My heart goes out to the city of Aleppo, Syria

Grilled whiting fillets at Aleppo Restaurant, whose owner is from the northern Syrian city that is reportedly bracing for an assault by government troops. After an early dinner at the Paterson restaurant on Saturday, we drove over to the Great Falls, which was swollen by recent heavy rains, below.

Paterson's Great Falls.

A photo I took in 1978 shows a Star of David motif on Bab Al Faraj, a clock tower in Aleppo, Syria.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

News of a planned Syrian-government assault on rebel-held Aleppo flooded me with memories of my 1978 visit to the city where my Sephardic Jewish parents were born.

Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., I was constantly reminded of Aleppo -- from the Arabic records my mother played to the wonderful meals of Syrian specialties she prepared every day.

My parents, who spoke Syrian at home, often discussed Aleppo and such landmarks as Bab Al Faraj, a clock tower at one of the entrances to the old city.

Since the battle for Syria began more than 2 years ago, I've often wondered whether the clock tower and the other buildings I saw on my visit 35 years ago are still standing.

Now, my heart breaks at the thought of more death and destruction in Aleppo.

The city -- 186 miles north of Damascus -- was big in my parents' day. In 2005, it had a population of 2.3 million and was the largest city in Syria.

On Saturday, I planned a day of food shopping and sightseeing in and around Paterson, a city whose silk mills drew thousands of Syrian immigrants in the early 1900s.

Along with my wife and mother-in-law, I stopped for an early dinner at Aleppo Restaurant on Main Street, trying to recapture the flavors of my mother's dishes, as I have for the many years I've lived in northern New Jersey.

The food always brings me back to Brooklyn and to my brief visit to Aleppo, where the kebab restaurant cooks chopped meat with long, sharp knives, and the bakeries were filled with baklava and other familiar pastries. 

My mother's passport photo. She was about 12 when she arrived in the United States.

Aleppo and Brooklyn

My father, Abood Sasson, was the son of a pastry maker in Aleppo who worked in his father's bakery and, after he married, taught his wife how to make Syrian sweets. 

My mother, who took the name Grace after she came to the United States, said her mother came from Alexandria, Egypt.

Her father, Selim Ashkenazi, was a shochet, a person officially certified as competent to kill cattle, sheep and poultry in the manner prescribed by Jewish kosher laws.

I remember returning home from school one day and finding a live turkey in a cage in our finished basement in Brooklyn.

My grandfather killed that bird and my mother served it for Thanksgiving.

Abood Sasson and Grace Ashkenazi met on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, married in the early 1930s and moved to Brooklyn. 

My father said the wedding, reception and a honeymoon voyage to Cuba on the Morro Castle cost about $400.

My father spent most of his working life running a dry goods store, A. Sasson, on Grand Street in Manhattan, competing against dozens of others who also sold sheets, pillowcases, curtains and lace tablecloths.

An appetizer of Muhammara, the spiciest dish on the menu at Aleppo Restaurant, is made with sweet red peppers and ground dried Aleppo peppers ($4).

Aleppo Mixed Grill, served with rice, salad or french fries ($15).

Another appetizer, Labaneh Extra, is a thick yogurt with ground walnuts and garlic ($5).

Three of the four fillets in the Grilled Whiting entree, which I ordered with salad ($10).The fish was dusted with the same delicious spices used for kebabs.

Arabic Salad is dressed with oil, lemon, parsley and dried mint ($4).

Service problems

On Saturday, as we were finishing up our meal at Aleppo Restaurant, I asked the waitress if Mohamed K. Jello, the genial chef and owner, could leave the kitchen for a few minutes so I could say hello and ask about family members in Syria.

Everyone in Aleppo was safe, Jello said before hurrying back to work.

The food we had eaten was as good as always, but I didn't have the heart to complain about the waitress, who seemed uninterested in serving us, even though only two other tables were occupied.

The restaurant has switched from a thin, chewy bread to a thicker pocket bread from Nouri's, a nearby bakery, and the waitress brought several loaves in the plastic bag, as is the custom in Middle Eastern places in Paterson.

But this bread didn't seem that fresh and hadn't been heated in the bag, as it is elsewhere, and on top of that, Nouri's isn't my favorite Syrian bakery.

I asked her to heat up the bread, and she refused, so I just handed her the tray and asked her to take the bread away.

There were other problems, and my smaller-than-usual tip reflected my dissatisfaction with the service.

A perfect way to end a Syrian meal is Turkish Coffee, but our waitress at Aleppo Restaurant didn't make it "mazboot" (medium sweet), as I requested.

Al Jeezera reported that Egypt had broken off diplomatic relations with Syria.

The restaurant has an old photo of the citadel in Aleppo,Syria. Aleppo is at 939 Main Street in Paterson; 1-973-977-2244. No alcohol allowed.

Aleppo then

My 1978 visit to Aleppo, Syria, lasted only 36 hours, but I remember sleeping in a hotel room shared by other travelers, and eating in a kebab restaurant where the chefs used long, sharp knives to chop meat.

In a pastry shop, I was able to order baklava and other sweets by name, because I grew up eating them.

I visited a yeshiva and a Jewish family in the Jameliah neighborhood, but found that both the citadel of Aleppo and the national museum were closed on the day I stopped by.

I flew to Syria from Egypt, where I had toured for about 3 weeks, and took a group taxi to Aleppo from Damascus.

Here are some of the photos I took on June 19, 20 and 21, 1978:

A man selling tea on the street.

The old city of Aleppo reminded me of old Jerusalem.

The Star of David motif on a door.

Parts of old Aleppo were being cleared to make way for new apartment buildings.

Fresh Syrian bread from an oven visible in the rear.

A World War II-era Citroen parked in the old city.

A man balances a tray on his head.

An entrance to the covered souk or market that Aleppo is known for.

A man and his sons offered old suits for sale.

The exterior, left, and interior of an ancient synagogue that had been restored with money from the Sephardic community in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Espresso bar serves coffee in real cups

In a coffee-retailing world led by Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, real cups are a thing of the past. But if you order a coffee "for here" at Aroma Espresso Bar, you get a real cup and saucer, and a small piece of chocolate in the spoon.

 

I needed a mid-afternoon pick-me-up during my visit to Garden State Plaza shopping center on Tuesday, and I knew just where to get it.

I headed to Aroma Espresso Bar and ordered a small Cafe Au Lait ($2.50), and when asked whether I wanted it "to go" or "for here," chose the latter.

After a few minutes, I picked up a tray with my coffee in a real, oversized cup -- a rare sight in a world dominated by the cardboard and plastic-foam cups from Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts.

I brought my tray to an empty table, sat down and enjoyed the stimulating cup of coffee and hot milk.


Aroma Espresso Bar, Garden State Plaza, Paramus; 201-556-1700. Use J.C. Penney entrance, walk past California Pizza Kitchen and turn left.

Web site: www.aroma.us

Going nuts and getting soaked at Costco Wholesale

These 2-pound bags of raw hazelnuts at Costco Wholesale are imported from Canada, but the label says, "Product of Turkey or USA." They are $10.99 a bag.

Northern New Jersey had another day of on-and-off thunderstorms on Monday, but the rain had stopped when I got out of the car at Costco Wholesale, armed with a full-size umbrella.

As I write this, even more heavy rain is falling today, just as it did on Monday and last Friday.

On Monday, by the time I had checked out with more than $106 worth of fresh wild king salmon, smoked wild salmon, beefsteak tomatoes, seedless watermelon, canned fish and other items, Hackensack was hit by another wind-whipped rainstorm.

Back of the lot

It was a long walk to the car, which I usually park at the back of the lot to avoid the congestion of lazy shoppers who insist on a space closest to the door.

The umbrella kept my head and shoulders dry, but the wind-whipped rain soaked my shirt sleeves and the back of my pants, not to mention everything in my cart.

When I opened my car doors, the seats got wet, and when I grabbed the soaked box of 4 Tropicana half-gallons, the box broke and flew out of my hand onto the carpeted floor in front of the back seat.

A heavy, oblong seedless watermelon (no bargain at $7.49) nearly slipped out of my hands before it landed on a car seat.

One shopper abandoned a bag of sweet peppers at the Heinz Tomato Ketchup display. Did he or she think ketchup is a vegetable?

Kirkland Signature spices come in the same size jar, but their weight varies.

Snacking nuts

In the store, a display of raw, sodium-free hazelnuts caught my eye.

I decided to try a 2-pound bag for snack food, and roasted them at home in a 275-degree oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes, then dusted them with Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon from Vietnam.

We've been doing the same with  Costco's salt-free raw almonds, and four of us usually finish a 3-pound bag in about 10 days.

At 2 pounds for $10.99, the hazelnuts are more expensive than the almonds, but they have a distinctive taste.

At $2.59 for a 10.7-ounce bottle, Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon from Vietnam is one of the cheapest items in the Hackensack warehouse store. Only 3 pounds of bananas at $1.39 are cheaper.

Leftover wild king salmon with steamed organic quinoa, both from Costco.

A canned-fish salad over organic spring mix, with beefsteak tomato and hothouse cucumber, all from Costco. Canned tuna, pink salmon, and sardines are combined with chopped celery and apple, and dressed with hummus, Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin.

A quick egg-white omelet with Trader Joe's Jalapeno Yogurt Cheese and Kirkland Signature Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon from Costco.

New at Costco: Fresh troll-caught wild king salmon

Wild-caught king salmon with diced tomatoes, sake and Dijon mustard.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I went looking for more fresh Copper River salmon at Costco Wholesale on Monday and landed a real treat: Fresh troll-caught wild king salmon.

At $14.99 a pound, the king salmon was a dollar more a pound than the fresh wild Copper River sockeye fillets that also were available.

But it's clear these thicker fillets came from a much bigger fish.

The label says, "Product of USA."

I wanted to prepare them with ripe peaches, tomatoes and capers, but couldn't find any peaches at my Hackensack warehouse store.

When I got home, I emptied a can of Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes into a non-stick pan and added several ounces of sake and a little fresh lime juice.

I brought that to a boil to cook off the alcohol, then turned down the flame and added a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, mixing it in well.

I cut the 1.6 pound king salmon fillet into pieces that varied from 2 inches to less than an inch thick, added ground Aleppo pepper, placed them into the pan, covered it and turned the flame to medium.

I cooked the salmon for 8 to 10 minutes.

I removed and ate the thinnest pieces first, spooning sauce over them and adding chopped fresh mint and oregano from the garden.

King salmon with ground Aleppo pepper poaching in a sauce of organic diced tomatoes, sake, lime juice and Dijon mustard.



I wanted to serve the salmon over organic quinoa prepared in an electric rice cooker, but it wasn't ready in time and I had to have the nutty whole grain as a second course covered with diced-tomato sauce from the salmon.

Next time, I'll use less fresh mint or none at all, because the peppery herb tended to distract from the rich taste of the salmon.

Troll-caught signifies the king salmon are caught by small boats trailing as many as 50 lines with hooks, allowing crew members to throw back fish that are too small or which they didn't want to catch.

Eating out or eating in: Close-up on more good food

From the Vegetarian Menu at Wondee's Fine Thai Food and Noodles, 296 Main St. in Hackensack (closed Mondays): Tofu Kratiam or sauteed tofu with garlic, onion and black pepper ($12), garnished with orange slices and fresh cilantro.

Wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon with Basil Pesto, both from Costco Wholesale, served with TraderJoe's Whole Wheat Fusilli Pasta made with sardines and salted cod.

A freshy baked 18-inch Pepperoni Pizza from Costco Wholesale, a bargain at $9.95.

Som Thum, a crunchy salad of fresh green papaya dressed with lemon juice, chili, peanuts, green beans, tomato, and ground dried shrimp, is $8 at Wondee's.

Koong Lard Prig, steamed large shrimp with sweet and sour chili, broccoli and pickled cabbage, is $17 at Wondee's, a BYO with parking in the rear.

A breakfast frittata made with smoked wild salmon, tomato, capers and egg whites, all from Costco Wholesale, and served with sauteed cabbage and mashed sweet potatoes with extra-virgin olive oil.

A midday roll-up snack of smoked wild salmon on thin-sliced, reduced-fat Swiss cheese with organic spring mix, pesto and Dijon mustard, all from Costco Wholesale.

Thome Yum Hedt, a combination mushroom soup, is $3.50 at Wondee's.

Cabbage Delight -- pickled cabbage, ginger, carrot and peppers -- is $3 at Wondee's.

Costco Wholesale's organic brown eggs with Trader Joe's pasta is real comfort food for breakfast. You can't beat the pleasure of eating the yolks broken over the pasta.

My wife found fresh wild-caught porgy for $1.79 a pound at H Mart in Englewood.

Does good extra-virgin olive oil have to be expensive?

I've been using this 100% Greek extra-virgin olive oil for cooking and dressing salads since February. My only complaints relate to how difficult it is to raise the tin's turtle-like plastic neck into its pouring position and to unseal it, below.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss extra-virgin olive oils, which can cost up to $20 or $30 a liter, compare organic and conventional apples, and herald 'the return' of Costco Wholesale's Organic Strawberry Spread.

You don't see too many bargains in extra-virgin olive oil these days, so a flier I received in February from the International Food Warehouse in Lodi caught my attention.

A 3-liter tin of Isle of Cyprus Greek Extra-Virgin Olive Oil was being offered for $14.99 or about $5 a liter.

Good extra-virgin olive oil was selling for around $5 a liter about 10 years ago, before a sudden and unexplained spike nearly doubled the price.

Then, blends of Italian, Spanish, Greek and Tunisian oils began to appear at a lower price than bottles of 100% Italian or Spanish extra-virgin olive oil, also referred to as EVOO.

I started buying extra-virgin olive oils from Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries in 3-liter bottles that I found in South Paterson stores (about $15).

"Solely by mechanical means," above, refers to obtaining the oil from the olives without the use of hot water or chemicals. Another label, below, refers to "a pure and virgin product obtained ... without any additives."

In February, I bought 2 tins of Isle of Cyprus extra-virgin olive oil, and started to use it for frying eggs, omelets and frittatas, and for dressing salads, along with balsamic vinegar.

I also added it to bottled marinara sauce and drizzled it over reheated leftover pasta.

The oil was fruity and thicker than others I have purchased for the same price, and compared favorably to a Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil from Costco Wholesale that cost $11.99 a liter.

The International Food Warehouse then started selling 1-liter bottles of Isle of Cyrus EVOO for $4.99, but I didn't get to the store before the sale ended.

On May 22, I picked up 2 more tins of the Cypriot oil for $13.99 each.

The golden-green oil and balsamic vinegar make a great salad dressing.

I recall going to the store earlier in May, but found the tins had run out.

I overheard another customer telling his friend the Isle of Cyprus oil must be "adulterated," if it was being sold for such a low price.

But I don't see any evidence of that from the taste and aroma.

It's just a good extra-virgin olive oil at a great price, especially if you use it both to cook and dress salads.

The producer of Isle of Cyprus Extra-Virgin Olive Oil may have cut its price to be competitive in world markets after the island experienced financial problems this year.

It is imported by Phoenicia Specialty Foods of Houston, Texas.


International Food Warehouse, 370 Essex St.,

Lodi; (201) 368-9511. Open 7 days.

Conventionally grown Jazz Apples were $2.49 a pound at the Paramus Shop Rite on Wednesday or only 50 cents less than organic apples at Whole Foods Market.

Comparing apples

Price increases for food never seem to end.

On a visit to Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Wednesday, I couldn't find any organic apples for less than $2.99 a pound.

I bought a single Gala Apple ($1.11), an unusually crisp Braeburn from New Zealand ($1.44) and a Fuji Apple ($1.64), all organic.

A single organic apple cost more than an entire pound of conventional apples a couple of years ago.

Then, I drove over to the ShopRite across the street for lactose-free milk, and saw conventionally grown apples were going for $2.49 a pound.

Whole Foods organic apple prices were stiff, but I also found frozen, antibiotic-free turkey backs and necks for a low $1.49 a pound.

ShopRite had antibiotic-free Readington Farms chicken quarters for $1.49 a pound.

They're back

After several futile searches for Kirkland Signature Organic Strawberry Spread on visits to Costco Wholesale, I finally found some today at my warehouse store in Hackensack ($7.49 for a 42-ounce bottle).

When I couldn't find the spread -- which family members singled out for praise -- I bought Smucker's Strawberry Preserves, made with high-fructose corn syrup.

I also picked up Kirkland Signature Natural Peanut Butter (Creamy), and will refrigerate it to prevent the separation I didn't like the last time I tried it ($9.99 for two 40-ounce plastic jars).

The ingredients are Dry Roasted Valencia Peanuts and Sea Salt.