Costco Apple Pie

OK, call me a sicko. Call me a traitor to Roadfood. But I had apple pie from Costco last night and it was excellent! My sister-in-law warmed it in the oven, and it would have been hard to tell from homemade. The kind she bought was particularly delicious, with caramel crumble topping. She gave my wife and me some to take home and it will be difficult to keep myself away from another slice tonight.

Am I losing it? Will I next be waxing eloquently about the food at Dennies? If so, take me out back and put me out of my misery!

quote:

Originally posted by danimal15

OK, call me a sicko. Call me a traitor to Roadfood. But I had apple pie from Costco last night and it was excellent! My sister-in-law warmed it in the oven, and it would have been hard to tell from homemade. The kind she bought was particularly delicious, with caramel crumble topping. She gave my wife and me some to take home and it will be difficult to keep myself away from another slice tonight.

Am I losing it? Will I next be waxing eloquently about the food at Dennies? If so, take me out back and put me out of my misery!

Just as long as it is "confession time", I do have to say that the sweet potato pies at Sam's in Baltimore are a taste of heaven. We love them. The crust may not be quite as good as mine but the filling is so much better that it comes out to a better sweet potato pie than I can make at home. ( No, I will never offer any such accaims to Denny's or places like it!)

Actually, a place as big as Costco has to have some treasures ... the trick is to find the gems.

I have a friend who shops at Costco all the time and always eats great ... the trick is to find the gems.

No, Dan, Costco has several items which are quite good and reasonably priced - to wit, the pies you mentioned, their pizza, chef and spinach salads. Mrs. Oneiron is a Costco regular for her film developing needs and usually picks us up one of the above on a regular basis. I also get my meats for BBQ there as well. It ain't roadfood but it has changed my mind about jumbo stores. I can't vouch for Sam's or JB's.

We used to love the muffins they had too, in particular, I loved the lemon poppy seed. I remember tasting that apple pie once, and thought it was good, too.

Our Costco makes the best strawberry-rhubarb pie I've ever eaten.. and I'll take the confession one step further... I've gotten excellent apple pies from from our now defunct Super Kmmart..

I wish Knoxville had a Costco. We got a Super Walmart but they are not in the same category as Costco. I have visited their store and I was very impressed.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

We were longtime Costco members in SoCal, where we had a store less than 10 miles away. Here in Louisville we have recently 'rejoined' the company even though the closest stores (2 of them) are in Cincinnati- about 100 miles away. We combine a trip for tourist reasons with a stop at Jungle Jims and now at Costco for long-range shopping. Now we keep a large cooler ready for a bag of ice and a 200 mile round trip!

Pies at Costco are not only great...They are cheap!! 6 or 7 dollars for a 12 inch pie is a real bargain. They don't skimp on the filling, and the crust, while not my Mom's prize-winner for flakiness, are a heck of a lot better than most other commercial bakeries.
My preferences- in order-
Pecan
3 Berry (blackberry raspberry & blueberry mixed (sometimes they use strawberries in place of the blueberries.
Apple Carmel
Strawberry Rhubarb
Lattice crust apple or cherry
Peach.

We like the Banana Walnut muffins, but will pass on the Danish (too sweet) and the chocolate cookies and muffins (too chocolatie for my tastes).
We have found that they carry our favorite bread... a sourdough crusty loaf with whole roasted garlic cloves spread thruout the bread. And it is only $2 a loaf. We buy several because we know that one full loaf will disappear on the trip home !
Outside of the bakery We will get some of the 6lb bags of Dole frozen fruit pieces and depending on impulse moves, we may get some poppers or similiar snack junk.
Recently we got several (4) whole Boneless Pork Loins. We cut and bagged these at home and stocked our 'pork freezer' for awhile. I am hoping that they will have another Pork-Butt sale in the near future I want to stock up on those critters also. Their Burger and other Beef is usually very high quality also.
Before switching to digital photography I used to use Costco's Kirtland brand 35mm film. It was Agfa film, great quality and dirt cheap. Before Walmart really got into the immediate return film processing Costco had a pretty good photo service. Since I do nothing but digital now I have lost track of that service as far as quality goes.
We always cruise the Book aisle to check out recent stock. A lot of the regular grocery stock can be matched in price at other places, but some items like their McCormick Garlic seasoning is dirt cheap and in large quantities for heavy use in the kitchen. Someone else mentioned one time about buying rice in large bags at Costco. We have seen it, but don't use it enough to warrent a 50 lb purchase.

I will be heading up to Columbus, Ohio this week and will be sure to do a Jungle Jims and Costco stop on the way home.

I'm with the Mayor on this---Love the pies at costco---big. good, and cheap!!! Shopped there regularly when we lived in California. They were pretty nice folks too---i worked for the Park system then and they b were very generous to all of the local youth programs supplying treats for special event--like Hot dogs and drinks for the family "Camp in the Park Night" and MANY MANY eggs for our Easter egg hunt. Not to mention a great deal on Polish saudsage for lunch! LOVED their strawberry rhubarb pies!!!!!

Can't beat the meat at Costco.... A lot of the vegs, too. My summer wardrobe comes from Costco. All that plus the cheap gas, all the free food samples, and a $1.50 Polish sausage makes a trip to Costco worthwhile.

Gordon,
Don't forget the $1.50 Polish Dog includes a bottomless soft drink.

The samples!! forgot them--i recall that if you went on weekends it was alot like a rolling brunch!

Oh the samples! When I had a Costco card (let mine lapse), this "sunday brunch" was a weekly family event...heheh..

We were at Costco (Cincinnati 1) on a Thursday morning. Very few kids in the area, so snagging samples was easy. Weekends used to be difficult because of the number of whining little kids trying to get their only meal of the weekend from the harried Costco staff, while the Moms talked on the cell-phone and ignored the damage their kids were doing to the stock within reach.

As with kids in restaurants they need to be under control of the parents instead of 'turned loose' to explore the place unguided.

BTW This Thursday's Costco list includes a bunch of cookies,pies,& muffins, 6 loaves of the roasted garlic bread, some pickled herring in wine sauce, frozen fruit pieces, tropical fruit and nut trail mix (3 lb bags), a check of the book table, two cases of generic Mtn.Dew,and whatever meat happens to look good and be priced right. Janet will be in SoCal for a week or so, so I must prep my own dinners !!

My favorite store is Costco (also the cheapest gas). We've never tried their pies cuz we're not dessert eaters but their breads and muffins are great and they definately have restaurant-quality meat. The best turkey I ever ate was one I purchased at Costco, a fresh tom. It was outstanding.
I know from being in the food manufacturing biz that Costco is VERY VERY difficult to get a product into and that's good.
They're also the nation's largest wine retailer. Apparently everybody stands at attention when the Costco wine buyers show up!

Just read an article in the NY Times Sunday about Costco. Not only do the prices sound good, but they treat their employees well.
There are several around here, due to all the good comments I may have to join...

An interesting article from the New York Times On Costco:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?incamp=article_popular_2&pagewanted=print

In the interest of full disclosure, we hit Costco about once a week. Great shopping experince, great products, great people. It's nice to see that they try to treat their employees well.

I buy my auto tires at Costco.

Today I tried to equal my youthful experiences of getting a bunch of stuff done while covering a lot of miles at the same time.

The errands that needed doing included checking the flowers planted at my Mom's grave-site ( I haven't been back since the burial in March); Dealing with the headstone cutter for some work we want done on the family plot; I had hoped to lunch with Mr Hoffman while in the Columbus area, but our schedules didn't agree this time. I wanted to check the second Costco ( the one near K I ) and always need to stop at Jungle Jims.

This totaled 600 miles plus a couple of extra's for good measure. I left at 3am and returned at 3:02pm so just a hair over 12 hours.
I have 9 New York Strip Steaks cut 1.75 inches thick. 4 lbs of Aki Tuna Steaks without a trace of the 'dark meat' on them. 18 lbs of Dole frozen fruit chunks. 3 lbs (one bag) of Costco's "3 Berry Combination" frozen blueberries,raspberries,and marionberries. We will check these out for future use.
6 Loaves of the Garlic Herb Bread, 4 lbs of Kirtland butter (in 1/4 lb sticks) ($1.85 a lb is more than a dollar cheaper than WalMart and more than a buck less than Kroger)
ONE APPLE CRUMB CAREMEL PIE- It will be gone before Janet returns from SoCal next week. 2 Dozen Muffins.. These I will freeze and share(hehehe) And a few other goodies including Gas at $2.06 a gallon.

Jungle Jims had Mtn Dew at $4.40 a case. I looked but didn't buy some TBones at $5 a pound. They didn't look near as good as the Costco Steaks. Shiners is now available at Jungle Jims in Cincinnati. I had to get a couple of 6 packs to let the guys there know they have a demand.
Our garden is beginning to over produce...so my veggie shopping was limited. I did get some sweet corn in Sunbury for 6/$1. it is bicolor and tastes great raw!
All in all it was quite a day...and I am pooped but the dogs want to play now that I am home...Go Figure-

Mr. Mayor, It sounds to me like you have stocked up for a couple of days. Six hundred miles in twelve hours plus shopping at two places and I am sure you made a couple of gas stops and food stops

Glad you are back and destroy the pie.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

At trip to Costco isn't complete without a hand dipped icer cream bar rolled in nuts. YUMMMM

I think Costco's apple pie for size price and quality are outstanding. My wife brought home a pie from a regional bakery recently [The Pie Guy from Salem N.H.} pricey alittle smaller than Costco but damn decient. Chow Jim

Well, I want to tell you about the sweet potato pies that one can get (in season) at Sam's in the Baltimore area. They are wonderful. The crust is not as good as homemade but the filling is far better than my best.

Kay, We will try the Sweet Potato Pie when it comes out later this season. It sounds great.

We bought two of the Carmel Apple pies this week for the Labor Day Picnic....but one of them had to be sampled to be sure of the quality....Now we have one pie to take to the Picnic..OH Well, It's all in the family.
Has anyone tried the Pecan Pie?? Thats my favorite! You can feed a whole herd from one Pie. It is so rich that despite my usual Appetite, I can't do too much damage to a pie at one sitting (unless I extend the sitting time) !!

I love Roadfood and I love Costco! The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, Costco seems to carry more than it's fair share of regional brands. For instance here in NJ they carry the Royal Carribean Jamaican meat patties, noted by the NY Times as by far the best store bought brand.

And so on.

One product they used to carry that no longer seems to be around was Bernstein's Parmesian cheese salad dressing (I may have the name slightly wrong). It's was a low fat item that has that extremely high fat taste, if you get my drift, and my wife and I used to buy it regularly.

Coupla peeves tho: Speaking of low fat, they hardly carry any low fat anything. Not that I'm big on low fat products, buy I like skim milk, and as I said, the aforementioned Bernstein's is no longer available.

Finally: Someone mentioned the Pizza. I think it's just awful. It's like Domino's on Steroids. ---Ken

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen


Gordon,
Don't forget the $1.50 Polish Dog includes a bottomless soft drink.

I'm a HUGE Costco fan. And not only for the food; I've found some incredible buys on clothing, bedding, pharmaceuticals. Best so far, however is the 18-piece cookware set, for $149. Heavy, thick aluminum, non-stick, in every size you could need for home use. Mine are in service every day, and are as good as new. Not crazy about the handle design, but that's a small detail.

I guess it's worth noting that in the NYC area, Costco has wisely replaced this deal with a $1.50 Kosher hot dog special. Great value, but I find the bun they use too chewy.

When they have it, the meat loaf is a delicious buy. Two little loaves, covered in some kind of bbq/ketchup. Pop the whole thing, plastic tray and all, in the oven, and in 45 mins those bad boys are ready to go. About ten bucks out here.

I worked for Costco for several years and I can attest that they take their quality very seriously. They train and pay their people well. There are quality control laboratories that check eveything they agree to sell right down to the dog food. They measure the size of cashews, they test the durability of luggage and furniture. They really try to sell the best for the lowest price. When it comes to their meat, they have their own processing plants which they sanitive several times a day. They will not put their "Kirkland Signature" lable on a product without it beimng the highest quality. Their pies are made with the best ingrediants from apples to pecans. Their sheet cakes are some of the best I've tasted and they cost less than half what a bakery charges. They operate in store bakeries that start (like any bakery) early a.m. and bake fresh items all day. I love Costco and the only reason I don't work at their headquarters in Issaquah is because I grew tired of the dreary weather in Seattle. It's a beautiful place, but it's overcast way to much for this SoCal native.

I've heard many of the peeves people have about Costco. They will not have a "fast lane" (10 items or less) probably ever. It's not part of the business model. They want you to make a field trip out of it and stock up. That inexpensive bottle of wine, those developed photos, the birthday cake, the fresh flowers, the newly released book, video or CD... that's get you in the door and you will wait with one item or a hundred. As far as low fat items, they are not as popular so they are not sold. Costco limits its "SKU's" (inventory units) to about 2000 (compared to Walmarts 100,000+) to get the best price, display it the best, turn it the fastest, control inventory, freshness, and keep it stocked up. They also rotate items based on the upcoming season as well as drop items that don't meet sales expectations. It's all "real estate" in those warehouses and every item "pay rent" based on their margin. Suppliers even pay for the end caps (the aisle side displays).

Costco has a forumla that works and keeps members coming back. The shoppers that go three or more times a month will find the "gems" that are items they acquire in a one time deal and sell at great prices.

Sandy,
Your comment on the 'end-cap' placement is interesting. Now that you mention it I checked, and sure enough, the endcaps are not filled with generic Kirkland labeled stuff...but rather with name brand items, meaning some outsider is paying a premium to have it displayed there.
And the bakery review is right-on also. The custom order cakes are great...fresh, delicious, and half the cost of Kroger or WalMart.
We are going to check out the Nashville store during the Distillery tour in October.

I think most Roadfoodies would appreciate the quality and price offered at Costco. The chocolate cake at the Dallas metro stores is wonderful. At $14, it is great for a birthday or holiday. And who can pass up a $1.50 dog and Dr Pepper lunch?