Costco

Yesterday, Kevin, Ian and I went to Costco. Yes, on the day before Super Bowl Sunday. We went around 12:30 so we could eat our way through the store. Most warehouse clubs give out free samples on the weekend to entice you to buy their products. These are usually the products with the highest mark-ups, prepared desserts or entrees, flavored sausages or meatballs, or snack foods. We had a blast sampling, but we didn't buy anything that wasn't already on our list. My favorite thing was the Aidell's buffalo chicken meatballs. Kevin liked the spinach dip on bread squares. Ian's favorite was the kiwi fruit or maybe the corn chips. (That boy likes his salt.) Just for the record, Ian dropped a teriyaki meatball, half a kiwi, a bagel chip and the crust from a piece of raspberry-almond cheesecake. If you're thinking that all those things sound unhealthy, then you're not getting into the spirit of Super Bowl Sunday. Kevin remarked that this has almost become its own holiday. God knows we need something to keep us going until Spring. Still, no wonder we're in such bad shape as a nation. We have a "holiday" dedicated to watching TV, drinking beer, and eating pizza, nachos and hot wings. Hmmm. That doesn't sound like such a bad thing. I just got a recipe for buffalo chicken bites. Maybe I'll make them tonight.

What DID we buy? I finally got the new dishes I'd been eyeing for six months. These will replace the white dishes that we've been using for the last 15 years, so this is a big deal for me. They're made by Dansk, called Khaki Plateau. They look like handmade pottery. I'll post a picture later. We also bought double-A batteries, a coffee grinder to replace the one that died three months ago, and face cleanser for me. The only food we bought was 5 lbs of ribeye steaks, a 4 lb. beef brisket (I have another slow-cooker recipe I want to try), a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and a bag of frozen green beans. I almost bought some Martha Stewart chicken slab pies. They were pretty cheap, they looked great, and I could pronounce most of the ingredients. The deal breaker: One (rather small) pie was two servings and each serving had 550 calories and 32 grams of fat. You could easily eat one pie yourself-- 1100 calories and 64 grams of fat. Yikes! So maybe I'll look into making my own chicken pocket pies. Stay tuned...