Cleopatra's tuna-sardine salad

The Citadel in Aleppo, Syria, which has given us a spicy red pepper.

My tuna salad with a twist took a new turn today when I added pickled lemon, diced, in addition to the usual olive oil, cumin and chopped red onion.

I started with two cans of Kirkland-brand albacore tuna in water from Costco and three cans of skinless and boneless Moroccan Al-Shark sardines in oil from Fattal's in Paterson, all undrained. 

Then I added extra-virgin olive oil, cumin and chopped red onion to taste. Aleppo pepper, a coarse, mildly spicy red pepper you'll also find at Fattal's, wouldn't be out of place here.

The Cleopatra-brand pickled lemons from Egypt (Fattal's) are small and salty. So I diced three and added them and lemon juice to the canned fish, again to taste. 

I put hummus and organic spring mix in warm pita halves (Fattal's), spooned in the fish salad and added sliced plum tomato sprinkled with thyme-based za'atar mix. 

I ate kimchi and olives on the side, and washed it all down with my own mint iced tea.

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.