It's a decades-long debate: what's the best supermarket in Seattle? Is it a low-end one like Safeway or Albertson's, a high-end one like Metropolitan Market or Thriftway, or a speciality/organic one like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.

We all have our own ideas as to what makes our preferred supermarkets great, but one thing we rarely have is a clear understanding of how cheap or expensive they really are. Ask 100 people on the street which is more expensive, QFC or Whole Foods, and almost everyone will say Whole Foods (or "Whole Paycheck" if they feel strongly about it). There is also great ambiguity as to exactly what a "Club Card" does. Does it lower already low prices, or without one are you paying out the nose?

Over the last two weeks, I've set out to answer these questions and more in a secret shopper special investigation. The rules were as follows:

1. Decide on a representative basket of brand-name goods.
2. Visit one branch of each major supermarket in Seattle, record the prices of said goods, and tally the totals.
3. For each item which has a cheaper/generic substitute in the store, find the lowest price substitute, and tally new totals. This would essentially be your bill if you were as price-conscious as possible when shopping. Substitutes were chosen for things like flour and olive oil, but not for things like wine because generic wine isn't a close enough substitute to the original item.
4. Perform steps 2 and 3 both with and without Club Cards if the supermarket had a Club Card program.
5. For the two stores which contained almost none of the name brands (Trader Joes and Whole Foods), simply create the closest basket possible with substitute brands, and tally the totals.

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How do you take leftovers from one meal and turn them into three more? Metropolitan Market's Ilga Westberg shows KING 5's Joyce Taylor how.

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Spring has sprung and with the warmer weather comes an amazing crop of locally grown vegetables. Ilga Westberg from Metropolitan Market shows us some spring produce.

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How to Eat a Tree

Tamara Murphy's Fridge

The Simple Art of Flour Tortillas

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On CHECKBOOK's survey of consumers, QFC received the highest overall quality ratings among the big four chains and Albertsons received the lowest. For "overall quality," 61 percent of QFC's customers rated it "superior," compared to 52 percent for Safeway, 50 percent for Fred Meyer, and 36 percent for Albertsons.

For overall quality, and for quality of fresh produce, several small operators-including Ballard Market, Central Market, Greenwood Market, Haggen, and Metropolitan Market-scored very high on CHECKBOOK's survey of consumers. All were rated "superior" overall by 90 percent or more of their surveyed customers.

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Despite an economy rife with layoffs and demolished retirement accounts, Cucina Fresca hasn't seen a decline in the number of consumers willing to pay $9 to $10 for 20 ounces of frozen macaroni and cheese.

The mac-and-cheese line, introduced last year, is more than a nicely packaged children's meal.

For one thing, Cucina Fresca's "macaroni" is actually penne pasta, and it comes in three fancy cheese flavors: Gorgonzola, creamy fontina and smoked Gruyere. A sharp white cheddar version is in the works.

The smoked Gruyere is already one of the company's best sellers, rivaling its fresh tomato vodka sauce.

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You know it's a gimmick, right?

In that case, I can tell you that if you run over to Metropolitan Market (100 Mercer St.) at lunchtime (today, Feb. 27) you can try out Jones GABA, the new "functional beverage" from Jones Soda, a.k.a. a "tea juice beverage." The Jones folks claim it "improves mental acuity and relieves stress" through "the natural form of the amino acid PharmaGABA," which I cannot parse for you, because it sounds like a natural form of an artificial form of gamma-aminobutyric acid, which is naturally produced to start with.

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Spending or Saving at the Grocery Store

Consumers' Checkbook evaluated prices at local grocery stores. They quantified how much more or less a family of four spending $150 per week* would pay per year for groceries depending on where they shopped.

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Weighing in at nearly 400 calories, a paczki (pronounced poonch-key) is a delicious, cake-like, deep-fried, cream- or fruit-filled doughnut that puts the fat in Fat Tuesday.

Yummy, naughty and decadent, the glazed or sugar-topped treats were brought to the United States by Polish immigrants and are traditionally consumed during the week before Lent, when it's common to purge the kitchen of temptations like eggs, sugar and fatty foods.

Paczki are immensely popular in Polish communities, such as Midwestern states like Michigan, which often sponsor paczki-eating contests. In fact, says Metropolitan Market's Darrell Vannoy (who once worked for a large Midwestern grocery chain), these celebrations represent "the biggest bakery event for Midwest bakeries -- bigger than Mother's Day and Valentine's Day."

This year, Metropolitan Market is bringing the paczki to the masses with its first annual Paczkipalooza, which culminates on Feb. 24 -- Fat Tuesday -- with a paczki-eating contest. One employee from each store and the corporate office will compete in a five-minute "all you can eat" paczki face-stuffing at the Admiral store in West Seattle. The contest starts at 11 a.m. and will feature festive Polish music, samples and a human-sized paczki mascot.

Throughout the promotion, the six Metropolitan Market bakeries will sell three flavors of paczki ($1.49 each, four for $5.99): a granulated-sugar-coated paczki filled with raspberry; a powdered-sugar-coated paczki filled with lemon; or a glazed paczki filled with Bavarian crème.

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Meet “paczkis” (pronounced “POONCH-keys”). They’re a Polish donut, traditional on Fat Tuesday as Polish Catholic homes’ kitchens were cleaned out of all the bad gluttonous stuff you’re not supposed to have around for Lent. They’re also on sale at Metropolitan Market - and a big crazy event was staged late this morning at the Admiral store to start a new Fat Tuesday tradition. It was supposed to be a paczki-carrying race around the store, and eating contest, but the morning rain forced a change in plan - eating contest only. Competitors came from all around the locally based Metropolitan Market chain; when they were done stuffing their faces, there was a tie, so there had to be an “eat-off” featuring the coaches who’d been cheering the original paczki-eaters on - here’s the entire one and a half minute “eat-off” (the guys in referee shirts, by the way, are Metro Market top brass):

view the article at westseattleblog.com