Invite the 'King of Cheeses' into your home

Shavings of aged Kirkland Signature Parmigiano Reggiano cheese from Italy dress up a simple open-face, egg-white omelet with sun-dried tomato.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

My Costco Wholesale offers more than 50 cheeses, but I've narrowed them down to several favorites.

At the top of my list are wedges of Parmigiano Reggiano, an aged cow's milk cheese imported from Italy and sold under the Kirkland Signature house label.

At my Hackensack warehouse store, I paid $10.69 a pound, the lowest price I've found in North Jersey.

The hard cheese crumbles nicely in the mouth when you pair it with wine, nuts, fruit or salad; and melts beautifully when cooked with omelets and frittatas.

Shavings of the cheese get a flavor boost from balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil when you add it to a salad.

I try to avoid full-fat cheese, though make an exception for manchego, a sheep's milk cheese from Spain also available at Costco. 

Parmigiano Reggiano has less fat because it is made from part skimmed cow's milk.

Chef Mario Batali refers to it as the "King of Cheeses," and the taste and versatility certainly bear that out.

Another great reduced-fat selection is Jarlsberg Lite Sliced Swiss Cheese, sold at Costco in a 2-pound package for $8.59, a price cut.

Paired with cinnamon-dusted almonds.

A little heat transforms Parmigiano Reggiano, here with organic brown eggs.

Wedges sold at Costco Wholesale are aged for more than 24 months and have rinds on only two sides, meaning you get more cheese. At home, I trim the rinds and cut the cheese into several small blocks, storing them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

Another bonus: Parmigiano Reggiano is a reduced-fat cheese made with part skimmed cow's milk.

An egg-white omelet with Jarlsberg Lite Reduced Fat Swiss Cheese and Kirkland Signature smoked Alaskan wild sockeye salmon.

A bigger refrigerated unit debuted this week at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. It adds a second cold room to the store for conventional eggs and other items.

Failing a crash course in Italian food

Image via Wikipedia

If you're looking for a quiet meal, Eataly isn't for you.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss a marketplace for Italian food called Eataly, our early dinner at Lupa in Manhattan, and the apparent extinction of the 99-cents can of sardines.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm a dropout from Eataly -- a crash course in Italian food at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan.

Chef Mario Batali and his partners stage a daily feeding frenzy in this sprawling, all-Italian marketplace, where customers are willing to eat standing up as scores of people rush past just inches away.

We spent less than 30 minutes there on Monday afternoon, but couldn't take the sensory overload or the noise. Think "mob scene" or "zoo" -- one hardly conducive to enjoying a meal.

Eataly has one proper restaurant that takes reservations, Manzo, Italian for "beef," and it has a full menu, including pasta and seafood. But it doesn't open until 5 p.m., we were told.

Fish, vegetables, a rotisserie, cold cuts and more are available elsewhere, at what looks like feeding stations, with seated and stand-up eating.

Searching for the rest rooms, I came upon one aisle lined with bags of flour, where two employees were slicing bread, and saw a flight of stairs, which led to an upstairs dining area for pizza and pasta.

In the market, a six-pack of Italian beer, Birra Moretti, was $9.80. Handmade butternut-squash ravioli were about $14 a pound. An autumn tasting menu in Manzo was more than $90. Wines by the glass are $7 to $19 each.

The Web site says Eataly has a fish market, but we didn't see it. Whole fish are served for $22 and $23, though the ones I saw in front of diners looked small. 

The original Eataly opened in Turin, Italy, in 2007. Eataly New York opened in August 2010.

Eataly, 200 Fifth Ave., New York; 212-229-2560. Open every day.

Low prices, small portions

We still wanted to "Eat Italy," so we jumped into the car and drove downtown to another Batali venture, Lupa Osteria Romana.

Lupa has been a hit since it opened in 1999, and for peak dinner times, a reservation has to be made at least a month ahead, according to a re-review in The New York Times that awarded 1 star to the Roman-style trattoria last week.

Three of us arrived at Lupa around 4:15 Monday afternoon, and were told a table was available immediately, as long as we gave it up by precisely 5:35. We agreed, and were shown to a table in the intimate -- and drafty -- rear dining room.

Lupa employs a big staff, as we learned watching a procession of people going out a rear door and into a room where servers' uniforms hang in dry cleaner bags, and returning ready for work, but every time the ill-fitting door was opened, we got a gust of cold air.

Lupa is inexpensive by Manhattan standards, but portions are small. A nice touch is a glossary of Italian food terms on the back of the menu. 

Service was good and the food was well-prepared, but the kitchen didn't seem able to keep up with orders, and our appetizers were agonizingly slow coming to the table.

Sardines, fluke, striped bass

We decided to share two antipasti -- a special of grilled sardine fillets ($14) and a Fall Vegetable Insalata ($12).

There were four wonderful sardine fillets served with blood orange and wilted greens, and the salad included fruit, greens and roasted fall vegetables, all served at room temperature.

We skipped a pasta course, because I'm watching my weight, but I did have small pieces of bread crust dipped in peppery olive oil.

For entrees, we chose wild-caught fluke with lentils and bitter greens ($19); the Market Fish, striped bass ($22); and a naturally raised half chicken that was roasted alla Diavola or Devil's Style ($19).

My two, thin fluke fillets were disappointingly small, and they were served over a bed of tiny lentils and wilted greens, with little else on the plate. I made quick work of them, then speared morsels from my wife's dinner.

Her delicious striped bass fillet was cut thickly and the skin had been crisped, but I think the waitress was mistaken describing it as wild, not farmed. I tried both a piece of the fish and fatty skin, as well as shaved fennel.

The best value was the moist half chicken, which was served with a crostini spread with chicken liver.

We drank tap water and didn't have wine or dessert, though a cheese plate served to a couple at the next table looked terrific. We spent $108.63, including a $15 tip.

Lupa Osteria Romana, 170 Thompson St., Manhattan; 212-982-5089.

Web site: Antipasti, primi, secondi

Canned sardine news

Those 99-cents little wonders -- Al Shark-brand sardines from Morocco -- disappeared from the shelves in Paterson markets for a while, but I found them again on Monday morning at Brothers Produce, 327 E. Railway Ave.

The price went up 1 cent, to $1.00. Skinless-and-boneless sardines are higher.

I bought 20 cans, half of sardines in tomato sauce and half with hot peppers.

I also was looking for yogurt drink, but Brothers only had half-gallons from Merve Ayran at $4.79 each.

At Fattal's Bakery, 975-977 Main St., the half-gallons were $4.49 and the gallon container I bought was $7.79.

I also picked by the wonderful store-made spinach-and-cheese pies at six for $8.99.

Another swing through BJ's Wholesale Club

Image by ~Twon~ via Flickr

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I made a second visit to BJ's Wholesale Club in Paramus on Monday afternoon and got a better sense of how its fresh, prepared and frozen food compares to Costco's.

I have tried to compare prices, but each club store carries its own brand, as well as different outside brands for ravioli, chicken, yogurt and many other items. Package sizes also vary, but it appears BJ's has less variety than Costco's.

BJ's had five or six kinds of fresh fish fillets -- all but one of them farmed -- and frozen, wild-caught shrimp from Mexico and the United States at $11.99 a pound, but the latter did not indicate the state, and I wondered if they could have come from the BP-tainted Gulf of Mexico. 

Costco has more wild fish available, but no wild-caught shrimp. Both stores sell frozen farmed shrimp and prawns from Vietnam.

On my first visit, I saw Phillips Maryland-style crab cakes for $1.69 less than they are sold at Costco, but on Monday, there was only another brand, Mama Belle's Maryland-style crab cakes (made in Florida). 

Mama Belle's, like Phillips, lists crab as the first ingredient, but uses bread crumbs as a binder.  Mama Belle's is a better buy: 24 ounces for $9.99 compared with 18 ounces for $13.69.

I also picked up Fresh Express organic spring mix, 50 cents more than Costco's Earthbound Farm brand; three pounds of Sunset-brand, herbicide-free plum tomatoes, cheaper per pound than the two-pound package at Costco, but they don't taste as good for some reason. Maybe they need to ripen more.

BJ's also sells salmon burgers made from wild-caught, Pacific Ocean fish, 10 for $11.99 v. Costco's 12 for $12.99. Finally, I picked up an 80-ounce jar of Rosoff new half-sour pickles for $5.99.

BJ's has a good selection of gourmet ravioli, including those from Chef Mario Batali, but I didn't see any lobster ravioli, which are available at Costco.

BJ's also can't match Costco's smoked wild sockeye salmon.

Both Costco and BJ's issue their own coupons, but BJ's coupons are not available to me during my trial membership.

See:

Checking out the food at B.J.'s Wholesale Club

I'm off to eat Italy

Image by Montanaro Maurizio™ via Flickr












Chef Mario Batali and his partners have opened another Manhattan emporium of Italian food they call Eataly, but I'm going them one better with a trip to Milan and Venice.

I know the food will be fabulous in the north of Italy, but I've already had a great summer filled with delicious, wild-caught seafood and farm-fresh fruits and vegetables right here in North Jersey.

I plan to take notes and regale you with descriptions of my meals, and I'll try to drop into food stores to see what Italians are buying to prepare at home. I'll be back in under two weeks. 

Italy is where the Slow Food movement began, and the first Eataly opened there as a showcase for the many antidotes to fast food -- a combination market and cafes.

The $24.07 lunch (Chapter 2)

I went into the city with a friend for the $24.07 lunch today at Del Posto, the fine-dining Italian restaurant opened by Chef Mario Batali and others. We ate in 34 minutes -- we had to park more than two blocks away and were limited to a one-hour meter (cost $2).

The meal, three courses for the price of a lunch entree, included heirloom tomatoes, smoked prosciutto (speck) and drug- and hormone-free Berkshire pork, in an elegant setting of marble and dark wood. Highlights were a complimentary prosecco aperitif and the bread, baked in-house, especially a dark roll filled with black olives. I started with the prosciutto, served with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese shavings and baby arugula. Both of us had the pork loin, a gloriously moist and fatty medallion, topped with some onions and sweet peppers. Dessert was ricotta cheesecake and small, sweet strawberries.

The food was delicious, the service crisp and our bread basket was replenished without prompting. On the way out, we looked at the posted dinner menu, which offers Dover sole for two at $130. And Manhattan remains a hassle, with limited street parking and way too many cars. That's why I had my first $24.07 lunch on a Sunday, when you can park just about anywhere and you don't have to feed the meters.

Today was supposed to be the last day of Summer Restaurant Week, but all the places taking part have extended the $24.07 lunches and $35 dinners to Labor Day. I wonder where I'll go next?