a gallon of dill pickles

I accompanied a friend to Costco today. I have only been in Costco stores a few times. The stores fascinate me.  Since they sell mass quantities of most things, there's not much I want to buy.

Today I picked up a pound of baby organic spinach for $3.39. It's probably not local. I can buy local, organic baby spinach at the Monterey Market for $3.99 a pound. At MM, I get mostly local produce.

I scoped out all the melons at  Costco today. I did not see any organic ones. Between not being organic, the melons I did see being from Arizona and the prices no lower than they would be at MM, I passed on the cantaloupe and seedless watermelon. For Costco prices, I can usually get organic local melons during the prime melon season, which we are in right now. So pass on the melons. Well, almost.

I bought one melon, called a 'golden melon' that was a bright orange. I've never seen this melon before. It has no indication of where it came from. It was not labeled organic. I eat a lot of melons in the summer because they are lower in carbs, have low impact on my glucose, are low in calories and I love melons. At $2.69 for one 'golden melon', even though it was not organic and not likely to be locally sources, I could not resist. Since they were selling them singly, which is unusual at Costco, I indulged in one golden melon.

It was easy to resist the three-packs of cantaloupe. They were obviously picked too early so they would not bruise during shipping. Who knows how old they are? And how likely are picked-too-early and shipped-to-far melons likely to ever ripen properly?

Except for the exotic golden melon, I resisted melons.

I thought I would escape Costco with my pound of organic baby spinach and my one interesting new-to-me melon.

I went in search of my friend and passed one gallon jars of Vlasik dill pickles. Not organic, but organic pickles are very expensive anyway.

I've been craving pickles lately.

$3.99 for one gallon of nonorganic dill pickles was impossible to resist. Almost no carbs. And big fat dill pickles sate my craving for tartly delicious, low-call, low-carb snacks.  I will eat one a day until they are gone and then, I predict, begin to crave another Costco run.

My friend bought several pounds of raw nuts, mostly walnuts. I wished, at check out, that I had chosen a two pound bag of walnuts. I had passed on them because I had not realized they were raw.

I have been eating some raw walnuts most days lately. I eat a ripe banana and some walnuts as a treat.

Fruit is my sweet treat now. A banana is miraculous, in my opinion. I can make banana bread with almond and coconut flour, add walnuts (then they are no longer raw! but who cares, its banana bread) and no need to add a sweetener. Bananas are my sweetener.

Big score of the day: a gallon of dill picles for four bucks. Score!  Yeah, yeah, non-organic.