Wild salmon makes good eating year-round

A smoked wild salmon frittata oozes with imported buffalo-milk mozzarella.

Fresh, wild-caught salmon appears to have had its run at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

In the seafood case today, I found thick steaks of ahi or bigeye tuna, and fillets of flounder, haddock and cod, all wild-caught.

I enjoyed plenty of fresh, wild sockeye and king salmon until last week, so now it's time to turn my attention to other wild-caught fish and the smoked or frozen wild salmon Costco carries year-round.

Today, I picked up skinless Pacific cod fillets at a low $6.99 a pound.

I added smoked wild salmon and cheese to a salad I bought in a hospital cafeteria.

An open-face egg-white omelet with smoked salmon and pesto.

Kirkland Signature's Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon is preservative-free and comes sliced, so it's easy to add to an omelet or salad or roll up with a piece of cheese and dip in mustard for a snack.

The price has held steady at $15.39 for a package with two half-pound sections. 

I made a frittata with smoked salmon, fresh buffalo-milk mozzarella, capers and organic brown eggs -- all from the Hackensack warehouse store.

Ahi tuna has supplanted wild king salmon in the fresh fish case. I bought Pacific cod fillets, a wild-caught fish that doesn't raise concerns about excessive mercury.

Small, fully cooked langostino tails, upper left corner, are preservative free.

In addition to the cod fillets, I bought frozen "langostino lobster" tails that are fully cooked and peeled.

They will be a change of pace from the whole-wheat pasta and sardines I make at home. A 2-pound bag from Chile was $22.99.

Unlike the jumbo lobster tails sold at Coscto, the langostino is preservative free, though salt is added, and they are actually from a shrimp-like sea creature, not a lobster.

The Organic Strawberry Spread uses fresh strawberries.

Two other purchases were Kirkland Signature Organic Strawberry Spread, made with sugar ($7.49 for a 42-ounce jar), and MaraNatha All-Natural Roasted Almond Butter ($5.99 for a 26-ounce jar).

I bought the sodium-free almond butter when I couldn't find Kirkland Signature Natural Creamy Peanut Butter.

When I got home, I stirred the oil at the top of the jar into the almond butter, and put the jar into the refrigerator to prevent separation.

Neopolitan pizza: Is less more?

A Mano (by hand) opened in Ridgewood about two years ago, but I didn't get to the restaurant until last night's free demonstration by a pizza maker from Italy. After Antonino Esposito handed out samples of his minimalist pie, I began to rethink all that I know and love about pizza, which I started eating in Brooklyn more than four decades ago.

I have eaten pizza in Italy, but never in Naples, where the standards for authentic pizza were set in the late 1800s. Last night, Esposito made the dough by hand -- using Caputo flour from Italy and adding only tap water, a little yeast and salt -- crushed the whole peeled southern Italian tomatoes by hand and topped that with house-made mozzarella made by one of the oven tenders. There are lots of toppings available, including arugula and prosciutto, but pies come in only one size -- 12 inches.

The pie spends about 90 seconds in the wood-fired oven, one of two assembled by Italian craftsmen with material sent from Italy, including volcanic soil and rock. What emerges is a thin-crust pizza that is deliciously chewy but topped with a minimum of tart tomato, gooey cheese, some olive oil and fresh basil. If you hold it at the wide end, it just droops. So there's no use asking for it well-done as you do with an American pizza in hopes of getting a stiff, crunchy crust.

After free samples of the pie and house made buffalo-milk and cow-milk mozzarella, I ordered an A Mano salad with imported marinated Italian artichokes ($7.99) and a marinara pie -- just tart tomato sauce and slivers of garlic over that soft, charred, chewy dough ($9.99). Oddly satisfying in view of my love of bigger, brawnier pizzas.