Category Archives: Products

Grocery Outlet: A must for the serious cook

Three bottles of La Tourangelle Roasted Hazelnut Oil from Grocery Outlet in Berkeley

Some of my friends laugh when I tell them about Grocery Outlet (2001 Fourth Street, Berkeley). They think it’s downmarket. Fine with me, because that gives me, and other serious food people, less competition for the all the high-end and otherwise wonderful products a person can find there.

Case in point: La Tourangelle Roasted Hazelnut Oil for $3.99 a bottle last Tuesday. I kid you not. This stuff is upwards of $15 a bottle elsewhere.

They had about 15 bottles, total, and I took 3. I wanted to take more but I didn’t want to be greedy. I later saw two yuppies with 3 bottles each, and then a couple of people in line behind me saw the oil in my cart, asked where I got it, and then made a mad dash and brought back 3 bottles apiece. That pretty much took care of the stock on that product.

Now, I have gotten many serious bargains at Grocery Outlet, but this was the best I ever did.

If you know your products you cannot go wrong. Look at everything in every aisle to get an idea of the place, and then come back at regular intervals so you know what they tend to have and what’s fleeting.

They carry store brands from around the US, and numerous Canadian and European products, too, like Sandstede Westphalian ham from Deutschland that’s sold under the bizarre name of “Black Forest Prosciutto” on our shores. Prosciutto is cured only. American-style Black Forest ham is more like pedestrian deli ham than anything they’d be eating in the Black Forest. Westphalian schinken (ham), on the other hand, is both cured and lightly smoked. Kind of an assertive, dry, slightly-smoky prosciutto. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing and not so easy to find. When it’s $1.99 here (for 3.5 ounces) I and the other Germans in the ‘hood clean them out.

You may see huge bags of grated cheese of middling quality next to a small carton of 4-year-old Cheddar or Vintage Gouda.

I’m not gonna tell you anything else.

Two products I avoid at Costco and why

Bye, Bye, Holidays — and a Crazy Stuffing Recipe for Next Year

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Marker drawing of retro White Castle burger stand

Marker drawing of a White Castle burger restaurant

The holidays are over. Although I have several marzipan pigs and some cranberry sparklers hanging around, everything else is a memory. The turkey. The New York strip roast. Many cheeses. The creamed spinach and Yorkshire pudding. God knows how many cookies. All gone.

My final holiday act will be to tell you about a twisted Thanksgiving recipe.

While perusing the coupon insert in my local newspaper ’round November, I caught the words “stuffing” and “White Castle” in the same glance. “No,” I thought. “It can’t be.” It was. A stuffing recipe calling for 10 broken up White Castle hamburgers.

The recipe includes celery, spices and chicken broth and is cooked in the cavity of the bird. It was the 1991 White Castle Cook-off winner.

You know about White Castle, right? If you grew up in the New York metropolitan area or another city the company set up shop, you know it isn’t just about boxes of frozen burgers at supermarkets. Or a Harold and Kumar movie.

White Castle was the first fast food burger chain in the US. It opened its inaugural stand in Wichita, Kansas in 1921. The company is still family-owned, according to its website, and continues to crank out small, malleable — they’re “steam-grilled” — and distinctively potent and addictive hamburgers. Lest you think the product is “less than,” know that these people served their billionth hamburger in 1961.

Nowadays the company calls its basic, cheeseless burger “The Original Slider.”

The frozen supermarket jobs didn’t come on the scene until 1987. Brilliant idea, really. A frozen White Castle burger is the one food in the universe that’s just about as good microwaved as served hot off the line.

Still, White Castle burger stuffing pushes the boundaries of product-driven recipe development to a place few may wish to venture.

Consider Philadelphia Cream Cheese cookbooks. While you can add Philadelphia Cream Cheese to just about any dish to its benefit or at least without causing harm, White Castle hamburgers are a whole other ball game.

The mere mention of this brand — synonymous in my house with “belly bomb” — tends to evoke strong feelings in the initiated. My parents used to go to the White Castle in Bayside, Queens, when they dated in the 1950s. They’d eat 25 oniony burgers between them — bringing to life the old White Castle slogan, “Buy ’em by the sack.”

As a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, they took me to the same White Castle — and it’s still there. Until 1972, when the company discontinued curbside service, we’d eat in the Cutlass Supreme, courtesy of the carhops.

It’s difficult to describe the White Castle hamburger experience. Because they’re small, you can eat quite a few. Because they’re savory, it’s hard to stop. When you’ve had one slider too many things start to unravel without warning. It’s like drinking tequila. One goes from partying hearty to collapsing on a pile of coats in a strange bedroom in seconds.

The stuffing, well, I may have to give it a try next year just for insanity of it.

Silicone and Garlic: Just Say No

New Costco Product: Hot Smoked Norwegian Salmon

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Package of smoked salmon from sant barbara smokehouse

Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I wanted to quickly give you the skinny on a new product I’ve seen at the Richmond (CA) Costco my last few visits.

This is a chunk of hot smoked, oak roasted Norweigan salmon from the Santa Barbara Smokehouse, an outfit actually located in Santa Barbara. They smoke their stuff over open wood fires, old school.

Costco had this on sample a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. Normally I stay away from hot smoked salmon because I find it too dry.

This one is tender, silky, fatty, salty and not too sweet — übersweetness being another of my kvetches when it comes to hot smoked salmon.

The back of the package of smoked salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse

Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse (back view)

I should have realized from the get-go that this was made from farmed Atlantic salmon. Farmed salmon is fattier than wild salmon. Since I don’t buy farmed salmon unless it’s sustainable, I’ll hold off buying this again until I find out what the deal is. The company’s website consists of only a placeholder right now. UPDATE on 1/29/13: I have not seen this particular brand for quiet some time, but Costco still carries roughly the same product regularly. Note also that Santa Barbara Smokehouse’s website indicates that their salmon is “sustainably harvested.”

We had this with some crusty bread and it was a big hit. The skin had been left on, which helps keep the product moist and tastes good in its own right. Berry, our companion Akita, was all over it.

It’s $11.59 per pound, but our 1.2 pound section fed four people.

All you need is plenty of good bread and wine.

Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse - ready to serve

Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse being served

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