The Sasson Report has more Do You Really Know What You're Eating?

At the H Mart in Little Ferry last weekend,  I bought the biggest whiting I've ever seen -- more than 6 pounds -- for our Sunday dinner.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm working on a post about the stunning variety of fresh wild-caught seafood available in northern New Jersey.

From luxurious lobster to the humble whiting, great seafood is just another reason not to eat any of the low-quality meat and poultry sold in stores or served in restaurants.

When I finish, I'll be posting on The Sasson Report, which will include coverage of the news media, food shopping and restaurants, all-electric cars and other subjects.

Food shopping for the Super Bowl can have an immediate payoff

For a Super Bowl Party, I chose naturally raised Niman Ranch St. Louis-Style Pork Ribs from Whole Foods Market in Paramus over the mystery pork spare ribs sold at the nearby ShopRite.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Our son is inviting close to a dozen friends over for a Super Bowl Party, but most of the food shopping fell to me.

I tried to focus on buying food for guests who will eat just about anything, but did manage to pick up fresh fish from the Jersey shore for my dinner and a half-dozen bottles of inexpensive red wine.

Our Super Bowl menu for Sunday includes prepared pork ribs in barbecue sauce, prepared chicken wings, frozen pizzas, mac and cheese; chips, salsa and organic guacamole, fruit juice and ginger ale.

I won't be eating any of it, with the possible exception of the guac (hold the chips).

I started shopping on Thursday at ShopRite in Paramus, where I picked up two sale items, a half-dozen frozen 12-inch DiGiorno Pizzas, with and without meat, for $3.97 each, and 16-ounce jars of Ortega Salsa for $1.79 each.

Blue fish and wine, too

At Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Friday, I found a 3.95-pound package of prepared St. Louis-Style Pork Ribs from the Niman Ranch.

The fully cooked ribs are antibiotic, hormone and preservative free ($7.99 a pound).

But I also picked up locally caught Bluefish fillets that I poached for dinner in Whole Foods' Roasted Chipotle Salsa ($2.69), and served over a combination of organic brown rice, organic quinoa, organic diced tomatoes and chopped garlic.

Whole Foods offers some white and red wines for $5.99 or less per bottle.

I took four bottles of red wine to the checkout counter, only to be told that if I bought six, I would get a 10% discount on all of them.

I bought six bottles of Quail Creek Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon ($4.99 each); and Don Simon Tempranillo ($3.99 each) for $26.91 with the discount.

And Whole Foods still refunds 10 cents for each reusable bag you bring with you.

On the way to the ribs at Whole Foods, I couldn't resist asking the fishmonger to fillet a whole Bluefish from Barnegat Light, one of New Jersey's premier fishing ports. The wild-caught fish was only $3.99 a pound.

No other supermarket or private fish market in North Jersey can match the freshness or variety of seafood at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, and you can always find a few items on sale.

Costco wings, chips and more

I did the rest of my Super Bowl Party shopping on Friday afternoon at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, where we spend most of our food dollars.

In addition to such Super Bowl food as fully cooked chicken wings, I replenished our supply of Organic Eggs (24 for $6.99), 100% Egg Whites (six 16-ounce cartons for $7.49), GMO-free Nature's Bakery Fig Bars ($8.99), Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix (1 pound for $4.89) and Organic Bananas (3 pounds for $1.99), among other items. 

The only prepared Buffalo and BBQ chicken wings available at Costco are from two low-quality producers, Perdue and Tyson. 

Large bags (5 pounds) were $10.49 each with a $4 instant rebate.

I saw Coleman naturally raised breaded chicken tenders, but my son specifically asked for wings.

I couldn't find nachos or similar chips, but bought Kirkland Signature Organic Tortilla Chips ($4.99), Mateo's Gourmet Salsa (32 ounces for $6.39) and refrigerated Organic Fresh Salsa (30 ounces for $7.79).

I may not serve the organic salsa, which would be great with fresh fish or eaten with cooked organic brown rice.

Twenty-four cans of Canada Dry Ginger Ale ("Made from Real Ginger") were $5.59 with an instant $1 rebate.

Two 96-ounce bottles of V8 Splash Tropical Blend (10% juice) were $5.49.

A fresh Bluefish fillet, poached in Roasted Chipotle Salsa, with chopped callaloo and sweet peppers, and an organic brown rice-quinoa combination prepared in an electric cooker.

I cut the two wild-caught Bluefish fillets into four serving pieces and poached them in boiling salsa with added lime juice for 8 minutes in a covered pan. Each serving piece cost about $1.67, not including the salsa.

An Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix salad with Campari Tomatoes ended the meal, dressed simply in organic extra-virgin olive oil from Costco Wholesale and Ponti Balsamic Vinegar from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood, below.

H Mart sends out store coupons

Image by wallyg via Flickr

The biggest H Mart in Bergen County is in Ridgefield.

Tuesday's mail held a surprise -- a booklet of discount coupons from H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain with four stores in Bergen County.

The coupons give you a discount on produce; kimchi, poultry, meat and seafood; spicy soup mix, small appliances and other items. They are valid from June 18-July 1 or July 2-17.

I applied for an H Mart 1% cash rebate card a few months ago, and the coupons were sent to my home.

The booklet contains a "low-pricing pledge."

"H Mart is dedicated to giving you low prices every day. Not once in a while. Not once in a blue [moon]. But all day every day."

The store's prepared items are a great introduction to Korean food, if you haven't already discovered its vibrant colors and flavors. 

We regularly buy finger maki -- seaweed rolled around rice and crunchy vegetables -- stewed Alaskan pollock, potatoes or tofu in a spicy red-pepper sauce; and translucent noodles made from yam flour and mixed with vegetables.

H Mart is also our main source of whole fresh fish, such as the trio of sea bass my wife brought home on Monday.

The chain sponsors "Kimchi Chronicles," a PBS series with Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten that began on June 5 and can be seen locally on WNET. 

The H Mart in Englewood was just renovated, and there are stores in Fort Lee, the newest; Little Ferry, the dowdiest; and Ridgefield, the biggest. H Mart also has a store in Edison.

H Mart Web site

A salty Chinese tale

I had lunch with a friend at P.F. Chang's China Bistro in Hackensack on Tuesday, and three of the four dishes we tried were too salty.

My friend had a lunch special, beef and broccoli served over white or brown rice ($9.45). She liked the beef, but said overall, the dish had too much salt.

I choose three half-portions of vegetables: spinach with garlic, spicy green beans and Sichuan asparagus ($2.95 each). There was no charge for a bowl of brown rice.

The spinach was perfect, each vibrant-green leaf glistening with oil, but the sauces with the green beans and asparagus were so salty I didn't bother spooning them over the rice and tried to pick out just the vegetables.

Next time, I'll ask to have all the vegetables prepared with just garlic or see if there are any low-sodium options on the menu. Or I'll go to Lotus Cafe in Hackensack for lunch.

I looked around P.F. Chang's during our lunch and noticed a large majority of the 215 seats were empty, despite its location in Bergen County's premier shopping center.

P.F. Chang's China Bistro, 390 Hackensack Ave., 

Suite 50, The Shops at Riverside; 201-646-1565.

Back in control

After a four-day visit to Montreal, where I couldn't always find healthy food, I was glad to return and do some food shopping.

I picked up another large fillet of fresh, wild salmon from the Copper River in Alaska at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack for the bargain-basement price of $8.99 a pound.

I cut the fillet into six portions and baked them for 20 minutes with fresh lemon juice, coarse Aleppo red pepper and chopped mint and cilantro from the garden.

I had two portions for dinner, with a salad, and another this morning over salad with sun-dried and fresh tomatoes, hummus and a Korean stewed potato.

I never saw wild salmon on menus in Canada.

Free-range beef

ShopRite is selling Nature's Reserve free-range, grass-fed Whole Beef Tenderloin for Filet Mignon from Australia for $4.99 a pound with a store card through June 18.

Keep your hands off the fruit, please

Image via Wikipedia

Costco shoppers are by and large a weird bunch, and watching them during my once- or twice-a-week visits to the Hackensack warehouse store isn't amusing. Why does saving money bring out such bad behavior?


Their frenetic driving in the parking lot may be familiar to you, but they're lazy, too, leaving those big shopping carts up against parked cars rather than walking the carts a few steps to keep them  out of the way.


Now, their behavior inside the store is deteriorating. Never mind that fickle shoppers will abandon their selections almost anywhere except where they found the items, including under the checkout counter, perishable food or not. Just look over the carts employees fill with rejects near the first registers.

I've also started to notice that some shoppers open packages of produce and seem intent on examining every tomato, orange, strawberry and even blueberry. True, I hate to buy produce and discover soft or moldy pieces, but the store's return policy is so generous, you can always get your money back. The other day, my wife ate two imported tangerines she bought at Costco, said they weren't sweet and asked me to return them for a refund, which I did.


To me, opening produce and touching it is taboo. I plan to speak to the store managers next time I'm there.


Good buys at Fairway Market


The sales flier from Fairway Market in Paramus is heralding "club store pricing" on 8,000 grocery items every day. Here are examples: Florida Natural orange juice (64 ounces), two for $5; Kozy Shack rice pudding (six pack or 22-ounce tub), $1.99; and Barilla pasta, 80 cents. Among specialty items, a three-liter tin of Fairway extra-virgin olive oil is $14.99.

Punch up your pasta sauce 

I don't have the time or inclination to make my own pasta sauce, especially when there are such great bottled sauces available at Fairway Market and Costco at low prices. But I do add a few things to my bottled sauce to make it really special: olive oil, dried Italian seasoning, dried garlic and crushed red pepper. 

Still, my sauce isn't complete without adding a can of anchovies, including oil (and capers, if any), and boiling it until the fish and anchovy taste disappear, leaving behind a distinctive, robust flavor. I'm not sure why, but the sauce with anchovies is not salty at all (I don't salt my pasta water, and use as little water as possible).

Last night, I added a can of anchovies to a little more than half of a 32-ounce bottle of Fairway tomato-and-basil pasta sauce ($3.49), and added about half a package of al dente fusiloni (oversize corkscrews from Italy that I buy at ShopRite). Delicious. And  I love to have crusty bread to soak up the sauce left on the plate.

The Australian lamb sold at Costco Wholesale

Image via Wikipedia

Editor's note: I wrote this post in May 2010, when I still ate meat and poultry. I haven't looked at Costco Wholesale lamb  for several years, but continue to buy grass-fed beef from Australia at ShopRite supermarkets for the meat-eaters in the family.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've noticed that some readers arrive at Do You Really Know What You're Eating when searching for information on whether Australian lamb sold at Costco is raised with growth hormones. 

I'm providing the Internet link that will tell you everything you need to know about the lamb from Down Under.

As far as I know, all the Australian lamb sold at ShopRite, Costco and elsewhere in the United States  is supplied by the same ranchers, producers and exporters. 

American lamb producers say their costs are much higher and they have to sell conventionally raised meat for more money than the naturally raised, grass-fed meat from Australia. 

Be sure to click on "About us" at the link below:

Australian lamb Web site

In search of more meatless meals

Image via Wikipedia

I made my weekly run to Costco in Hackensack today with the goal of  bolstering our meatless dinner choices, and came home with three different wild-caught fish and some wonderful-looking lobster ravioli.

I picked up a tray of fresh haddock fillets from Iceland at $7.49 a pound, frozen sockeye salmon fillets from Alaska ($25.89 for three pounds) and an item I hadn't seen before -- frozen Pacific flounder fillets ($8.69 for two pounds).

The lobster ravioli should provide two meals ($11.99). I looked at the ingredients, and Atlantic lobster is listed second, right after the flour to make the pasta.

At Balthazar Bakery later in the day, I bought a double baguette and hit the jackpot -- it was about 10 inches to 12 inches longer than usual, but the $4 price was the same. When I got it home, my wife, son and I stood around cutting off pieces and eating them with thin-sliced Swiss cheese.

For dinner tonight, I cooked the haddock in Mexican green salsa and opened a can of organic pinto beans from Whole Food Market, heating them in a small pot and adding non-salt seasoning and black pepper. We ate the fish, salsa and beans over steamed white rice with a salad.

Tomorow night, I plan to serve veggie patties with cheese, lettuce and tomato on onion-potato rolls from Balthazar. On Wednesday, we'll try the lobster ravioli in tomato sauce.


And it looks like our one meal out Saturday night will be at our favorite soft-tofu stew restaurant in Palisades Park. If we make it to Sunday, it will mark two weeks without meat (chicken, pork, beef or lamb).

Breakfasts have been easy. I've had eggs with Colombian corn cakes (arepas), hot oat meal with dried blueberries or a sandwich of wild smoked salmon with kimchi on the side. I've been trying to skip lunches, relying on black coffee or home-brewed espresso and crackers and cheese or fruit.

Shopping, eating and restaurant notes

Image by g[wiz] via Flickr

 If we eat meatless meals, do I have to do less food shopping?

We started our regimen on Sunday, I made my weekly visit to Costco on Monday and didn't go food shopping again until today, when I bought broccoli rabe (photo) to go along with tonight's spaghetti and sardines in tomato sauce. (I even have some terrific Balthazar Bakery mini-baguettes in the freezer to scoop up the sauce.)

I didn't have to go to ShopRite, but wanted to recycle plastic bags that were piling up in my garage, and thought I'd go in to see if I could get collard or mustard greens for tonight. But the greens had brown edges or looked as if they had been there from the day before. 

The broccoli rabe seemed high at $2.99 a pound, and it rang up at $4.69 (1.57 pounds). Wow. So who is more bitter, me or the broccoli? I looked at arepas (Colombian corn cakes), and they were priced $1 more than at Hackensack Market. The other items I bought were on sale: extra-sharp cheddar cheese and Breyers ice cream for my wife and son.

Yesterday, I met Bernadette Baum, the vibrant and charming author of the "Diva Indoors" food blog, and her friend Jennifer for lunch at Huong Viet in Nutley, and managed to find meatless choices on the extensive menu: vegetarian summer rolls, egg noodles with tofu but without the usual ground pork, fried tilapia and mustard greens with garlic.

Service was slow when I had dinner there with my wife and son, but I was brought tea and a menu when I walked in around 12:15 yesterday afternoon and said I was waiting for someone. After Bernadette and Jennifer arrived, we were moved quickly to a bigger table and, although the waitress was pleasant, some of our food took a long time to emerge from the kitchen. I also noticed food stains on the uncovered table from previous customers.
 
I again tried the thick, black coffee I loved from my dinner there, and again didn't have the patience to wait for it to drip into the cup -- a full five minutes. I hurried it along, but it was only lukewarm when I drank it. Bernadette asked for "Vietnamese coffee" and later asked to see the package, but the waitress said it was too big to bring out to the dining room.

For dinner last night, we had fully cooked, all-vegetable patties (Costco) that I warmed up in the oven and topped with sliced cheese. I put mine in pocket bread and added some of my organic salad mix and Dijon mustard. Very nice.

Clueless employees at Costco

Image by Melosh via Flickr

Yes, the man on the customer side of the meat case said yesterday, I work for Costco. I said I'd like to see more meats without antibiotics sold at the warehouse store in Hackensack. I explained that antibiotic-free pork was especially important, because hogs reportedly receive more drugs than any other animal raised for food.

I'm not sure if he understood me. "The big thing now is kosher," he said, referring to the cases of kosher food that have appeared in the past few months. I replied that even kosher poultry and meat often are raised with antibiotics, which prevent illness in close quarters and speed the growth of animals.

The problem with consuming animals raised with antibiotics is that humans are becoming more resistant to antibiotics prescribed by doctors.

I'm grateful that Costco carries organic ground beef, some organic chicken and free-range, drug-free Australian lamb, but they are far outweighed by the enormous, conventionally raised steaks, slabs of ribs and  large cuts of beef (photo). The source of its 3-pound rotisserie chickens, with many added flavors, is a mystery.

Last night, I enjoyed three of those grass-fed Australian lamb chops, cooked rare in about 12 minutes, with a couple of glasses of under-$4 shiraz from the liquor store next to Costco. Tonight, we're frying fresh, wild-caught Canadian flounder fillets I picked up yesterday at Costco for $8.49 a pound. I also picked up herbicide-free Sunset tomatoes, organic milk, organic salad greens and a new item, organic diced tomatoes, all at low prices.

My trip yesterday had been postponed from Monday, a holiday when lines were unusually long. Yesterday, the snow was still falling when I arrived at 4 in the afternoon. I could park anywhere and the store was relatively empty, with hardly any waiting at check-out. Hooray.

Whose supermarket guru?

Image via Wikipedia

All of us want to save money when we shop for food, but we also want to avoid poultry and meat from factory farms, some farmed seafood and produce treated with a lot of pesticides.

However, none of this is discussed in "Save at the Supermarket," an article in the January & February 2010 issue of AARP The Magazine. The author is Phil Lempert, identified as the Supermarket Guru, who appears regularly on the Today Show and The View.

Lempert doesn't mention the antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products used to rush the growth of chickens, cattle, pigs and other animals; he doesn't discuss the merits of wild v. farmed seafood, which could be artificially colored or carry contaminants; and he doesn't recommend Australian beef and lamb, free-range, grass-fed products that are usually cheaper than their conventionally raised U.S. cousins

So whose Supermarket Guru is he?

I wrote a letter pointing out some of these omissions, and AARP The Magazine informed me it did not have room to publish it.

This is the same issue with an article on fish that omits the benefits of sardines.

Whole Foods Market discusses the use of antibiotics in animals on its blog: No antibiotics -- ever

The flip side of reusable food shopping bags

ShopRite is the only North Jersey chain that recycles plastic shopping bags, and still gives customers money back for using a reusable bag (5 cents).

The Record of Woodland Park carried a long article about reusable food shopping bags yesterday. But there was no discussion about stores that recycle those pesky plastic bags that will undoubtedly be blowing around long after all life ends on our planet.

If I carry a dozen reusable bags in my car, why do I have to recycle plastic bags? For one thing, I often forget to bring the reusable bags into the store. For another, I also recycle lots of plastic wrapping and plastic bags that come with the food I buy.

If you shop for food at Costco, for example, you'll find that the two or more items you often have to buy at once are wrapped in plastic (or come in a cardboard box, which I also recycle). 

I also recycle the plastic pouches holding instant mashed potatoes and the smaller ones for Japanese green tea; plastic from shrink-wrapped poultry, fish, cheese or other food; plastic that covers bottle caps, plastic produce bags and other plastic items.

Unfortunately, I know of only supermarket chain -- ShopRite -- that accepts plastic bags for recycling. Hollywood Cleaners on New Bridge Road in Bergenfield had a receptacle for recycling its long plastic bags when I used to patronize it several years ago. Now, my dry-cleaning bags get recycled with my plastic shopping bags.

My recycling philosophy is if you are in doubt about whether something can be recycled, put it into the recycling container and let the sorters who work at recycling plants decide for you.

Jerry's products sold in Little Ferry

Image via Wikipedia

Today, I visited Gourmet Marketplace, one of the small retailers that have moved into the former Valley Fair building in Little Ferry, next to H Mart, the Korean supermarket. I was surprised to find some of the products came from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood.

You won't find as much variety here as you will in Englewood, you can't order a sandwich and there are no free samples of cheese, salami and so forth. But you will find some of Jerry's pasta sauces, balsamic vinegar and other items. I saw a sign in the rear, "meats and cheeses," but didn't go over to see what's available.

I bought two bottles of  Ponti balsamic vinegar "of Modena" (photo) for 99 cents each. The ingredients label didn't list caramel color, as others do. Each bottle is 16.9 ounces.

Gourmet Marketplace, Bergen Turnpike, 
near the Little Ferry Circle, Little Ferry;
closed Sundays

Price of imported clementines falls

When Spanish clementines started appearing this month in stores, a 5-pound box was priced at $9.99. On Friday, I picked up a 5-pound net bag of them at Costco for $6.99, but the first two I tried were

Image via Wikipedia

a little sour.

If you have a ShopRite card, you can buy 5 pounds of these clementines for $4.99, Sunday through next Saturday, at the Rochelle Park, Paramus and Englewood stores.

Exploring my pantry, fridge and freezer

I'm determined not to go food shopping, even though my wife made a list over the weekend but didn't follow through by actually going to her favorite ShopRite, in Englewood. This morning, she promised to go tomorrow. (See earlier post, "Are we sick of food shopping yet?")

We have plenty of food in the freezer: steak, chicken (feet for soup and pieces), wild salmon, lobster bisque, spinach pies, but I am also trying to eat some meatless meals, so I will serve big spiral pasta in tomato sauce with sardines (lots of Omega-3s and Vitamin C), plus salad and bread.

I have half a pound of the spirals, a half bottle of Fairway Market garlic pasta sauce and three cans of Moroccan sardines in spciy oil from Fattal's in Paterson. There is romaine and green-leaf lettuce, too, plus terrific dinner rolls from Balthazar Bakery in Englewood. And I could open a bottle of red wine and enjoy a glass or two with my dinner, then fall asleep in front of my TV.

Image via Wikipedia

Another lull in food shopping

With my wife and son on an extended visit to relatives, there isn't much reason for me to go food shopping, but that hasn't stopped me.

When I got an e-mail from Heritage Foods about an extraordinary ham raised naturally on the Lucki 7 farm in Rodman, N.Y., I called and ordered one, then remembered I'm the only one here to eat it. It was supposed to be 9-10 pounds but turned out to be more than 12 pounds, so I called Purdy & Sons, the farm that prepared it and was told it's OK for me to put it in the freezer until my wife and son return.

Today, I visited a food store for the first time since we returned from our road trip July 12, the ShopRite in Hackensack. Compared to the other ShopRites in Rochelle Park and Englewood, where I used to live, this place is a disappointment. The selection of drug-free Readington Farms chicken was limited and there was little free-range Australian lamb to choose from.

ShopRites are no longer cutting the price for canned Alaskan red salmon during the Can-Can Sale, so I paid $4.99 for one large can from Bumble Bee. But I found cans of ShopRite organic black beans and organic kidney beans for 99 cents each. ShopRite produce is hit or miss. I picked up Jersey blueberries ($2.50 for a pint, which weighs three-quarters of a pound) and Northwest cherries for $1.49 a pound (I originally wrote Northeast in error). Why do cherries from thousands of mile away cost less than Jersey blueberries?

The sparkling, 100% red grape juice from Spain also wasn't on sale, but I bought four at $2.79 each because it is so hard to find. Other varieties are white grape juice, peach and apple. All are good.

Pacing around with no food shopping to do

Despite all the little details you have to attend to before vacation, one thing you don't have to do much of is food shopping. You'll want half-gallons of milk and orange juice with sell-by dates of a week or so after you return and not much else in the way of fresh stuff.

My wife stopped at ShopRite this week for Applegate Farms cold cuts (no antibiotics, hormones or other additives), some salad greens and some fruit, and at Balthazar Bakery for the baguettes we'll use to make sliced ham, chicken and turkey sandwiches for the first day of our road trip. I'll go to Costco tomorrow for bottled water to keep in the car and smoked wild salmon I'll stow away for our return.

What I really miss when we go away are the familiar foods, familiar takeout and familiar restaurants. When we returned from Barnegat Light the other day, I enjoyed a light dinner of the wild Copper River salmon I had cooked several days before, straight from the frig, with some tuna-sardine salad (extra-virgin olive oil, chopped red onion, cumin), kimchi, olives and pita. With the first bite, I knew I was home.

Bitten hard by the food-shopping bug

In trying to cut down on our food shopping, I went without pita and hummus for more than a week and kept my vow to visit Costco only once a week. But on my trip to the warehouse store this afternoon, there was no Copper River wild salmon under the sign, meaning I will have to return tomorrow or go elsewhere for fresh fish.

I finally broke down and drove to Paterson yesterday, buying bread and other items at Fattal's, Nouri's and Taskin, a Turkish bakery. I haven't been to Nouri's for more than 10 years and found that prices at this longtime rival of Fattal's seem to be lower. When I got home and looked closely at the pita I purchased at both bakeries, I saw that a dozen medium-size pitas from Nouri's ($1.35) weighed 2 ounces less than a dozen from Fattal's ($1.50). Indeed, Nouri's bread is thinner.

At Fattal's, I picked up fragrant meat pies; small, pickled eggplants I had first mistaken for large olives, Moroccan sardines in spicy oil (99 cents a can); and canned hummus from Lebanon ($1.09). At Nouri's, I found fresh za'atar bread, olive oil soap ($1.19), apricots that I roast with chicken ($3.29 a pound) and a pound of sumac to sprinkle on salads (at home, I asked myself, why do you need a pound of sumac?).

At Taskin, the bread is large, thick and fluffy, so I picked up a regular loaf and one of whole wheat. I also bought borek, a thick tube of bread dough filled with seasoned potato. Taskin was out of cheese borek and cheese and spinach, so I was told to call next time and have some put aside.

Paramus food smackdown: Whole Foods Market v. Fairway

The fresh seafood counter at Whole Foods Market in October 2016.

Editor's note: When I wrote this post in 2009, I couldn't have seen how Fairway Market turned into a terrible place to shop. Prices rose dramatically over the years, and keeping with the staff's New York attitude, a Fairway employee refused to devein the jumbo wild Gulf Shrimp I wanted to buy. At Whole Foods in Paramus, they gladly devein your shrimp.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Food shopping will take a giant leap forward when Whole Foods and Fairway open supermarkets separated by only a few miles in Paramus. 

Whole Foods will get the drop on Fairway, with its grand opening set for Thursday, March 19 (and it's only 1.2 miles from my house); Fairway's opening is scheduled for March 25.

I shop at Fairway's Harlem store just about every time I return from doing something in the city, loading up on Murray's free-roaming, drug-free chicken; inexpensive 32-ounce bottles of Fairway pasta sauce, great fish, goat meat and other items. 

I've visited the Whole Food stores in Edgewater and Ridgewood only sporadically; they are just too inconvenient for someone who lives in Hackensack. I remember going to the Edgewater store when it opened and being disappointed by the selection of tomatoes and the high price of the organic salad mix, but Whole Foods does have great seafood and a wide choice of drug-free poultry and meats.

Whole Foods has the better location, and not only because it's closer to my home. The Fashion Center has always seemed to be in last place in a borough with great malls. Now, it will be interesting to see how the prices compare at the two supermarkets.

One caveat about Fairway's organic, grass-fed beef. Admittedly, I bought the cheaper cuts, but the shoulder steak I prepared last week was one of the toughest I ever ate. My wife couldn't finish her portion. I have another package, a different cut, but will have to find a way to tenderize it.

I'm looking forward to the drug-free pork and ribs available at Whole Foods and the high quality of produce at both stores, a welcome alternative to the crappy stuff sold at other supermarkets.

How many times have I brought home produce from ShopRite that either rotted overnight because of improper refrigeration or never ripened? I have to commend ShopRite for selling Readington Farms chicken, which is raised on a vegetarian feed and never receives antibiotics, and free-range Australian beef and lamb.

A couple of years ago, I asked a Fairway official in the Harlem store why the company initially hesitated in opening a store in northern New Jersey. He said Fairway felt it couldn't compete with the low-price supermarkets like ShopRite. 

But ShopRite is no competition for Fairway, unless you are shopper that judges all food by its price; then you deserve the low-quality of many items and the questionable freshness of fish there.

Here's a shout-out to my friend, Sue. Your husband, Jay, who as you know thinks organic food is a scam, is being careful not to mention the Whole Foods opening this week in Paramus. See you there, Sue.