Recently, I was at the store and noticed the bologna. While I like the high-end, butcher-shop variety, I’m just as happy with Oscar Mayer. I picked up a package of light bologna, trying to be healthy. I won’t make that mistake again.

1. Bologna isn’t healthy anyway.
2. The main difference between this and regular bologna seemed to be that they’d made the slices thinner. That’s a ripoff.

This did start a conversation between Ashby and me about olive loaf, however. Remember olive loaf? It’s basically bologna with pimento-stuffed green olive slices studded throughout. I happen to live in an urban neighborhood, where grocery stores are sometimes small, but one area where you can count on a full selection is the processed meat aisle. [Hey! I'll have a side of nitrites with my dioxin-laced soil and my exhaust-perfumed air!]

So in two grocery visits recently, I’ve looked for olive loaf, just for old times’ sake. And I can’t find it.

I made a list of about 50 products that we buy a lot. Everything from milk to laundry detergent to tomato paste. And I went to Kroger, Target and Costco to compare the prices. Then I came home and entered them all into the spreadsheet I’d built to see which was cheapest.

It was so awesome.

The upshot: I’ve learned that of the things we buy most, except for laundry detergent, Costco is the cheapest — in most cases, lots and lots cheaper. Of course, there are a lot of things you can’t buy at Costco. And we’ll still be buying all our fruits and vegetables fresh (and organic) at the Turnip Truck. But I will be making at least a weekly trip to Costco from now on — many of the things we will buy there are perishable.

It’s awfully close on the laundry detergent, but it does make sense to buy it at Target.

Next up: Checking Harris Teeter and Publix against Kroger. I have a feeling I know what I’m going to find, but we’ll see.

I’m having my book club over here tomorrow night [actually, though I've been a member for almost two years now, I still think of it as "My friend Jamie's book club."], and I said I’d provide wine, chips and sandwiches. I sat down to think about that a few minutes ago and decided that The Perfect Thing would be the tarragon chicken salad from Publix. That stuff is frighteningly good.

It also means I’ll have to trek to Brentwood or Bellevue at lunch. There’s a Publix coming just a mile and a half from my office, but it’s not open yet.

I promise I’m trying to relax about that.

I blogged this several months ago, and didn’t think to take a photo at the time. I was in the store the other day and saw this abomination again and captured it for you to appreciate as well.

Tonight at the grocery store I saw hot dogs, already in the bun, in the freezer section. They advertised on the package that they were easier that way, just needed to be heated, etc.

People, I have clearly missed something about hot dogs and buns along the way. The hard part, I mean. When I was growing up, that was one of the meals you had when you were on your way out the door to a ball game, or when both parents had meetings and the babysitter was coming. And not the regular babysitter because she was a great cook. Or we’d have hot dogs for a treat on a weekend.

So as I finished my trip through Publix, I struggled to think why it was necessary to put the hot dog in the bun, freeze it and sell it to us that way.

Here’s all I’ve thought of so far:
* Finally, the number of buns and hot dogs match.
* OK that’s all I came up with.
* Except, I’m sure that somehow Kraft [I'm pretty sure this was Oscar Meyer, but I didn't take a photo and this product is not anywhere I can find on the web...maybe it's being test-marketed.] could make more money off of us this way. If I hadn’t had hungry toddler with me, I would have price-compared this with regular hot dogs.

No official word yet on the H.G. Hill Realty site.

So I love Publix. I know I have mentioned this before. I could change my blog’s name to the "I love Publix" blog and I would feel completely OK with that. I discovered about three weeks ago that unbeknownst to me, at some point in the past few months, this blessed chain opened a store in Brentwood, a mere 14 miles from my house.

I haven’t yet counted the grocery stores I drive past to get to the Publix (substantial number, I feel sure), but I am not feeling bad about that.

So strolling through the Publix the other day, I discovered this great little product from the Lundberg rice folks. If you haven’t ponied up for Lundberg rice yet, please do. It is worth every penny. And the Lundberg Jubilee rice is so pretty that I described it to my sister as looking like "a party in a bag." At which point she says we have different understandings of the word party.

Nonetheless, I determined that we must do something special with this beautiful rice. So we found this awesome recipe from Crescent Dragonwagon’s Passionate Vegetarian cookbook…combined brown rice, mushrooms, corn, carrots, onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes and her dragon salt. You bake in the oven. Wow!!! We’ve decided that, all due respect to CD, we’ll probably unfortunately end up calling this dish "party in a bag" forever.