Trader Joe's is still on my list

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Before we pledged to eat meatless meals more than two weeks ago, Trader Joe's was a reliable source for uncured, preservative-free bacon, hot dogs and cold cuts, and incredible, naturally raised, fully cooked St. Louis-style ribs from the Niman Ranch -- all at good prices.


When I found myself in Westwood yesterday, I dropped into the Trader Joe's there to see what else might help us diversify our homemade dinners.

I went looking right away for one of our favorites -- sliced yogurt cheese with jalapeno ($4.69) -- and discovered shredded soy three-cheese blend ($3.79), and other soy cheeses for future shopping trips. I also picked up some great hand-made tortillas -- flour and whole wheat ($2.49 each) and habanero lime ($2.69).

And I bought another bottle of raw organic agave sweetener ($2.99) , which is terrific over yogurt or pancakes, and Trader Joe's premium extra-virgin olive oil ($7.99 for 32 ounces). The front label says imported from Italy, but on the side, it lists four countries for the product: Italy, Spain, Argentina and Greece.

Web site: Trader Joe's

Shopping, cooking and tasting notes

Have you seen these Stop & Shop TV commercials where a woman learns to make pizza at home to save money and invites friends over for dinner? I don't want to learn how to make pizza, but I was interested in mention of  $4.88 for 5 pounds of clementines with a store card -- the lowest price I've seen.

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I visit Stop & Shop about once a month to look over its Nature's Promise offerings that are found throughout the store. These are naturally raised or grown items such as poultry, meat, eggs, milk, organic lemonade and so forth. Yesterday, I went to the Teaneck store for the clementines and to pick up a few things I needed to serve the delightful Syrian meat sandwiches called arayes, which we've enjoyed at Aleppo Restaurant in Paterson. (My spelling of arayes is just a guess.)

The box of clementines looked to be identical to those from Spain, but this one was from Morocco. Still, you can't beat the price (reduced from $7.99) and they turned out to be sweet, though harder to peel than their Spanish counterparts. I weighed the box and fruit  in the store and they totaled 5.32 pounds.

For the arayes, I needed parsley (99 cents for a big bunch, most of which will go to waste) and some Nature's Promise ground beef to add to the naturally raised ground lamb I bought the day before at Whole Foods in Paramus. I also picked up Nature's Promise large brown eggs ($2.99 a dozen) and organic, low-fat milk ($3.69).

Chuck, one of my loyal readers, advised me to use a lot of chopped parsley for the arayes meat, which totaled about a pound and a quarter. I also seasoned the lamb-beef mixture with salt, sumac, allspice, cumin and Aleppo red pepper, and added finely chopped onion and red pepper before hand mixing it.

I split two medium-size pocket breads from Fattal's Bakery in Paterson, spreading and pressing the meat as thinly as possible into each of the four halves. I put them under the broiler until the meat was firm and sizzling, then reunited the halves and cut each sandwich into four quarters. (I made lamb burgers with the rest of the meat and put them into the freezer.)

They were yummy and tasted pretty close to what we've had in restaurants. I served the arayes last night with lamb sausage from Fattal's, yellow rice, canned fava beans with my added tahini sauce and salad.

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This morning, I fried one Nature's Promise large brown egg -- sunny side up -- in extra-virgin olive oil, seasoning it with a little salt and a generous pinch of Aleppo red pepper. I toasted one large and one small roll, and ate the egg with this and that -- a slice of Swiss cheese, some tuna-red salmon-sardine salad, wild lox, kimchi and seasoned tofu. Life is good. We've been eating only egg whites for far too long.

Christmas Eve Cubano

We fought the holiday traffic today and drove to West New York, but, luckily, there was an empty parking spot waiting for us in the small lot next to La Pola Restaurant, self-described "King of the Cuban Sandwich." To that, I say, Amen.

Inside, proprietor Belarmino Rico, his wife, sons, grandchildren and merry band of helpful employees made and served hot sandwiches, or Cubanos, and packed up Christmas specialties his customers had ordered -- roasted hams, ribs and  whole, butterflied pigs; the rice-and-black beans combination called congris; tamales, Spanish potato omelets, plantain chips (photo) and chicharrones or fried pork rinds.

Rico, who was born in the Asturian village of La Pola in Spain, lived in Cuba and learned to make the sandwiches at his uncle's bodega in Havana.

My Christmas menu now is set:

Alaskan king crab and sweet corn chowder (Costco)
Cuban roast pork
Congris (white rice cooked with black beans)
Tortilla espanola (potato omelet)
Cuban ham croquettes
Organic spring mix salad
Wine
Pear and hazelnut galette (Balthazar Bakery)

One of my guests and her children don't eat pork, so I'll prepare Australian leg of lamb for her, and an organic hamburger and uncured hot dog for the kids, with mashed potatoes.

La Pola Restaurant, 5400 Palisade Ave (54th Street), 
West New York;  (201) 867-6028. Call for holiday hours.
 

Shopping and cooking notes

Besides the free-range, grass-fed Australian beef I went for, I had hoped to pick up a few other things on my trip to the ShopRite in Rochelle Park yesterday, but prices were all over the place.

As I walked into the store, I saw a stack of boxes with clementines, not from Spain but from Morocco, for a low $4.99 with a store card. But not far away, a 2-pound package of the elusive herbicide-free Campari tomatoes were priced at  $7.99 -- $4 a pound. I just stared at the price sign in disbelief. I did pick up two pointy cantaloupes from Guatemala for $3.

The Australian whole tenderloin for filet mignon was on sale for $4.99 a pound with a store card, but I couldn't find any that weighed more than 4.6 pounds, even though the sales circular said average weight was 6 pounds to 8 pounds. It's sold under the Nature's Reserve label. Next to it, the same cut of beef marked USDA Select -- the lowest of three U.S. government grades -- was on sale for $6.99 a pound. Why is free-range, grass-fed beef selling for $2 a pound less than conventionally raised beef? The sale ends Saturday.

When I got home, I trimmed as much fat as possible from the tenderloin, sliced it thin and divided it among three freezer bags, pouring on Korean bulgogi marinade (it looked similar to what is shown in photo above). They went into the freezer, enough for three meals of Korean barbecue at home with rice, red-leaf lettuce for wrapping and store-bought side dishes.

Then I prepared dinner -- spaghetti with sardines. This is not the classic Italian recipe of  pasta con sarde, which uses a tomato-less sauce . This is a thrown together recipe that takes only the time needed to boil the pasta.

I used three cans of Moroccan sardines in tomato sauce I bought at Fattal's Bakery in Paterson for 89 cents a can (Fattal's has the best sardine prices around). The sardines have no oil, so I poured three or four ounces of extra-virgin oilive oil over the fish in the pan, then added about a cup and a half of  leftover marinara sauce, dried Italian seasoning, basil and oregano, and red pepper flakes. Meanwhile, I boiled a half-pound of thick spaghetti.

With a big salad of organic salad greens, bread and Italian red wine, it was a satisfying, meatless meal, but I should have made more spaghetti, my 12-year-old son said.

ShopRite of Rochelle Park, 220 W. Passaic St.;

(201) 843-1424; open 24 hours.

Fattal's Bakery, 975 Main St.; (973) 742-7125;

Paterson; open seven days.

Pushing and shoving for giant bluefin tuna

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Hundreds of Mitsuwa Marketplace customers watched in awe today as more than a dozen workers reduced a giant bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Spain to sushi and small blocks of sashimi.

The narrator, a Long Island commercial fisherman named Michael, said the dressed fish -- minus head, tail and innards -- weighed 680 pounds, the largest ever at the Edgewater Japanese supermarket's annual "cutting performances." The total weight was around 1,000 pounds.

Michael is clearly fascinated with this magnificent creature and he pointed out how the giant tuna can retract its fins into "pockets" for further streamlining. This tuna was caught by rod and reel as it was gorging itself  in preparation for migration to warmer waters, so it was near its maximum weight. It was then bled and immersed in icy water before being flown to the U.S.

They grow so large, the Japanese refer to them as "swimming buffalo," he said.

Michael said giant bluefin tuna -- the biggest tuna species --  contain beneficial Omega-7 fatty acids and that pieces of oh-toro, well-marbled belly meat, are sold in Manhattan sushi restaurants for $12 to $16 a piece. At last year's performance, the oh-toro cost about $60 a pound and I bought a quarter pound  for about $15. The price this year was $62.99 a pound, and I had to take more than a half pound for about $33.


As the fish was being cut into smaller pieces, weighed, labeled and wrapped, people in the crowd started pressing forward and reaching over others for packages from individual workers, signaling a breakdown of the system where people lined up to make purchases. I even saw one worker give free, unwrapped fish to people he seemed to know. Michael said that on Saturday, when two giant bluefin tunas were cut up, he witnessed a shoving match between two men.

Also this year, one section of the tuna's large collar was offered for sale, and I grabbed it for $30. They gave it to me in a large garbage bag with a price label affixed. The piece was about 21 inches long and weighed close to 9 pounds, but when I got it home, it didn't fit into my pan. I roasted it for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees and I've never seen fish give up so much oil, which dripped onto the bottom of the oven and started smoking.

I ate some of the medium- to dark-red flesh raw before putting the collar into the oven. When cooked, it was a little easier to remove the meat and I harvested about two pounds. The kitchen was a mess, with oil and bits of fish, cartilage and skin all over the place. Buying the collar turned out to be a mistake. Luckily, the harried cashier rang it up for 30 cents, instead of $30.

Self -checkout can be a nightmare

Anyone know of a self-checkout system that goes smoothly every time you use it? My last experience, at the Super Stop & Shop in Hackensack yesterday, was frustrating and confusing, and I needed the assistance of an employee as well as the woman behind me to complete my purchase.

I went there to buy drug-free Australian shoulder lamb chops (on sale through Thursday for $3.69 a pound) and picked up antibiotic-free chicken legs sold under the Nature's Promise label, four packages in all. There was no price sign near the clementines from Spain -- the first I've seen this year -- and no wonder. A produce worker said they were $9.99 for a five-pound box, about twice what I'm used to paying.

The self-checkout systerm  -- called "EZ Shopper" -- turned out to be a broken promise. Three of my four packages scanned with a beep, but the fourth didn't and the belt ran backward. The employee came over to help. Then, after I swiped my credit card, I couldn't find the box in which to sign my name (it wasn't on the pad where I swiped the card). The woman behind me showed me it was located elesewhere.

In all the confusion, I didn't get credit for my reusable bag.