Clothes too big? Rush down to Costco Wholesale

This week, Costco Wholesale in Hackensack dropped the price of fresh, wild-caught sockeye salmon fillets by $1 a pound, above and below.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss a store with quality clothing and great food; a sale on live lobsters, and my favorite place for breakfast.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

When you find a diet that works, you'll lose weight and start running out of clothes that fit, as I did this summer in northern New Jersey.

The heat wave we're enduring had me rifling through a dozen pair of shorts, and only 3 had 38-inch waists.

The rest swam on me -- with 40- and 42-inch waists. 

So on Thursday, I headed for Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, where I found a polo shirt and 3 pairs of shorts for me; a dress shirt for my teenage son; and for dinner, fresh, wild sockeye salmon at a new, lower price.

Wild salmon with ripe peaches and tomatoes, cinnamon and garden herbs.

Herbs and fresh lime juice go well with wild salmon.

My no-bread, no-pizza diet, suggested by a trainer at my old gym, has worked beautifully, and I've shed more than 45 pounds over 3 years and cut my waist size 4 inches.

I eat brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and sweet potatoes as bread substitutes.

Click on the following link to assemble Wild Salmon with Ripe Peaches and Tomatoes:

Rich fish, sweet fruit and cinnamon

Roast wild salmon at 375 degrees for 9 minutes (rare) or 12 minutes (cooked through).

Costco clothing

One of the shorts was a blue plaid, fully lined, for only $14.99. The others were $19.99 each. A bright orange performance polo shirt was also $14.99, and the 100% cotton, spread-collar dress shirt was only $17.99.

The Kirkland Signature clothing is made in Jordan, Vietnam and China.

I also saw beautifully lined slacks made in Italy of light-weight wool for only $49.99.

I already have 2 pairs of the Kirkland Signature dress pants, but plan on buying some for my son. 

A bowl of fresh lobster tails and claws.

Lime juice is all I use to accent the buttery lobster meat.

Lobster feast

Costco Wholesale doesn't sell live lobsters, but ShopRite does and they are $5.99 a pound during the Summer Can Can Sale.

I bought 3 lobsters averaging 1.4 pound each for just under $30 at the Englewood ShopRite on Wednesday.

I boiled them in a large, covered pan for 10 minutes; twisted off the tails, claws and legs, and served them with a wild-brown rice blend I found at Costco.

A bottle of Mexican hot sauce is on every table at the Golden Grill in Teaneck.

Broiled fresh whiting with an egg-white omelet. Hold the toast, and enjoy the Golden Grill's wonderful home fries.

My son's sausage-and-vegetable omelet.

Golden Grill


My 16-year-old son had to fast for a blood test -- a good excuse to have breakfast out at the Golden Grill in Teaneck, the only place I know that serves fresh fish or homemade fish cakes with eggs.

I ordered the whiting broiled, not fried, and asked for an egg-white omelet and no toast ($7).

My son went with a sausage-and-vegetable omelet with home fries and buttered toast ($7.50).

If you're not on a diet, the French bakery on the same side of the street can satisfy any sweet tooth.

Golden Grill Restaurant, 1379 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck; 201-837-1078. Open for breakfast and lunch.

Wild Salmon with Ripe Peaches and Tomatoes

Homemade wild Alaskan sockeye salmon with ripe peaches and tomatoes. I roasted the fish on parchment paper in a 375-degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Other ingredients are fresh oregano from the garden, fresh lime juice, ground Aleppo pepper and ground cinnamon. Everything except the Aleppo pepper and oregano is available at Costco Wholesale.

I had to wait a few days for the peaches to ripen on my kitchen counter before buying a fillet of wild sockeye salmon from the Copper River in Alaska at Costco Wholesale ($13.99 a pound).

I also had reserved a few ripe Sunset-brand beefsteaks to prepare Wild Salmon with Ripe Peaches and Tomatoes, but decided to try it without the salty capers I used last year.

My teenage son suggested I try cinnamon on the peaches, in addition to the lime juice and spicy ground Aleppo pepper I use for seasoning the fish.

I cut the salmon fillet into serving pieces and placed them on parchment paper in a pan, adding the peach segments and sliced tomatoes between the pieces.

The peaches and tomatoes heated through in the 10 minutes I roasted the fish in a 375-degree oven, and the sweet fruit tastes great when eaten with the rich salmon.

Next time, I'll use capers and more cinnamon, and season everything with the sweet-hot powder.

I made a 10-inch frittata with smoked wild salmon, tomato, pesto, and reduced-fat milk and cheeses, using two whole organic eggs and the new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites, a clear, watery liquid that will take some getting used to. All the ingredients are available at Costco.

The watery egg whites don't give a frittata the body of the item it replaces, Kirkland Signature Real Egg Product, which was thickened with food gums and colored yellow. More whole eggs may be the solution.



Good and bad

I made my first Saturday morning frittata with the new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites, and may have to use more whole eggs for body.

The new product is 100% liquid egg whites -- clear and watery -- and doesn't have any of the thickening agents, spices or color in Costco Wholesale's old Real Egg Product.

I used only 2 whole organic eggs and may have to up that to 4 in the future.

The frittata came out fluffy, but a little watery.

Leftover frittata and wild salmon made for a filling breakfast.

Another Breakfast of Champions: Wild salmon with leftover collard greens.

A couple of pounds of green-leaf and red-leaf lettuce are the first produce from my garden. They came from plants we purchased at H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain.