When my brother and his wife had their third baby, my other brother and his wife bought them a Costco membership as a baby gift. My brother, the one that got the new baby and the membership and who happens to live right down the road, said he’d let me know the next time he planned to shop there and I could go along and check it out.

I had been to Costco once before, maybe five or six years ago, and I hated it. Hated, hated, hated. It was so hideously monstrous and boxy and everything came in such huge quantities. It seemed like the perfect feeding ground for hoards of gluttonous Americans. I refused to have anything to do with the place.

But then. But then.

Saturday came and my brother and I zipped across town to the club. We had an hour. The store was packed. There were snacks everywhere. I had sixty dollars in my wallet. I spent twice that. I walked out of there high as a kite. I couldn’t stop grinning.

I’m not sure what won me over. The prices were great, yes, but it was more than that. Maybe it’s the stage of life we’re at? A two-container package of peanut butter or five pounds of dried cranberries doesn’t feel excessive: it feels practical. The Kirkland brand is good quality and therefore trustworthy. The store doesn’t carry everything, so, crazy as it sounds, it feels like there’s a limit to the excess. Furthermore, I’ve heard that Costco treats their employees respectfully. And then there’s the wine and cheese, happy sigh.

So anyway, all this conspired together to make me reconsider my anti-Costco stance. And then I started with the interviews. I hit up every single person I ran into with a list of questions:

Do you have a costco membership? 
Is it worth it? 
Should I get one?
What do you buy there?

I was on a mission. All that was missing from my barrage was the microphone and tape recorder.

And then two people—two very frugal shoppers, I might add—said that they have a Costco membership because of the eye contacts. A membership costs 55 dollars and they save that much when they get a one-year supply of contacts. That purchase right there pays for the membership. And keeping in mind that, as Margo’s father-in-law says, it’s only a savings if you were already going to buy it, there was my ticket.

Up until that point my husband was snooty about my new love affair. But once I explained the contact situation (he’s the one who has them), he perked right up.

So one evening we went to Costco and got ourselves a membership.

That night, after we tucked in the children (two of which were screaming because a pre-bedtime shopping trip is A Major Stupid Parent Move) and moved the cheeses, spinach, black olives, butter, almonds, farro, etc from the boxes to cupboard and fridge, my husband and I ripped open a giant bag of chips and I posted this update on Facebook: Got a membership to Costco this evening. Now I’m struggling with feelings of disloyalty to our local grocery store. But man, these Kirkland Krinkle Cut chips (munchmunchmunch) are GOOD. And then I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning to a whole string of comments. Apparently, a Costco membership is the hip thing to have! Tons of respectable folks are card carrying and proud of it. It’s a model organization, they say. My intellectual and politically correct sis-in-law (whose British accent makes her sound even smarter) wrote, They pay their employees a living wage, offer healthcare and the CEO only makes a small multiple of the lowest paid employee. Whenever we move back, it will be one of my first stops. Munch away, sister!

So guys, I’m sold. I’m still a little wary—don’t want to buy things we don’t need, let food go to waste, or start over-stocking—but I think we made a good choice.

Your turn! [She jams the microphone in her reader’s face and cocks her head expectantly.] Do you shop Costco? Why? Why not? What are your favorite Costco standbys? 

P.S. We ended up getting the executive ($110) membership. It wasn’t what we were planning, but I’m not willing to call it a mistake, at least not yet. I had talked with a friend who has an exec membership and she declared it pays for itself through the money back program. Plus, the guy at the desk said that if we don’t get the money back, they’ll refund it. Sounds win-win to me. (Or maybe I’ve been snookered?)

P.P.S. This is not a sponsored post, but if Costco wants to give me some grass fed beef, mango salsa, and a large hunk of cheese, I won’t say no… Costco? Costco?

This same time, years previous: fun and fiasco, in which it all falls to pieces, my little boy, and mint wedding cake.

This lamb is from West Virginia. He has a history and he’s healthy: two important things Oreo was missing. Omri (my daughter named him—can you guess what books we’ve been listening to in the car?) is a twin. His mother rejected him. He’s about 18 days old.

The first night, Omri slept in the big box in the downstairs room. He woke me at 3 am with his (very loud) bleating. I fed him and ordered him back to bed. And the next morning I informed my daughter that he would not, under any condition, be sleeping in the house ever again. Period.

Housing Omri has been a bit of an experiment. At first we put him in the chicken tractor, then in with the dogs, and then in with the chickens. Omri was too big for the tractor, the dog pen has no grass for grazing, and the chickens pasture, while fine, was too far from the house to suit Omri. Every time we left him out there, he’s get lonely and cry his head off. So my daughter built him a makeshift pen off the dog kennel. That works for now, but we don’t want farm animals close to the house, so more adjustments need to be made. During the night, he’s been sleeping in the box which has been moved back out to the barn.

Whenever my daughter is outside (I have trouble keeping her in the house), she lets Omri out of his pen and then races around the yard with him and the dogs. If he goes too far, Francie heads him off until she can catch up. But normally Omri doesn’t wander. He follows my daughter around like a third puppy, licking her face, nibbling her chin, his (in-the-process-of-being-docked) tail wagging frantically.

Since Omri is a male, a castration is in the future. Our neighbor will do it for us. (His wife said that when the “what is your gift?” question was raised in their Sunday school class, he answered, “castrations,” so I think Omri will be in good hands.) They say that a wether sheep is the best kind of pet.

Though nobody made any promises about a pet. We’re not actually sure where our daughter’s sheep project is heading. Will she sell them for meat? Will we keep them for grazing and wool-making (in other words, pets)? Right now it’s all about learning, having fun, and taking care of an “orphan.”

For now, that’s reason enough.

This same time, years previous: fun and fiasco, chapter two, the quotidian (4.16.12), banana cake with creamy peanut butter frosting, and in their genes.

I am all too aware that I’ve only been posting recipes for sweets. Since the beginning of February, there has been chocolate mint chip cookies, chocolate pudding, almond cake, peanut butter and jelly bars, chocolate babka, maple pecan scones, and oatmeal raisin cookies. Oh, and the one exception: roasted cauliflower soup.

This does not mean we’ve been eating only sweets! To the contrary, we’ve been feasting on lentils and brown rice, taco salad, pizza, oven fries, noodles with pesto, salads, green smoothies, and all sorts of veggies from the freezer. It’s just that I do a little more experimenting with the non-necessities. All the old standbys, you already know about.

Except I haven’t told you about my nuts.

When we came back from Guatemala, my younger brother gave us three large bags of nuts: walnuts, pecan, and almonds. I used up all the pecans in baking pretty quickly, but the other two kinds lingered. The children are a bit hesitant about nuts in baked goods, so I mostly used them for salads or snacking.But plain nuts can be a bit dull (and thus the reason I reach for chocolate).

And then I remembered the crispy almonds I used to make. A quick recipe check, and I jumped on the crispy nut bandwagon: I was gonna crisp up both the walnuts and the almonds.

It’s a simple procedure, but a bit leisurely.

1. Soak the raw nuts in salt water over night.
2. Drain the nuts.
3. Bake the nuts on a stainless steel tray at 150 degrees for a small eternity (about 24 hours or two daylight days).
4. Eat.

Almonds are tremendously improved by this soak-and-toast treatment. They become salty (in a gentle way) with a delightfully irresistible crunch.

The walnuts, on the other hand, are less noticeably altered. They crisp up, yes, but more softly (if that makes any sense). The biggest benefit to toasting the walnuts is that they are very easy to crumble using just your fingers. I love crumbling a handful of the walnuts into my morning bowl of steelcut oats or over my noontime salad.

Last week I bought a three-pound bag of raw almonds. In a couple days when the weather is supposed to be a bit chillier, I plan on filling my oven with several trays of soaked nuts. This way, as we head into summer and heavy-duty outside playing, we’ll have a stash of crispy almonds always standing at the ready for snacking.

Crispy Almonds
Adapted from Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions.

The recipe says to use filtered water and sea salt. I use tap water and any old salt. It works.

4 cups raw almonds
1 tablespoon salt

Place the almonds in a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt. Cover with cool tap water. (If you’re worried about the salt not dissolving properly, you can dissolve the salt in a bit of water, pour it over the nuts, and then top off the bowl with fresh water.) Place a piece of plastic over the bowl and let sit on the counter overnight.

In the morning, drain the nuts. Place the nuts on a stainless steel baking tray. (Or line a baking tray with parchment paper—if you don’t, the nuts will stain the sheet and the sheet will blacken the nuts.) Bake the nuts at 150 degrees—I just set my oven to “warm”—for 18-24 hours or until they are crispy, giving the nuts a stir every several hours. (To see if the nuts are done, allow them to cool to room temperature before tasting. Warm nuts = soft nuts = not helpful.)

Store the crispy nuts in a quart jar in the freezer. Because if you leave them on the counter, they will disappear way too fast.

Variations
Crispy Walnuts: 4 cups walnuts and 2 teaspoons salt. Same process.
Crispy Pecans: 4 cups pecans and 2 teaspoons salt. Same process.