A pastry chef's guide to an American institution

hint: hot dogs

If you know me, the chances are high that you have heard me say “god bless Costco,” at some point or another. This is a secular statement, but I think it illustrates how deeply proud I am to be a card-carrying Gold Star Member (which is, to be clear, the cheapest and most basic membership, but it makes me feel special).

I’ve had ups and downs with the warehouse of our hearts, my main gripes being:

• when fellow shoppers are too aggressive and/or oblivious with their king-sized carts: spatial awareness seems to disappear as soon as you flash your member card at the door. Overstimulation ensues, cue weighted blanket and noise-cancelling headphones.

• The “Costco effect” (spontaneous, unplanned overspending) has far greater financial consequences than the “Target effect.” Since everything is in bulk, a case of the spendies can easily amount to what could have been my car payment.

• It can feel like a shrine to overconsumption, a place where people (me) spend money they don’t have on things they probably don’t need. Ive been guilty of seeing a product, let’s say for example, Castelvetrano olives, and think to myself “Hey, I like Castelvetrano Olives, I could eat more of those.” I then, in theory, leave with a gallon of olives which (spoiler alert, literally) I do not use nearly as often as my Costco self aspired to. And you learn that olives do, in fact, eventually go bad. Just a completely theoretical example!

All that being said: I love Costco! For the things that I do use often and can finish before it expires, I like that I’m buying less packaging and thus putting less garbage out into the world. The employees are incredibly friendly at best and perfectly neutral at worst, and apparently get paid well with excellent benefits - we love to hear it. After some deep diving (I read one article) on the company to make sure I’m not supporting another exploitative megacorporation, and it turns out Costco is pretty okay overall? Apparently the shareholders occasionally “feel neglected” because the company is “overly generous with its employee benefits.”??? They promote from within and many of their high-level employees started out as baggers and/or food handlers????? However, it’s still a multibillion dollar company that has profited from cracking the code on human psychology, including my own.

I have honed the craft of Costco shopping over the years and can get in and out of there in under 15 minutes (a little longer sometimes, as a treat) with nary a side quest. I’ve compiled for you, dear reader, a non-exhaustive list of some of my favorite items, baking or otherwise.

I recently posted a story on instagram about how my local Costco is currently carrying Nielsen Massey vanilla bean paste, and the digital crowd went wild. Vanilla paste is a pastry-chef fave, a thick syrupy mix of sugar, vanilla beans, vanilla extract, and a bit of natural thickener. It’s more cost effective than whole vanilla beans, but definitely still a very spendy product. Here it is at Williams Sonoma for $36.95 for 4 ounces:

And here it is at Costco at Twenty American Dollars for ten ounces:

This puts Costco vanilla bean paste at $2.00 an ounce, with Williams Sonoma at $9.00 an ounce! Heads up I will not be doing any more math moving forward.

• Note the *STAR* on the sign with the price - I was informed that this “Death Star,” as other members call it, means this product is seasonal, has been discontinued, or will not be restocked. I bought 2! Scarcity sells, baby.

Speaking of vanilla beans:

This lovely glass cylinder holds 20 (!) vanilla beans for $10. I recently was checking them out at Whole Foods - get ready:

A *single* vanilla bean is *on sale* for $14.30.

Here are some other baking staples:

12 pounds of King Arthur all-purpose flour for $10. FYI, I find King Arthur AP a little too high protein for cake, but it’s great for other baking projects.

10 pounds of organic cane sugar for $10

Many butters! Grass fed, Irish, Organic, etc. I forgot to snap the prices on these but I assure you it’s much cheaper than anywhere else.

LARGE maple syrup for $13

I love using this matcha for baking and drinking - it’s definitely not ceremonial grade, which I wouldn’t use for baking anyways, but still vibrantly green and delicious.

48 ounces of raw honey for $13.49

With all the vanilla talk, how could I forget the humble Extract? It’s a very generously sized bottle for $10

And some non-baking staples:

2 pound bags of fancy local coffee

Smoothie Town

You probably shouldn’t buy these if you value your self-control and dignity.

For all the seasonal allergy girlies: you can buy a year’s worth of Kirkland for $15, or a month’s worth of Zyrtec for $22 if you hate having money.

Well, this post is now “too long for email,” so I suppose I’ll stop here. Please, comment below with your favorite Costco products! I need to know. And if you have some intel on the dark underbelly of Costco, please keep it to yourself. I’ll leave you with this:

the real blessing