Warming up with hot mint tea in South Paterson

A photo of the 13th century Citadel of Aleppo in the dining room of Aleppo Restaurant in Paterson, above and below.

The restaurant is at 939 Main St. in Paterson.

Editor's note: We've had some depressingly chilly and sunless days in North Jersey this January, and I'll take comfort wherever I can find it -- with a glass of hot mint tea or home-cooked favorites.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

It's an especially quiet January for the owners of Middle Eastern stores, restaurants and bakeries in the South Paterson section of Silk City.

On Tuesday, when I had an errand in Paterson -- known for its Great Falls and its glorious silk-industry past -- I immediately thought of stopping at Aleppo Restaurant and Fattal's Bakery on Main Street.

At the Syrian restaurant, the owner emerged from the kitchen and offered me a glass of hot mint tea, made with fresh mint leaves, or his justifiably famous lentil soup to warm up from the chilly, rainy weather.

I love the pureed soup, which reminds me so much of the one my mother prepared, but I chose the tea, adding a half teaspoon of sugar as we caught up, seated in the empty dining room.

When I got home, I rummaged in the cupboard and found a pouch of Basak-brand Lentil Soup from Turkey, reconstituted it with water and heated it up on the stove until it boiled and thickened.

It didn't approach the versions prepared by my mother or Aleppo Restaurant, but I enjoyed it nevertheless, squeezing fresh lime juice over it and adding a generous pinch of ground cumin. 

Fattal's at 975-77 Main St. in Paterson is expanding its parking lot.

99-cents sardines

I purchased the lentil-soup mix on a previous visit to Fattal's, the Syrian bakery, grocery, butcher shop and cafe less than two blocks away from Aleppo Restaurant.

On Tuesday, I picked up 21 cans of Al-Shark Sardines in Tomato Sauce, which has less sodium than the same Moroccan sardines in oil, for 99 cents a can.

These sardines are wonderful in canned fish salad, heated up and eaten with rice, added to pasta sauce and eaten right out of the can with salad.

I also purchased a 28-ounce jar of Salloum Bros. Marmalade from Figs for $5.99, even though I saw a less expensive brand.

Sugar was listed second on the ingredients label of the cheaper brand; Salloum lists it fourth after figs, sesame and anise. Both are from Lebanon.

A favorite snack is a spoonful of fig marmalade followed by a spoonful of Kirkland Signature Natural Peanut Butter from Costco Wholesale, but I also eat the thick fig spread with cheese, almonds and fruit.

I also picked up Fattal's own 6-inch Meat Pies ($8.99), a comfort food that is terrific heated up in the oven, if you eat meat. They can be frozen, too.

My mother sometimes added pine nuts to her chopped meat after spreading it on the oiled dough.

For a sweet-and-savory breakfast, I added Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale to an egg-white omelet and a leftover baked sweet potato.

Besto pesto

I love having a jar of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale in my refrigerator to use at any meal -- whether to spread on a sandwich, add to egg and fish dishes or mix with hot pasta, including whole-wheat shells or imported egg-noodle tagliatelle. 

Ingredients include 100% Italian basil from the province of Genoa, extra-virgin olive oil, sheep's milk and cow's milk cheeses, sea salt, pine nuts, garlic and black pepper.

The pesto doesn't have to be heated up before you mix it with hot pasta, and it's best to add it to fish and egg dishes after you take them out of the oven or off of the stove.

A 22-ounce plastic jar of Basil Pesto is $7.99.

More wonderful things to eat from stores in northern New Jersey

Manchego 100% sheep's milk cheese at Costco Wholesale is aged twice as long, but costs much less per pound than the version sold at Whole Foods Market.

Colavita Whole Wheat Capellini with langostino in vodka sauce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco Wholesale in Hackensack sells more than 50 cheeses, but the 100% sheep's milk cheese from Spain has a special place in my heart.

I first enjoyed the rich, distinctive taste of manchego as part of a dessert in the 1970s after a meal of rabo de toro -- tail of the bull -- in a Madrid restaurant. 

I had spent the late afternoon watching bullfights in Madrid's famous ring, Las Ventas.

The dessert is Manchego y Membrillo -- sheep's milk cheese and quince paste -- recommended by author James Michener in "Iberia."

In the 1980s, on another trip to Spain, I brought home a 2.2 kilogram wheel of Manchego, hidden in my luggage.

I stopped going to bullfights decades ago, and no longer eat meat.

But I can still enjoy manchego from Costco Wholesale, and now pair it with fig marmalade from Lebanon, just one of the many Middle Eastern products sold at Fattal's Bakery, 975-77 Main St., Paterson.

Salloum Bros. Fig Marmalade is accented with anise.

Slices of manchego and a big spoonful of fig marmalade go wonderfully with the unsalted almonds I buy at Costco and roast at home.

Or you can pair the cheese with crisp apple slices or slice it thinly for use in an open-face omelet or with eggs sunny side up.

Earthbound Farm's Organic Half & Half is a great way to end a meal.

Our dinner one night this week was thawed, fully cooked langostino, Colavita Whole Wheat Capellini and bottled Paesana Vodka Sauce, plus a salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Half & Half (Baby Spinach and Spring Mix).

Langostino tails, from a crustacean that falls somewhere between shrimp and lobster, are sold frozen.

I didn't use a recipe. I just assembled the meal:

First, I heated up the sauce, adding some red-pepper flakes and several ounces of extra-virgin olive oil.

Second, I cooked the capellini until it was al dente in just enough unsalted water to cover the pasta. 

The 3-minute cooking time on the Colavita package is optimistic.

Then, I drained the cooked pasta and transferred it and the thawed langostino tails to the sauce, mixing them well over low heat.

The wild-caught, preservative-free langostino, vodka sauce and salad mix are from Costco. The whole wheat pasta came from Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood.

Baskets full of merchandise left behind by spoiled Costco customers who change their minds, but who are too lazy to return the items to where they found them.

Part of a mural at Trader Joe's Chelsea store in Manhattan.

As much as I like Colavita's imported whole-wheat pasta, the whole-wheat pasta from Trader Joe's has several advantages.

Trader Joe's pasta is made from organic durum whole wheat, it contains no sodium, it has more fiber and it costs 10 cents less for a 16-ounce package.

Today, at the Paramus Trader Joe's, I compared the nutrition labels of whole-wheat pasta and Trader Joe's Italian pasta made from durum semolina.

The major difference is more than twice as much fiber in the whole-wheat product.

Two ounces of whole-wheat spaghetti, bottom label, has 5 grams of dietary fiber.

I also stopped at Fairway Market in Paramus, but didn't buy anything beyond what I went for: 3 pounds of coffee from Colombia and the Dominican Republic for $6.99 or $7.99 a pound.

With small pieces of baguette, I sampled a few of the expensive extra-virgin olive oils the store sells.

I saw fresh wild king salmon for $15.99 a pound, compared to $12.99 a pound at Costco.

A Manchego cheese aged for 15 months was $18 a pound, compared to Costco's 6-month Manchego for $8.29 a pound.

Some of the cheeses are so expensive, signs give the price for one-quarter pound, not a full pound, as in most other stores.  

I saw Sunset-brand Campari Tomatoes in a 1-pound package for a high $3.89. 

The store did have 3 packages of grape tomatoes for $5, but many of them contained crushed tomatoes and I passed. 

Jerry's takeout container is marked "MICROWAVABLE SAFE."

We continue to enjoy restaurant-quality Meals To Go from Jerry's in Englewood, but never heat them up in the plastic Anchor-brand takeout container.

I usually get the multi-course meals on Wednesdays after 4 p.m., when they are marked down to $5.99 from $7.99.

As we've done for many years, we plate the food before heating it up in the microwave to avoid a potential transfer of chemicals from the plastic container.

A red-snapper dinner from Jerry's was heated up on a plate, never in the plastic container.