Jay Gaulard Blog

Costco Wholesale in Enfield, CT

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

We took the leap. The leap to Costco (finally) up in Enfield, CT…near the border of MA. We have been meaning to do this for a very long time, but never got around to it.

Back at our old house, we were members of Sam’s Club, which is just an extension of Wal-Mart. We got pretty sick of it and didn’t renew our yearly plan. It seemed like there was some sort of stagnation with its stock. My father kept telling me that Costco is much better. I remember Costco from the Danbury location and it was pretty good. My father and I are a little different when it comes to shopping at Costco though. He likes to look at tools and equipment, while I like to look at the heads of lettuce.

One of the main things I was looking for was high quality food, mainly produce, and a big store. We visited BJs in Willimantic earlier in the week and were disappointed. It seemed like an older store and was much smaller than the others. I like to feel like I am in a stadium.

The Enfield Cosco was built in 2004, which means it has all the latest perks, groceries, tire changes, pharmacy, etc…and for those people who need to have dessert while they go food shopping, there is a fast food place. It’s almost sad.

Anyway, membership is $50 and good for a year, so we did it.

Yes, that is the actual Enfield store.

We filled our cart up last night and made out like bandits. I got a 2 1/2 pound bag of spinach and a huge box of veggie burgers, among other things. The prices were pretty good, but you can never really tell. On some stuff, they are definitely better. On other stuff, it’s a little tricky. The good thing is that we don’t need to keep running out to the grocery store for every little thing, like we used to. Now, we just load up the trunk and that’s that. Of course, we are still going to have to go to the regular grocery store for some stuff, but this place helps out a bunch.

Collard Greens - What the???

Friday, March 28th, 2008

I don’t live in the South, so Collard Greens really haven’t been part of my diet…ever. I remember back when my friend Rob and I lived in Atlanta, GA, we tried Okra a few times. Boy, I’ll tell ya, we felt like true Southerners. All of the sudden, we both had a Southern drawl. Just kidding.

I was making a nice vegetarian recipe the other night that called for Collard Greens. Honestly, I didn’t even know what they were. I went to the store and asked the produce guy where they were and he pointed me towards a big pile of leaves that looked kind of like Spinach. I brought them home and cooked them up in the food I was making. Since the recipe only called for about a cup, we really didn’t get a chance to taste what these Collard Greens were all about.

Last night, I told Laura that we needed to find a Collard Green recipe, because we had a bunch left over. I looked up on the internet what people generally do with them and most of the results were the same…steam them or cook them. I decided to do it my way.

I put some olive oil in a pan and cut up about six cloves of garlic. I know, I know…don’t worry, I am not around anyone today. I also put some onions in the mix and simmered them up. After those items were softened up a bit, I de-stemmed the Collard Greens and stacked the leaves on top of each other. Then, I rolled them up like a big cigar and cut them in slices. I added them to the pot and cooked them up for a few minutes.

Neither Laura nor I had any idea what they were going to taste like. I just knew we needed to get rid of them. Well, after we both tasted them, we both agreed that they were just awesome. I couldn’t believe how good they were. I have some left over for tonight and am very psyched about it.

After dinner, I decided to look up the nutritional benefits of Collard Greens. Come to find out, they are some sort of (another) wonder food. According to the website, I should feel like Superman today. I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.

My unsolicited advice to you is to go grab yourself some Collard Greens. You might just add a new food to your variety of recipes.

Does Spinach Make You Stronger?

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

I was just thinking about this really funny thing that my friend, Rob and I did when we were younger.

Rob and I do some very funny things together and this is one of them.

One day, Rob walked up to my house. I forget what we were talking about, but “Spinach” came up in the conversation. Now, everyone knows that when Popeye eats spinach, he usually kicks some serious ass. Rob and I decided to perform an experiment.

I had a can of spinach in the kitchen. He suggested that we wrestle, to determine who was stronger. After we did that, the person who lost would eat some of the spinach and then we would wrestle again to see if the spinach made any difference.

We walked out in the backyard and began to wrestle. I beat poor Rob into submission. He gave up and we concluded that I won the match. That was settled. We walked back into the house and Rob ate some spinach. He felt pretty good and I think he may have even flexed a little bit to intimidate me before the next match. I was unshaken. We again walked to the back yard and began to wrestle. Once more, I beat poor Rob into submission. He gave up and this time, we concluded that spinach does nothing for your strength in the short-run.

What’s the moral of the story? Rob, don’t mess with me. You’re just going to get hurt.