Costco Business Center is an Anchorage life hack. Here's my shopping list.

You have to armor up when you go to Costco, don’t you? Steel yourself for the parking lot sharkiness. Get your head game ready for the current that develops as people walk in the door, the press of aisles pinched around the sample stations, the hunt for groceries that keep moving around. And, then, just when you think you’re beating the dragon at the end of the last level, there’s the deflating sight of a check-out line that snakes back through the nut section and runs along the wall of jerky. It didn’t used to be this intense. I have friends who can’t deal with it at all now.

But there is a hack for this. The hack is Costco Business Center.

The Business Center, out off Muldoon, is targeted at restaurants and businesses, but regular people can shop there too. It has many of the staples you go to Costco for: milk, bread, paper products, produce like apples and bananas, drinks, snacks, eggs. But it also has all kinds of other things you can’t get elsewhere. And, importantly: it is never crowded. The whole place has the paired down, practical peace of a Montessori classroom and the lines at the register are totally sane. The groceries don’t move around like they do elsewhere. There are fewer off-the-shopping-list distractions like clothes, cosmetics, novelty foods, deli items and eye cream. And it opens at 7 a.m. I go there about every forth time I need to go to Costco.

Here are some things I buy:

1. Frozen baked goods. There’s a large selection of un-baked frozen treats that you just toss in the oven. These things come in quantity, but at a really decent per-unit price and can be broken down and shared. My house is a teenage boy slumber party crash pad and I have gotten a ton of mileage out of this massive box of frozen croissants that you bake for 20 minutes. Also, of interest to my crowd, several kinds of frozen chocolate chip cookies. They have the largest pastry sheets in town as well.

   

2. Coffee. This is the main reason I started going to the Business Center in the first place. They carry Lavazza espresso beans, which remind me of the stuff my relatives drink in Italy. They are at a great price and sometimes go on sale for an even better one ($11 right now for 2 pounds!). They also have what appears to be a larger selection coffees in general — including Tim Horton’s k-cups, which I keep seeing people load up on.

   

3. Meat. Seriously, the meat section is something to behold — so many beautiful cuts — far more interesting than the grocery store or regular Costco. You want a leg of lamb? A grass-fed tenderloin? A massive rack of ribs? There it is. You’ll see lots of people carrying away the tube of ground beef — 10 pounds for in the neighborhood of $5 a pound, a very good price. The only catch is you have to break it down and freeze it, but I think the extra labor pencils.

   

4. Kitchen supplies. I love a restaurant supply store for well-priced, sturdy, utilitarian kitchen items. Costco Business Center has nice prices on sheet pans, cambros, tongs, thermometers, and other very practical every day use items. They also have lots of paper goods — such as compostable cutlery, plates and take-out containers, that come in handy.

5. Beverages. There is a remarkable selection of drinks at CBC covering several aisles and offering excellent prices for larger quantities. There were four varieties of coconut water, for example, a rainbow of Monster energy drinks, another rainbow of Jarritos, and, if you are a Diet Coke-head, very good prices on regular soft drinks in quantity.

6. International groceries. Regular Costco also excels at offering these kinds of foods as well but there are other cool buys at CBC, especially in the frozen food section. Are you looking for high-quality fish sauce, paper thin cuts of beef for hot pot, goat meat cubed on the bone, lovely feta in quantity, burrata, frozen Jamaican patties, a massive $5 container of Taco Loco salsa or Mexican mineral water in glass bottles? You’ll find it there.

   There are also lots of practical goods that come in handy — like bigs stacks of hand towels, large-size detergents and look at this trove of Sharpies. Can you imagine never searching for a Sharpie?

   

   What’s for dinner: The fish are finally running! I spent a whole day in the sun on the Kenai and brought home a few, plus I can’t keep my youngest away from Ship Creek where the silvers are in. How about something on the lighter side, like my Alaska-Style nicoise salad with grilled salmon, veg and and fresh herb ranch dressing?

Shouldn’t we also make this charred corn and couscous salad? I’m thinking about this recipe from Food & Wine for drunken noodles, too. And, speaking of Costco Business Center buys, you can pick up the exact, already peeled, multi-colored carrots for this very delicious recipe 👇

Little treats: My friend Donna just left one of my favorite treats on my porch: “rhubarb Twizzlers,” chewy, sweet-tart dehydrated rhubarb pieces that I find totally addictive. If you have a food dehydrator, you should make them.

When I asked her for the recipe, she said: “Pretty basic: Slice rhubarb lengthwise and layer in sugar. Let it sit in the fridge for 10 days, then dehydrate.” It also makes a really lovely simple syrup for cocktails, she said. Meanwhile, since we’re going hard on Costco, here’s what you can get at Costco in Japan. And, for your heart, here’s a beautiful poem about parenting and summertime.

If you missed last week’s very scenic newsletter, here it is: “See Alaska’s beautiful food world through the eyes of these creators.” For paid subscribers, here’s what we were reading last year, “Four easy, in-city mini-hikes that will make you love Anchorage.”

Here’s a modern truth: real local journalism doesn’t come for free anymore. This week’s Anchorage Costco deal-scouting newsletter is supported by readers like you. If you appreciate this growing, reporter-owned local news venture, consider paying to subscribe? An annual subscription pencils out to $6.67 a month. (🚨If you have been a paid subscriber but your card expired, here’s a reminder to renew!) If you want to double down, become a founding subscriber for $240. 👑 Thank you so much to the growing circle of founders!

Please write with your favorite Costco Business Center buys, off-beat rhubarb recipes and anything. Really.

Thank you, always, for reading. I’m taking next week off to work on a project so I’ll be back in two!

Julia

P.S. For my newest recipes and access to stories I link to, subscribe to the Anchorage Daily News and Edible Alaska (and maybe get the New York Times cooking app). Find all my recipes and writing at juliaomalley.com.

P.P.S: The 18-ounce clamshells of blueberries at Costco are $4 right now. I made the blueberry cobbler I wrote about last week. Here it is in slow-mo bubble mode:

** This newsletter is produced in part with the support, inspiration and community found at The Boardroom.

***Accuracy matters! If you find an error in this newsletter, let me know!

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