The New York Times has an interesting comparison between Amazon and Costco, my two favorite stores: Amazon’s Subscription Service vs. Costco. While the author complains about the time lost shopping at Costco, I love that store because its a great place to add steps to the pedometer, particularly in inclement weather. Oh, and I can also get some shopping done at the same time.

My only complaint about Costco is that outside of some staple items, the availability of their other products is far from guaranteed. For example, I recently headed to the local Costco for some parchment paper. I knew the exact aisle it was located in, but when I arrived there, it was gone. Not just out of stock, but discontinued.

I had known about Smart & Final for about 20 years, but had not set foot inside an actual store until last month. Basically, Costco and a few other stores offered pretty much everything I needed so I never had the need to visit another warehouse store. However, since a Smart & Final was located in a shopping center I was already visiting, I decided to drop in for a quick peak.

Shopping at a new store was disorienting since I wasn’t sure where everything was located or what the exact product mix that Smart & Final offered. I finally focused on one product that is near and dear to my heart, and which I knew was sold at Smart & Final and Costco: Nutella.

So, Smart & Final sells a 26 oz jar of Nutella Hazelnut Spread with Skim Milk & Cocoa for a Club Buy price of $6.99. Costco sells a 2×26.5 oz. jars of Nutella Spread for $8.79. You don’t even have to be a math major to figure out which one is the bargain.

Costco is selling Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats. $4.79 for a 72 ounce bag, which comes to $0.067 per ounce. If you buy direct from Bob’s Red Mill, a 54 ounce bag costs $4.33, which is $0.080 per ounce.

Before I purchased Steel Cut Oats from Costco, I had only tried the more traditional form of Oatmeal. The big difference is that Steel Cut Oats takes a bit longer to cook and has a chewier texture. My favorite recipe is to prepare it the night before. I place one 1 cup of Steel Cut Oats with 4 1/2 cups of water into the crock pot. The next morning, I add some milk to thicken, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and a banana that has been sauteed in butter. Run the mixture through a hand blender to incorporate.

I was checking out the new Target at the Sunnyvale Town Center. Since it featured a grocery section, I wanted to see how competitive the prices were with the places I usually frequent. Target was selling an 18 oz. box of Frosted Mini-Wheats for $3.09 or $0.172 per ounce. Wal-Mart was selling the same size box for $2.33 four months ago. So, Target sells Frosted Mini-Wheats for a bit less than Safeway, but a lot more than Wal-Mart or Costco.

Costco was selling Diestel Whole Brined Turkeys for $0.97 per pound. The catch? These were on sale AFTER Thanksgiving. Talk about a Black Friday sale. I had spotted these same turkeys just before Thanksgiving selling for close to $4.00 per pound. However, since I needed about 20 pounds of turkey and I wasn’t willing to shell out $80 for poultry that might taste better, I ended up brining my own. Next year, I might pick up a pre-brined turkey after Thanksgiving just to give it a shot. The Diestel turkeys were only around 10 pounds. I wouldn’t mind spending $10 to experiment with and taste test a pre-brined bird.

This week, the giant tub of Mountain High Yoghurt for $3.89 was missing at the local Costco. In its place, I spotted a 64 ounce tub of Verka Original Yogurt selling for $3.79. I’ve never heard of the Verka brand before. Apparently, it’s an Indian dairy company located in San Jose, CA. From an environmental point-of-view, I suppose that buying a tub of yogurt produced by a local manufacturer is better than buying one produced in Englewood, CO.

The really odd thing is that the Verka yogurt was labeled 100% vegetarian. I guess that is true if by vegetarian Verka means that their yogurt contains no meat, poultry or fish products. But, not all sects of vegetarianism consumer dairy products, such as yogurt. I guess if you are an ovo vegetarian or a vegan, you should be extremely careful when shopping and opt for the soy yogurt instead. Of course, I took home a tub of Verka yogurt. Taste test comes tomorrow.

Sometimes, you just have to change your brand name when entering into a new market. Doesn’t matter how cute your mascot is. At the end of the day, a bimbo is still a bimbo.

If the recession has dashed your dreams of a Hawaiian vacation, you can still experience a taste of Hawaii by visiting Costco. I spotted 2-64 oz. cartons of Sun Tropics Passion Orange Guava Juice (aka POG) selling for $5.99 at the Mountain View, CA Costco. Of course, I snatched a gallon of that sweet nectar. I’ve never seen any mainstream store in the Continental US selling POG before. Now, if I can only get a loaf of sliced Hawaiian bread, I will be in heaven. Hawaiian bread is absolutely fantastic for making French toast.

I really don’t understand the concept of member pricing at supermarkets. Although the member pricing at supermarkets usually is not competitive with Costco, it still looks quite enticing when compared to the jacked-up non-member price. And, if you track prices at all, you will realize how completely ridiculous the non-member pricing is. LIke it’s a trick or something.

So, I spotted S&W Cream Style Corn going for 4 for $5.00 at Safeway, or $1.25 per can. The club price is cheaper than canned corn at Piazza’s, but their non-member price is more expensive. I don’t know if Safeway is trying to instill this message in me, but the takeaway for me is that Safeway is expensive; even more so than the smaller Piazza’s, which already is not cheap by any means. And if Costco will just sell cream style corn, I would be buying it there for $0.783 per can instead. As good as canned cream style corn is, I should probably attempt to make it one of these weekends while fresh corn is still available.