This Week's Hot New Deals (IMHO)

We have new sales starting today at our Boulder Alfalfa's, Sprouts, and Sunflower, while current sales continue at Vitamin Cottage and Whole Foods (click those links for prior reports). Here's what's looking good to me in the new deals, in my humble opinion only, of course.

The new sale running through December 20th at Alfalfa's strikes me as having more tempting deals than usual on their fine products, probably to lure in all that holiday food shopping. While there's no way to tell from the ad what size it is, the Alfalfa's housemade yule log cake on the cover for $21.99 each looks spectacular. Bouches de Noel are infamously hard to make, best left to the professionals in my opinion. Their excellent meat and seafood department is also offering some shall we say more sophisticated options, like pheasant or poussin (poussin? - evidently a very young chicken), in addition to the usual suspects (lobsters, too, with pre-order). Returning to the more everyday world, specials in their cheese and deli look especially appealing, with Somerdale Cotswold cheese $10.99 a pound, $4 off (and from the looks of the picture, it appears to be with the chives that I love), and Diestel natural turkey pastrami at $7.99 a pound, $3 off. Organic navel oranges are $1.09 a pound, quite good for organic. In seafood, gulf wild sustainably harvested shrimp are $9.99 a pound, $5 off, and I have great faith in Alfalfa's sustainable commitment. Also, Echo Falls wild Alaskan salmon packages are $2 off at $6.99 each, but I already stocked up at an even better, brief sale at Whole Foods. They have some good deals in the bulk department, with roasted and salted mixed nuts for the holidays at $6.49 a pound, and organic wild rice also $6.49 a pound. Select Mountain high low-fat all-natural yoghurts are stunning at 50 cents each, and some Rudi's organic breads are good at $3.29 a loaf. I haven't tried the Tree of Life brand of gluten-free cookies yet, but they look great at $2.50 a box. To go with them, there are a couple of good beverage deals from their coffee, tea and juice department: any juice is BOGO, and if you buy a bag of Stumptown coffee, you get a free 12 ounce latte.

Things are a little more down to earth at Sprouts through December 14th, where you can find center-cut pork loin roast for just $1.99 a pound, and previously frozen wild caught haddock or 41-50 count ez peel shrimp both for $3.99 a pound. They've brought back their fantastic bulk sale, with 25% off that entire department, including their excellent Fair Trade organic coffee, even in decaf. Chicken sausage is $2.99 a pound, as are center-cut pork loin chops. Also at $2.99 a pound are fresh ground chicken, chicken breast, or pork, and whole or cut up chickens are $1.49 a pound. There are some good deals in organic produce, with red or golden delicious apples or D'Anjou pears all just 99 cents a pound, and organic celery is 99 cents a bunch. For conventional, whole pineapples are stunning at 99 cents each. Cascade Fresh sour cream looks low at 99 cents for 16 ounces, and in these days of soaring peanut butter prices, $3.49 for 16 ounces of local Justin's peanut butter looks great, although Vitamin Cottage also has organic MaraNatha for the same price.

At Sunflower through the 14th, the big temptations are family packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts or conventional asparagus, both at $1.88 a pound. They match Sprouts with chicken sausage for $2.99 a pound, and add another ground meat into Sprouts' mix, with ground turkey at $2.99 a pound. Since their fresh turkey meatloaf is on sale at $2.99, I wonder if they'll have their great turkey meatballs (or if I'd make the equivalent by rolling their meatloaf). Beef stew meat is okay at $4.99 a pound, and boneless rib eye steaks look good at $8.99 a pound. There are good deals in organic produce as usual, with bunched chard, spinach, or green top carrots all at $1.50 each, hothouse tomatoes for $1.99 a pound, cilantro, green onions, and Hass avocados all 99 cents each, red or green leaf lettuce $1.50 a head, and three pound bags of russets for $3.99 each. Select Stonyfield organic yogurts are 79 cents each, and Cascadian Farm frozen veggies look good at $2 for the one pound bags. Finally, if you don't already have a stock of Muir Glen organic pasta sauces in your kitchen, go for it at $2.50 a jar.