geshmak-brand half-sour pickles (48 ounces) was $3.99.


Two pounds of sliced Colby cheddar cheese from Vermont cost $7.49.


Those 12-inch-plus hothouse cucumbers, from Sunset, were $3.29 or about $1.09 each, and weigh 2 pounds.


Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix was $4.99 for a 1-pound container, about $2 less than in other stores.


I saw but didn't buy crab cakes from Phillips Seafood Restaurants, now about $1 more than the $13.69 I paid in October 2010.

Tropicana OJ from concentrate is no bargain

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Can you taste the difference between fresh and concentrate?

My 14-year-old son drinks Tropicana "pure premium" orange juice like it's water, choosing it for breakfast and dinner over all the other juices we have around.

He won't listen to me when I tell him to have a few ounces to start the day as I do -- and drink something else with food -- so I thought I'd slip him a glass of Tropicana from concentrate at breakfast.

Costco Wholesale carries both types of Tropicana. Two 96-ounce bottles of the 100% orange juice made from concentrate, with "other natural flavors," are $7.99.


On Tuesday, he looked up from his breakfast and said the orange juice tasted "funny."


I didn't try to keep up the charade, and told him it was concentrate. He refused to drink the rest of the cup.

After he left for school, I took out the calculator. It turns out Tropicana from concentrate doesn't really save you a lot of money, when compared to pure Tropicana from Costco.

The price for four, 64-ounce cartons of Tropicana was $10.99 for a long time, but the quartet I bought today at Costco in Hackensack showed a price increase, to $11.39. (Supermarkets sell Tropicana in 59-ounce cartons.)

That works out to 0.44 cents an ounce.

The Tropicana from concentrate works out to 0.41 cents per ounce.

Now, the big question is whether I'm going to drink all that concentrate or take it back for a refund.

I tried the concentrate. It does taste different than fresh. But not in an unpleasant way.

You're retired, so why don't you do it?

Jamaican Ackee and Salt Fish uses dried pollock or cod.

When you're retired, everyone expects you to do the food shopping, the cooking and who knows what else.

Nobody says any of this, but it's something you come to understand from all the excuses thrown your way. 

That's how I found myself back at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack today, a day after going there for the prawns and clams we had for dinner on Sunday.

We were out of salted Alaska pollock, the wild fish we've been using in place of the more expensive salted cod. And the doctor had prescribed mega-doses of Vitamin D for my 14-year-old son, so I wanted to register at the pharmacy.

Hands off the dates

Costco customers can return any item for a full refund, yet some of them insist on handling, smelling, even tasting the fruit -- grapes, strawberries and so forth.

I saw a man open a container of Mejdool dates and squeeze one.

"Don't do that," I said. He mumbled something about the soft ones not being any good. But they're dried dates; of course they're soft.

I continued, "Do you want other people to touch the food you buy?" He didn't answer. I moved on.

Dried fish from China

When Costco first started carrying salted pollock late last year, it came from China. 

But the 2-pound packages I picked up on Monday said they were produced in Canada ($6.39 each). With China's spotty food-safety record, that's an improvement.

Seedless watermelon has dropped another dollar, to $5.99. Granulated California garlic was $4.49 for 18 ounces. Three pounds of pistachio nuts in the shell were $14.99.

Coleman spinach-and-feta-cheese sausage are fully cooked and the only ones I saw made with antibiotic-free chicken ($13.79 for 3 pounds).

I've been buying Sunset-brand, hothouse-grown Campari tomatoes at $5.49 for 2 pounds, but today I picked up Sunset's beefsteak tomatoes at $5.99 for 5 pounds.

Two 96-ounce bottles of Tropicana 100% orange juice from concentrate were $7.99.

Free-range beef, a 140-pound fish and other tales

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When told the opah fish is from Hawaii, shoppers asked to see its birth certificate.

ShopRite supermarkets are running a sale on two cuts of free-range, grass-fed beef from Australia for $4.99 a pound with a a store card, $6.99 a pound without.

Boneless steaks or boneless rib-eye roasts are available, sold under the Nature's Reserve label and free of antibiotics and growth hormones. There is a limit of one package, and the sale ends Saturday.

Wowing shoppers

At Whole Foods Market in Paramus today, shoppers enjoyed samples of pineapple, cheese, matzo and opah, a fish from Hawaiian waters.

A 140-pound opah rested on ice at the fish counter, and a woman who took a photo with her cellphone camera asked an employee if it was real.

Here is what About.com says about the fish, pronounced oh-pah:

"A rich, creamy moonfish, it is served both as a raw appetizer as well as baked. Hawaiians consider opah to be a good-luck fish, and often used to give it away as a gesture of goodwill, rather than sell it."

As I purchased two pounds of mussels at the Whole Foods fish counter, other employees were removing the fish, presumably to fillet it. I didn't catch the price.

The farmed mussels from Canada, harvested on April 11, are for my dinner tonight.

Dinners from Costco

My wife and son are having Cuisine Solutions lamb shanks in a mint and rosemary sauce from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ($6.29 a pound, fully cooked). 

Also at Costco on Saturday, I bought nearly 2 pounds of fresh, wild-caught Pacific cod fillets for Monday's dinner ($6.99 a pound), a pound of organic spinach ($4.29) and two pounds of trimmed French green beans ($5.79).

Four, 64-ounce containers of Tropicana orange juice were $10.99 and three half-gallons of Kirkland Signature organic 1% milk were $8.99.

64-ounce half-gallon is alive and well

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When I ran out of Tropicana orange juice, I bought what I thought was a half-gallon of the stuff at a Super Stop & Shop in Hackensack. Not so super was the size -- 59 ounces instead of 64 ounces -- even though it was on sale at two for $6.


Today, I went to Costco in Hackensack, where I usually buy Tropicana, and got a box of four half-gallons, and, yes, they're 64 ounces each. The cost: $2.75 apiece.

I returned a half-empty, one-pound tub of Earthbound Farm organic spring mix -- a delicious, restaurant-quality salad mix that, unfortunately, is prone to rotting before its use-by date, got a $4.49 credit on my credit card and bought another one. The rotting problem could be from improper storage.

I e-mailed Earthbound Farm recently when another pound of spring mix rotted prematurely, and got a form letter and a $10 Costco cash card in the mail.

Stopping at Stop & Shop

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I had an errand today near the Super Stop & Shop in north Hackensack, and stopped in to see what was on sale.


I found a special on Wallaby-brand organic yogurt in 6-ounce cups at four for $3 or 75 cents each -- 4 cents less than at BJ's Wholesale Club in Paramus. I bought eight cups of the flavored yogurt. My wife prefers Wallaby to Stonyfield Farm organic yogurt, and I agree with her.


What looked like a half gallon of Tropicana orange juice (two for $6) was actually only 59 ounces, instead of 64 ounces.

In produce, I had trouble trying to figure out the signs. The only sign for romaine lettuce I saw said $1.99 each and had "Organic" written above it, but when I got to the register, the big head I chose rang up at $1.50 or two for $3, and likely is conventional, not organic. It weighed about two pounds.

On the way home, I stopped at Sahara Fine Foods for 11 cans of Al Shark-brand Moroccan sardines in spicy oil, at 99 cents each (not skinless and boneless). A 16-ounce jar of Beirut-brand tahini sauce was $3.99.

It's a good thing I picked up the romaine lettuce, because when I wanted to make a salad with Earthbound Farm organic spring mix for dinner tonight, I found it had started to rot, and it has a use-by date of Oct. 25. I plan to take it back to Costco in Hackensack for a full refund.

Stop and Shop, 380 W. Pleasantview Ave., Hackensack; 201-342-6030.


Sahara Fine Foods, 242 S. Summit Ave., Hackensack; 201-487-7222.

Some deep discounts at Fairway Market

The sale circular for Fairway Market in Paramus arrived with the paper today. Deep cuts on prices for Tropicana orange juice and Campari tomatoes take effect Friday and run through Oct. 29.

For the first time, the circular carries a coupon good for $10 off a purchase of $75 before tax, compared with Fairway's previous $10-off-$100-coupon in ValPak mailings. This new coupon may indicate the New York-based chain is having trouble attracting shoppers to its store in the dowdy Fashion Center mall on Route 17. The rent must have been low there for Fairway to ignore Bergen Town Center, where Whole Foods Market and Target (with a full grocery) opened new stores.

Fairway's sale price on Tropicana is $1.79, compared with $1.88 recently at ShopRite. Three 1-pound packages of Campari greenhouse tomatoes are $5, an especially good deal if these are the ones grown without herbicide. Check the label before you buy. Previously, Fairway sold a package for $2.99 or two for $5 on sale.

The great Spanish Manchego sheep's milk cheese is $8.99 a pound -- $4 off -- but that's about what you would pay at Costco. Murray's free-roaming, drug-free chicken isn't on sale.

Fairway makes a big deal over its USDA Prime shell steaks for $8.99 a pound, but doesn't tell you prime only means it is fattier than Choice and Select, the other two grades the federal government uses to classify beef. It also doesn't tell you the animal probably got fat by being confined to a feeding pen, where it received antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products to speed it to the slaughterhouse.

We can only hope the steaks didn't come from a "downer," a sick animal that collapses at the door, but is nevertheless dragged to its death and dismemberment. Bon apetit.