Our son chickens out

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Nearly three months ago, we pledged to stop eating meat -- chicken, pork, beef and lamb. I've lost a little weight and spend less time and money in food stores. But our 13-year-old son is tiring of fish and really misses meat.

Awakening from an afternoon nap Monday, I smelled something unfamiliar and couldn't imagine what my wife cooked for dinner. When I got downstairs, I found out: jerk chicken legs for our son and mahi-mahi with onion and tomato for us, along with rice and salad. The Readington Farms antibiotic-free chicken (ShopRite) didn't tempt me at all, but our son loved his meal, bones and all.


It was the third time he broke the pledge. When he was served a hamburger on a flight to Jamaica in March, he ate it instead of asking for something else. A couple of weekends ago, he ordered his favorite version of won ton soup with roast pork at Wondee's in Hackensack.

Tonight, I'll serve a "meatloaf" made from wheat gluten and soy in barbecue sauce and ask my wife to make potato salad with hard-boiled egg and mixed vegetables.

(Photo: Dolphin fish, or mahi-mahi, caught off the coast of Jamaica.)

Free-range Australian lamb for $1.99 a pound

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For Easter, A&P and Pathmark are discounting free-range, grass-fed Australian leg of lamb for only $1.99 a pound. The sale at both starts today.

The Pathmark ad doesn't specify the country of origin, though it's likely Australia or New Zealand, where lower costs allow ranchers to raise their animals naturally, without antibiotics, growth hormones or animal by-products. You need a Pathmark card to get the sale price. I haven't seen the ShopRite circular to compare prices.

The leg of  lamb is semi-boneless.

At Fairway Market in Paramus, conventionally raised American leg of lamb with the bone is $5.69 a pound. So you can see what a great deal Pathmark and A&P are offering. Unfortunately, even though lamb is an all-time favorite, I won't be buying any because of our meatless-meal pledge.

Just smell that wonderful broth

Image by Hanoi Mark via Flickr

We moved out of Englewood in the summer of 2007 and stopped going to Saigon, the Vietnamese restaurant where we first encountered pho when the place opened about nine years ago.


I remember how I met owner K.T. Tran in the checkout line at the ShopRite and she showed me the lease she had just signed on a Palisade Avenue storefront. 


Yesterday, we returned for an early dinner after deciding against fighting traffic to eat at Aleppo Restaurant in Paterson -- the fourth postponed meal there since it was reviewed Feb. 17 in The New York Times.


When Joe the waiter set down my bowl of pho with shrimp, I leaned close to the anise-scented beef broth and breathed deeply. Wonderful. You'd be hard put to find a broth that matches the aroma of this one. 


The rice-noodle soup and fried vegetable dumplings made a satisfying meal, even though we knew the broth violated the spirit of our meatless pledge.


And we really enjoyed catching up with Joe and K.T.


Saigon R, 58 W. Palisade Ave.,
Englewood; 201-871-4777. Closed Mondays.
www.saigonmopho.com