At our holiday feast, we throw in the towel a couple of fish short of mark

TODAY'S FIRST FISH: Lobster Bisque from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro with a pinch of Aleppo red pepper.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After I gave up meat and poultry, the Italian-American Feast of the Seven Fishes has always been my idea of a great celebratory meal.

OK. So I took a little liberty, serving the feast on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve.

And both me and my son just didn't have room for the Sixth and Seventh Fish -- organic whole-wheat pasta with sardines and anchovies.

And if purists insist that I shouldn't have had lobster twice, I offer up the egg-white omelet I had for breakfast today -- stuffed with wild Alaskan smoked sockeye salmon and reduced-fat Swiss cheese.

SECOND AND THIRD FISH: Salads of fresh-cooked live lobster and canned wild Alaskan pink salmon, both dressed with fresh lime juice, Dijon mustard and seasonings. 

$8.99 A POUND AT SHOPRITE IN PARAMUS: I boiled three live lobsters weighing a total of 3.95 pounds for 12 minutes, and used the tender claw, knuckle and tail meat to make the lobster salads.

FOURTH FISH: A Maryland-style jumbo lump crab cake, with a spoonful of basil pesto, both from Costco.

TRADER JOE'S STUFFED LOBSTER HALF: We had only one frozen crab cake left so I served my son a frozen item from Trader Joe's in Paramus, a shell stuffed with lobster, crab and langostino.

FIFTH FISH: Live Prince Edward Island Mussels, also from the Paramus ShopRite, cooked quickly in a covered pot with chicken broth, sesame oil, sake, fresh tomatoes, and chopped garlic, sweet pepper, celery and scallion.

SIXTH AND SEVENTH FISH: Our final course in today's Feast of the Seven Fishes was supposed to be leftover organic whole wheat pasta spirals (ShopRite) with Moroccan sardines (Fattal's in Paterson) and fresh spinach, dressed in Trader Joe's Puttanesca Sauce, which is made with anchovy paste. This is a portion I had on Friday night.

A Costco with no parking problems, no crowds, no waiting to check out

Costco Wholesale members who fight for a parking space, then fight the crowds inside the store, fantasize about shopping in a near-empty warehouse, such as the one shown above and below.

This warehouse even has a food court with 18-inch pizzas and all of the other Costco favorites you find elsewhere.

Editor's note: We prepare most of our meals at home, so I'm still waiting for the one food store in northern New Jersey that has organics and everything else at great prices. Meanwhile, I continue to make the rounds of my favorites, including Costco Wholesale, H Mart and ShopRite.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You died and went to Costco Wholesale shopping heaven in Hackensack, N.J.

That sums up the experience of walking into a Costco warehouse where you'll encounter only a handful of other customers and cashiers waiting to check out your purchases.

This warehouse closed in October 2015, when a bigger and far busier Costco, plus a gas station, opened in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center off of busy Route 46.

Five months later, a renovated Hackensack warehouse opened as a Costco Business Center, where the focus is on such small businesses as restaurants and caterers, and delivers their orders.

That's why the parking lot and the store are such a pleasure.

The old food court also was renovated, but you won't find a pharmacy, optical services, photo department, tires, clothing or a separate store with wine.

True. The selection is limited. 

But you can pick up produce, eggs, milk, bread, water, snack bars, candy and many other items stocked by a regular Costco Wholesale.

Instead of fighting the crowds at the Teterboro Costco on Saturday afternoon, I dashed out to the Hackensack warehouse for:

One of the best salads in the world, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.79 for a 1-pound package); incomparable Campari Tomatoes ($5.49 for 2 pounds), 6 pounds of large Bosc Pears ($6.99), 2.5 pounds of Starbucks French Roast Coffee Beans ($15.49 with an instant coupon), and KIND snack bars ($18.99).

The Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack carries hothouse-grown Campari Tomatoes from both Canada and Mexico. They prove winter tomatoes don't have to be watery or mealy or both. For a real treat, pop one whole into you mouth and bite into it.

The Business Center also carries 22-ounce jars of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, a refrigerated product. Here, I dressed organic whole wheat pasta with pesto and organic pine nuts, and washed them down with a glass of Kirkland Signature Malbec, a red wine from Argentina.

After my pasta, I enjoyed a salad of triple-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, including peppery arugula, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

 

The Costco Wholesale Business Center at 80 S. River St. in Hackensack is open until 6 p.m. on weekdays, 4 p.m. on Saturdays and closes on Sundays. It's also closer to my home than the new Teterboro warehouse.

Although the H Mart supermarket in Little Ferry is as shabby as ever, managers have added dividers in the fresh fish case, as well as new signs, above and below. On Sunday, the store had no heat, so a free sample of hot noodle soup with fish cakes was greatly appreciated.

An employee acknowledged the new signs are missing a required piece of information -- whether the fish is wild or farmed -- and said the store will be remedying that. I bought three whole wild-caught red snappers for pan frying at home, and munched on free seafood samples at a nearby counter while my fish was cleaned.

I also bought Organic Brown Shimeji Mushrooms.

At the Little Ferry H Mart, the price of a 5-pound box of Spanish Clementines has fluctuated -- from $7.99 on Nov. 6 to $3.99 on Dec. 4, above, and to $5.99 on Sunday.

At the ShopRite in Paramus this afternoon, 1-liter bottles of Alonia-brand Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain were only $3.99 each, an unusually low price for an EVOO that isn't a blend from several countries. I bought three bottles with a best-by date of January 2019 for dressing salads, adding to pasta sauces and eating with bread. 

The ShopRite in Paramus, at 224 Route 4 east, also is accessible from Forest Avenue.

Amid the widely publicized adulteration of some extra-virgin olive oils in Italy, the price of this heart-healthy oil has risen dramatically, and producers have been shrinking the traditional 1-liter bottle and 3-liter tin, and selling what are called Mediterranean blends of EVOOs from several countries, including Greece, Spain, Tunisia and Portugal. Above, Colavita "100% Certified Italian" Extra-Virgin Olive was $14.99 for less than a full liter at the Paramus ShopRite.

A blend of extra-virgin olive oils was $7.99 for a half-liter bottle. A full liter is 33.8 ounces.

ShopRite says it imports extra-virgin olive oil made from Italian-grown olives. Here, a 1-liter bottle was $8.99, but I've seen it on sale for $6.99.

Enjoying homemade pesto, pan-fried fish, pasta with sardines and more

Homemade pesto -- basil from my garden, garlic, grated cheese, pine nuts, salt and extra-virgin olive oil -- is a savory accent on a wedge of sweet-potato frittata.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Fragrant basil leaves growing abundantly in my garden are just a distance memory, but I still have one decent portion of homemade pesto in the freezer.

Although pesto is most commonly used as a dressing for pasta, it's versatile enough to spread on a sandwich or to accent a fish fillet just off the grill.

I also use it in omelets and on frittatas. 

Until Costco Wholesale unveiled Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in 2013, I always made my own pesto in large batches using a blender recipe that could be frozen before the addition of grated cheese.

You'll find the recipe here: 

How to enjoy pesto without pasta

Now that my plants stand withered from the summer heat, I'll return to enjoying Costco's refrigerated pesto, which uses basil leaves from Italy.

Season one carton or 16 ounces of liquid egg whites mixed with grated cheese before adding the mixture to a 10-inch preheated pan with olive oil. As the crust sets, you can add sweet potato slices, boiled separately until you can pierce them with a fork. Then, move the non-stick pan into the broiler until the crust browns (about 15 minutes at a low broiler setting).

Pesto, which requires no heating, can be added to a frittata after it is removed from the oven. I also added crushed Aleppo pepper.

I used homemade pesto and organic pignoli nuts to dress an 8.8-ounce package of Delverde-brand Tagliatelle Nests with Spinach from Italy. These mouth-filling noodles take only about 5 minutes to reach al-dente perfection. I use unsalted water because there is plenty of sodium in homemade or Costco pesto.

A 10-inch egg-white omelet can be stuffed with Costco's smoked wild salmon, pesto and Mexican-style salsa, all sold under the Kirkland Signature house label. I made this omelet with my own pesto.

I had my omelet for breakfast with a baked sweet potato and grilled Chinese eggplant.

I thought I had found a good buy on wild-caught Gulf Shrimp at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, above and below, but when I turned over the bag, the ingredients included salt and sodium bisulfite, a preservative. I passed.

An unusual item at the Little Ferry H Mart is jackfruit, sold in large pieces for around $5 to $6. If you buy one, make sure you refrigerate it when you get home.

I rely on the Korean supermarket for fresh whole fish at low prices, such as this porgy my wife seasoned and pan fried in olive oil ($2.99 a pound). Three porgies came in under $10. I also picked up baby mustard greens, which were on sale for 78 cents a pound.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite in Paramus dressed in Victoria Marinara, Moroccan sardines and fresh cherry tomatoes. I added a little extra-virgin olive oil and a few ounces of red wine to the sauce, plus dried Italian herbs and red-pepper flakes.

A heart-healthy dinner for four with leftovers: A 1-pound box of whole-wheat pasta, a 40-ounce jar of marinara and three or four cans of sardines, mashed with a fork before you add them to the sauce. I left a few ounces of sauce in the bottle and used them to poach two organic eggs for breakfast the next day.

Leftover whole-wheat pasta is a great bread substitute at breakfast.

Dozens of free samples, including the full-fat cheeses I rarely buy, are available at Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, above and below.

I had a hard time resisting marinated cherry size fresh mozzarella, left, and sampled three with a toothpick.

On Friday, I hit the jackpot with one of Jerry's restaurant-quality take-out dinners made with a soft-shell crab. The complete dinner included string beans, pasta, a stuffed mushroom and a cucumber salad, marked down to $5.99 after 4 p.m.

Other Meals To Go were built around a grouper fillet, chicken picata or sausage. 

At ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue in Paramus, the store-brand of Greek Non-fat Yogurt with Fruit was on sale this week (75 cents each), and seemed a better buy than other brands, including Oikos, Chobani and Fage. At home, I opened one of the ShopRite cups, below, but found it wasn't full. The cup holds 8 ounces, but contains only 5.3 ounces of thick yogurt and fruit, the net weight listed on the side.

Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice carries a badge from the Non-GMO Project, telling consumers the oranges weren't grown using genetically modified seed. 

At the Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 South River St. in Hackensack, a 2-pound bag of triple-washed kale was $3.89 on Thursday. A week earlier, I saw the same bag of kale being sold at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for $5.39 -- a dramatic example of how prices can vary at the two warehouses.

Here's to a glorious week of coaxing sweet lobsters out of their shells

Just about the best deal around is the $19.95 Twin Lobster Special on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at Meson Madrid, a Spanish restaurant in Palisades Park, served with soup or salad, rice, bread and addictive house-made potato chips.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, Jack's Lobster Shack in Edgewater offers a special 1.5-pound Lobster Dinner with salad, corn and coleslaw (market price). Last Tuesday, the dinner was $25.95 a person.

This week, the ShopRite in Paramus had a big sale on live lobsters --only $5.77 a pound for any size, with a limit of 10 pounds. We bought four lobsters totaling 6.15 pounds for dinner last Sunday, and boiled them at home for 15 minutes, above.

Editor's note: I've updated this post with a photo of a Lobster Salad in a Dijon mustard-lime dressing I made at home late this afternoon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The lobsters were young, the customers old.

In my quest to eat as much luxurious lobster meat as I could this week, I dined out three times and cooked this glorious crustacean twice at home.

At two early dinners and a lunch out, the youngest people there were servers and other staff.

It seems like retired folks with means don't have much else to do in the afternoon but eat out.

On Thursday night at Meson Madrid, which offers a twin-lobster special for $19.95, my wife looked around at the other customers and said she felt like she was eating in a nursing home.

Earlier that day, I met two friends for lunch at Esty Street, a stuffy, dimly lit fine-dining restaurant in Park Ridge that serves a mediocre Lobster Caesar Salad for $24.

We were the only ones seated in the dining room, but a handful of other customers in the bar appeared to be in their Seventies and Eighties. 

The story was the same at around 4 in the afternoon at Jack's Lobster Shack, an informal BYO with a nautical theme that serves lobsters "direct from Maine," but doesn't offer an early bird special.

The big draw at Jack's on Mondays and Tuesdays is a 1.5-pound Lobster Dinner for about $10 less than at other times, and on the day we went, the place was filled with seniors. 

At home last Sunday, we enjoyed a simple dinner of sweet lobster claw and tail meat with greens and a glass of wine. I ate mine with a splash of fresh lime juice. Three of us shared four 1.5-pound lobsters.

At Jack's Lobster Shack in Edgewater, my wife was wowed by her Crab Cake appetizer ($11), served over mixed greens and crowned with lemon aioli. 

My Fried Calamari appetizer was tender and greaselss, but at $9, not as good a deal as the Crab Cake my wife had.

Jack's Lobster Shack

We made our first visit to Jack's in Edgewater to celebrate a special occasion, but were pleased to see we could take advantage of the 1.5-pound Lobster Dinner Special served on Mondays and Tuesdays (market price).

My wife said her Crab Cake appetizer was "to die for," and she's eaten them in Maryland and just about everywhere else.

The lobster, salad, corn and coleslaw were terrific, and we'll definitely go back. We enjoyed a bottle of Prosecco, a sparkling wine from Italy, with the food at this River Road BYO.

If I have a choice, I always prefer a whole live lobster over a Lobster Roll or Lobster Salad, because I can do without the bread, mayo and butter.

I really enjoyed the premium spring mix in the salad with Jack's Lobster Dinner Special. When you pay full price for the dinner, soup and pickle also are included.

At Jack's, you place you order at this counter and the food is delivered to your table in the dining room, which is decorated with lobster traps and other gear. During our meal, a server cleared a metal dish of shells and brought us more napkins. 

Jack's Lobster Shack is at 1040 River Road, Edgewater; 201-224-2808. BYO, free street parking and a municipal lot with a pay station. 

Open 7 days. Reservations only accepted for parties of 8 or more. Website: Jack's Lobster Shack

Esty Street's classic Lobster Caesar Salad is served as an entree at lunch for $24, but only contains half of a small lobster. In a recent newspaper article, owner Kim Costagliola was quoted as saying that as a dinner appetizer, the same salad includes "half of a 2-pound lobster," but the price wasn't given.

Esty Street

Stuffy restaurants with exaggerated reputations like Esty Street in Park Ridge have never been my cup of tea.

But I was drawn there by a newspaper photo of its classic Lobster Caesar Salad dinner appetizer, which turned out to be made with a bigger crustacean than the same salad served as a lunch entree.

The difference wasn't mentioned in the article, typical of the sloppy reporting by the paper's restaurant reviewer.

The Caesar dressing appealed to me, but hearts of romaine were used, instead of the leafy green part, and they looked and tasted like iceberg lettuce.

The salad also includes roasted peppers, avocado, candied walnuts and crumbled bacon, but I got mine without that last ingredient.

Don't bother

At lunch on Thursday, the dressing had no pizzazz, and I would have liked to see a tablespoonful of the restaurant's arugula pesto crowning the overpriced salad ($24).

Or, the chef could make it with a dressing I use for Alaskan King Crab Salad: Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice, ground cumin and other spices.

One of my friends also ordered the Lobster Caesar Salad, and was disappointed. But my second friend wisely chose an entree of Jumbo Sea Scallops ($23), and was very happy. 

There were other problems at Esty Street that have no place in such an expensive restaurant:

My knife was dirty, so I put it aside and used a butter knife to cut my lobster tail; when I ordered coffee, the cup set down in front of me was dirty and had to be replaced; and the coffee, poured from a pot, looked like dishwater and tasted weak ($4 with one refill). 

Where is the nearest Starbucks?

I hate flies in dining rooms, but saw one at Esty Street; Jack's Lobster Shack, where the filthy insect landed inside my empty wine glass; and Meson Madrid.

And although Esty Street offered more than a half-dozen specials, the waiter who recited them was speaking so quickly we had a hard time understanding what he was saying.

Another classic at Esty Street -- the arugula pesto made with pecans and served with the restaurant's bread, according to the newspaper -- was nowhere to be seen at lunch on Thursday. Instead, we got butter.

Esty Street's bread is ordinary, but bearable, if you ask for some extra-virgin olive oil for dipping, above. The restaurant is at 86 Spring Valley Road in Park Ridge; 201-307-1515. Website: Not worth the detour

A glass of smooth House Cabernet is $8 at Meson Madrid, 343 Bergen Boulevard in Palisades Park; 201-947-1038. The salad with the Twin Lobster Special comes with French Dressing, below. Website: For Lobster Lovers

When is the last time you saw dressing served in a boat?

Meson Madrid

This outpost of paella and other classic dishes from Spain hasn't changed since my last visit many years ago.

You can still find a box outside the restaurant for donations of used eyeglasses, cases and so forth.

On Thursday, we returned to Meson Madrid for the unbeatable Twin Lobster Special, served with soup or salad, house-made potato chips, rice and bread for only $19.95.

My wife liked her entree, Shrimp in Garlic Sauce with Linguine for $18.95, but couldn't finish it. 

The service was great, and I heard waiters telling customers the Twin Lobster Special was available that night. 

At Meson Madrid, you get enough bread to make two Cuban sandwiches, but it's not worth the calories or carbs.

We didn't touch the rice served with the Twin Lobster Special, but couldn't stop eating the house-made potato chips. I paused only to take this photo. A friend who goes there frequently says you can ask for more.

This morning, I returned to the seafood department at ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue in Paramus, to pick up more live wild-caught lobsters for dinner (201-843-6616). The $5.77-a-pound sale ends today.

This afternoon, I boiled five small lobsters from ShopRite for 12 minutes, and extracted the tail, claw and knuckle meat for a Lobster Salad, dressed with Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice, ground cumin and coriander, as well as Costco Wholesale's Organic No-Salt Seasoning. Other ingredients were diced sweet pepper, celery, scallion, fresh strawberries, and herbs from my garden, including fresh mint. I served the salad over organic spring mix with tomatoes as a garnish.