Costco

I just signed up for Costco and visited the store for the first time. I'm a little disappointed. Everything there is really unhealthy. They have a full bread aisle, but no whole wheat bread. I feel like the store is 1% produce, 69% highly processed food, 30% objects.

Lots of types of groceries are missing. I overheard two other parties saying they would go to Walmart afterwards, to get stuff they couldn't find at Costco.

Everything there is such a disorganized mess. Most of the aisles are incoherent.

What's with the baggers? Why would they have bag boys but no bags? Do all Costco stores have no bags? I don't need an entire worker just to put my stuff back in the cart.

I like this soup. I've tried several pre-made soups that were not worth comment (crab & corn, clam chowder, vegetable barley), but the Italian Wedding soup hit all the right notes for my pallet. I found the broth sufficiently chicken-y (rather than watery) and found the meatballs to be delightful.

I do prefer more vegetables in my soup, but adding extra spinach didn't improve it much for me. I did find that tossing in some leftover brussel sprouts that I'd tossed in olive oil and italian seasoning then roasted with and romano cheese -- well, that took the soup from a comforting liquid to a transformed and wondrous almost-stew.

On their own, leftover brussel sprouts get mushy and I don't have much use for them, but mushy works in soup! The sprouts' bitterness became a delightful contrast to the broth and the spices all mixed together well.

Again, the Italian Wedding Soup is very nice by itself. I merely wanted to let the interested know how a random addition improved it for me. Your tastes may not agree with mine.

I was a big fan of the previous fruit smoothie, and would sometimes stop at Costco just for that if I was already in the area shopping, or had a rough day and wanted a pick me up. Recently had a rough day and went to Costco on my lunch break. I noticed they didn't have the fruit smoothie anymore and instead had a new strawberry banana one. I was a bit disappointed, but I was there so I ordered it anyway. I didn't finish it and offered the rest to a coworker once I got back to work. I had one sip and it was just too sweet, in a bad way. I looked it up and apparently it has more servings of fruit, but somehow it tastes extremely artificial. If I end up at McDonalds I will sometimes order their strawberry banana smoothie, and this was similar, but somehow much worse? I'm not sure if I was just expecting better and it was so disappointing that maybe I didn't give it a chance, but I will not be ordering it again. Just letting you all know in case you get curious. I enjoy the food and the prices are great, but I don't think I'll be going there as a treat anymore. Will probably just limit it to when I happen to get hungry while shopping there. Unfortunate, because I would probably make a special trip basically just for the smoothie about once a month. I know it's not enough to single-handedly keep it on the menu, but still.

If so, which model, and do you like it?

Bought a bundled pair of memory foam pillows that seemed ok in the packaging. Took them home and found them to be as hard as a rock. I'd avoid them unless you like hard pillows.

I warmed it on the stovetop (not microwave) and found it lacking, but acceptable.

After adding:

• tamarind paste,
• onions,
• bell peppers,
• a thai hot pepper,

and then topping with:

• cilantro,
• fresh lime, and
• some chopped up roasted peanuts,

... the additions (standard ingredients) made it much better.

Still, it was missing the contrast of bean sprouts. It isn;t the same without them and if I'd had bean sprouts, I would have added, but at that point I might have opted to just make my own pad thai -- which would have tasted better for almost the same amount of cook/prep time.

I am super creeped out that Plaid wants my bank login do Citi will direct deposit my Costco Reward.

How are you all handling this?

New bank just for deposit?

Reward to Costco to get cash?

Just give Plaid access to all your details?

Way more than 10 things...

The membership increase, set for September 1, 2024, will impact around 52 million memberships, a little over half of which are on the “Executive” plan.

The annual US and Canada “Gold Star” memberships, Business and Business add-on members will see fees increase by $5. The annual fee for a “Gold Star” member currently sits at $60 plus sales tax, Costco said in an announcement this week.

Higher-tier “Executive” members in the US and Canada will see annual fees increase from $120 to $130. The maximum annual 2 percent reward, associated with the Executive tier, will increase from $1,000 to $1,250.

This is the first membership price hike Costco has announced in seven years.

“To clear up some recent media speculation, I also want to confirm the $1.50 hot dog price is safe,” Costco’s new chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, said in May.

"I came to [Sinegal] once, and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the ef**** hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out,” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 presentation, 425 Business reported.

Cascade Platinum is my favourite dishwasher detergent. I've been using it for years (https://cascadeclean.com/en-us/products/cascade-platinum-actionpacs-dishwasher-detergent-fresh-scent/)

In the last week, my local costco warehouse and costco.ca stopped providing Cascade Platinum. Instead, they're still selling Cascade Power Clean in green box (https://www.costco.ca/cascade-power-clean-dishwasher-detergent-actionpacs%2c-115-count.product.100483144.html) and they added a new product to the shelf Cascade Platinum Plus (https://www.costco.ca/cascade-platinum-plus-actionpacs%2c-81-count.product.4000230558.html)

I've tried the power green one, and I'm not satisfy with its quality: the smell of the food may remain in my dishwasher. The Platinum Plus is much more expensive than Platinum.

Does Costco changed the product line at your warehouse?

I was very surprised after waiting all year to see them drastically cut the price a day after our summer tourist season ended. From $69 to $39 for a 2019, 2020, and 2021 cask strength releases 375ml. It has had the asterisk on the full price tag for awhile now and I was hoping this day would come. About a full pallet left when I got mine.

I do not understand why people aren't satisfied with the uppermost (open) case of whatever when there's a large stack (and, let's face it--everything is stacked at Costco). I watch them struggle to lift 4 or 5 cases so they can pick one box of raisins from the 5th level down. I get if there was one left on top that was crushed or some other moron opened...but, really?

The other one is the family of 5 that walk next to each other (think front line of an NFL team) while pushing the cart as slowly as possible down the 'wrong' side of the aisle.

Seems like an obligatory post! What's on your shopping list every time you go?

Personally, I'm a huge fan of:

Kirkland Irish cream

Avocados - nowhere else ever has them as good!

Shepherd's pie

Ravioli lasagna

Sanders chocolate caramels

... And like a million other things.