Sobering look at how beef is raised

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Here is a long essay -- with a frightening last paragraph -- about how beef is raised in the United States. At the outset, the writer seems to be recommending grass-fed beef over corn- or grain-fed cattle, but he's really down on the environmental and health impact of eating beef, not to mention the brutality shown to the animals.

http://foodrevolution.org/grassfedbeef.htm

Restaurant Week in Hackensack

 About a dozen Hackensack restaurants will be offering discounts Friday through Dec. 13, in what is being billed as Restaurant Week.

Unfortunately, the discounts vary -- unlike the $24.07 lunch and $35 dinner during Manhattan's twice-yearly Restaurant Weeks -- and some popular restaurants are not taking part in the promotion.

Examples of the discounts are the $19, three-course dinner at Cafe Arabica, a Middle Eastern restaurant, and the $10.95, three-course meal at Galapagos. Mangos Restaurant's three-course dinner special will be $25.  Other restaurants, including Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles, will be offering a second entree at half price.


Pollos Mario, Greek Island Grill and Bohemia re among the restaurants not taking part in the promotion. Full details are available at the following link:

http://www.uppermain.org/events.html

Fourth H Mart opens in Bergen County

 I visited the new H Mart in Fort Lee yesterday, the fourth supermarket opened by the Lyndhurst-based Korean chain in Bergen County. The company, which used to be known as Han Ah Reum, has stores in more than a dozen states.

The Fort Lee store appears to be bigger than the one in Englewood, where I shopped for years, but smaller than the Little Ferry supermarket, which is closer to my Hackensack home.

Fort Lee has the usual, great selection of fresh fish at relatively low prices. It's also the first H Mart I've seen that carries Coleman organic chicken and a second brand that says the birds are raised on a vegetarian diet without antibiotics. But I didn't see any beef  that was raised naturally, despite the importance of meat to the Korean diet.

There is also a terrific selection of greens, including Chinese broccoli, choy sum, regular and baby bok choy, and collard, plus others I'm not familiar with. I took home some leafy Chinese broccoli, but overcooked it. There is no food counter, as in other stores, but a French-Asian bakery called Tous Les Jours has a few tables for coffee and pastry.

The store, which has been open about three weeks in the old Kings Super Market space, didn't seem to have any real bargains, though it's possible it hasn't staged a grand opening yet. I also bought two prepared items: soft, sweet rice cakes with pumpkin and japchae, the translucent noodle dish made from sweet potatoes.

The company motto is: Better Food Better Living (no punctuation) and there is a cute video on its Web site showing a pregnant Korean woman sitting at home, reading and sipping tea, while her husband approaches on foot with two bulging plastic bags of H Mart food. When she opens the door and sees the food, she is "happy."

But what I've seen in more than a decade of shopping in H Mart is an army of Korean and other Asian women -- but few men -- filing their carts with enormous quantities of  beef and other food and then loading up their minivans or SUVs to rush home and start preparing dinner.
 

H Mart, 112-130 Linwood Plaza, Fort Lee; 201-947-7800


http://www.hmart.com/

Check out this great-looking vegan food

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I stumbled across a vegan food blog written by a woman in New Zealand named Vaala, who refers to races and training and climbing, in the land of lamb. The blog is called "Twilight and Shadow." Her photos of food are gorgeous and if those dishes taste as good as they look, I'd try to give up seafood, meat and poultry. I mean, check out beans on toast. I just want to dive in. The link is below:

 
http://goddessvaala.blogspot.com/

How safe is that supermarket chicken?

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The latest issue of Consumers Reports (January 2010) discloses results of tests on supermarket broiler chickens  for salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne illnesses. This is a long, informative article, complete with photos, charts and graphs. The headlines:

How safe is that chicken?
Most tested broilers were contaminated

Nature's Promise poultry from Stop & Shop is included, but two brands of chicken available in North Jersey are conspicuous by their absence: Readington Farms' antibiotic-free birds from Shop Rite and Murray's free-roaming chickens from Fairway Market in Paramus.  

One definition caught my eye. When the label says no antibiotics are administered, "don't assume this was verified unless you also see the label 'USDA organic.'" But the article doesn't name brands that do this. It does urge consumers to cook chicken to at least 165 degrees. We eat mostly dark meat and can cook it to 170 degrees or 180 degrees without affecting moistness.

Is there a difference between broilers and fryers? Can you broil a fryer and vice versa? Consumer Reports doesn't say.

The tests found the cleanest name-brand chicken to be Perdue, but the article doesn't discuss the use of antibiotics and possibly animal by-products to raise those chickens, two additives that are harmful to humans. Click on the link below to read the entire article:


http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/food/chicken-safety/overview/chicken-safety-ov.htm

Greek Island Grill in Hackensack

Extra-virgin olive oil.

We lived in Englewood when the first It's Greek To Me chain restaurant opened, and it soon became one of our favorites. 

But as the years passed, its popularity grew, and so did the prices. After we moved to Hackensack, we no longer made the restaurant part of our dining-out routine.

So, last night, we finally tried Greek Island Grill, a BYO on one of Hackensack's quietest stretches of Main Street, a vivid contrast to Englewood's congested Palisade Avenue and the noisy families that flocked to Greek To Me. 

We were the first customers to arrive for the evening, but soon two more of the dozen or so tables were occupied and there were no screaming little kids.

The staff turned on a Greek music soundtrack, but did not  turn off the wall-mounted TV, which showed Spanish-language movies where so many people were shot to death or blown up, I soon lost count.

It was apparently a movie festival called "Kiss of Death."

We liked everything we ordered, but the service was a bit slow and clumsy. 

Why do restaurants bring you a salad or an entree to share without serving utensils? It's an enduring mystery. Still, we'll definitely return.

We ordered a terrific salad ($7.50) -- beets, potatoes, chick peas and red onions -- to share, but it could have used a serving spoon and a lot more dressing.

There was plenty of Greek pita to soak up olive oil and lemon juice.

Our entrees were jumbo shrimp with orzo in tomato sauce ($16) for my wife and a simply grilled, whole fish with rice ($24.95) for me and my 12-year-old son. 

My wife liked her dish, which she had often at Greek To Me, noting the shrimp were crunchy and not overcooked. 

And the fish was great, too, though I don't think it was the red snapper we ordered. The waiter forgot to bring the Greek fries my son asked for, but I caught the error on the bill.

Greek Island Grill, 77 Main St., Hackensack; (201) 489-4733‎.