I've solved the mystery of clashing labels on Campari Tomatoes

Sunset-brand Campari Tomatoes in 1-pound packages at Fairway Market in Paramus in 2012. Costco Wholesale sells the same tomatoes in 2-pound packages for a good deal less.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I thought I was seeing things:

Labels with and without the words "no herbicides" or "herbicide-free" on Sunset-brand Campari tomatoes -- those deep-red orbs small enough to pop into your mouth whole for an explosion of wonderful, tomatoey flavor.

I buy them at Costco, and when the words no longer appeared on the label, I thought this must be another kind of Campari tomatoes grown with herbicides, so I went looking for the herbicide-free line elsewhere. I didn't find it. 

Prices are all over the place. At Costco, they are $4.99, $5.29 or $5.49 for a 2-pound package; ShopRite in Rochelle Park actually had the nerve to put them out for $7.99.

Today, I looked at the Web site and could find no mention of herbicides, though there was an indication that "good bugs" in the greenhouse eat "bad bugs." 

Then, I called Mastronardi Produce in Canada, the greenhouse growers of the Sunset brand, and was assured the company still uses no herbicides or pesticides, but has been prohibited from saying so on the Web site or product labels by a new Canadian law that went into effect at the end of last year.

The woman I spoke to suggested the Canadian government, being unable to verify such claims, decided to ban the use of those words on produce labels to eliminate misrepresentation by unscrupulous growers.

That puts my mind at rest. I'm just finishing up a package of Campari tomatoes I bought for $4.99, and I'll be sure to get more, if they are available at that price.

Sunset produce Web site

Oh! Calamares Peruvian Restaurant

My wife and son weren't interested in the black mint sauce, ceviche, squid or rabbit. Before I could order the braised tripe, she asked for a small sample. We were looking over the adventurous menu at Oh! Calamares, a Peruvian restaurant in Kearny, and trying to put together a meal on Saturday night, our one dinner out last week.

The menu listed dishes I had never seen at our favorite Peruvian restaurants, including Pollos El Chevere in the city of Passaic and Jaimito's in Clifton. The former is owned by Japanese-Peruvians, the latter by Chinese-Peruvians. Italians also influenced the cooking of Peru.

My wife and son insisted on ordering chicken soup ($8.50), and the bowl was so big, they not only couldn't finish it, but they had room for little else. Each bowl contained a quarter of a big, boiled chicken in one piece and fat, Chinese-style noodles that were falling apart.

I ordered chicharron de pescado ($10.50) as an appetizer -- fried chunks of breaded grouper fillet, fried yuca and tartar sauce. We ignored the tartar sauce and doused the fish and yuca with the pale-green hot sauce we got when we sat down with a separate dish of addictive, popped and salted corn kernels. The fish-yuca appetizer was great.

Our entrees were cau-cau ($9) -- braised tripe and potatoes with peas, served with white rice -- and tallarin saltado ($15) -- thick, Chinese-style spaghetti with shrimp. I did my best, but we took about half of each home. We drizzled hot sauce on the mild, toothsome tripe and potatoes. The shrimp snapped.

So there are lots of dishes left to try, probably when I go alone for lunch: grilled, marinated veal-heart kebabs; sliced, boiled potatoes in a black mint sauce; oven-roasted rabbit; spicy, braised duck, black-conch ceviche, and more.

The articulate, young man who showed us to our table said the restaurant, once located in North Bergen, was named after his father's onetime favorite place in Peru. He is a second-generation restaurateur. The building looks modern outside and traditional on the three levels inside. Tables are bare. The atmosphere was marred by a poor quality DVD of a concert that was playing at high volume on flat-screen TVs in the two-level dining room.

Kearny Avenue, once solely a destination for Scottish fish and chips, now is home to several ethnic restaurants besides Oh! Calamares (that's "Oh! Squid" in English).


Oh! Calamares Restaurant, 102 Kearny Ave., Kearny;
201-998-4111. Peruvian beer and wine available.
Municipal parking lot across the street.

Why you can't shop in one food store

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If, like me, you do most of the food shopping in your family, you dream of that one store where you can be assured of getting fresh, healthy food at great prices. Don't hold your breath.

Even a random sampling of how food prices are all over the place will discourage you. At Fairway Market in Paramus on Friday, a 3.5-pound bag of Spanish clementines was $5.99, compared to $3.49 at H Mart in Little Ferry. Fairway's price for one pound of Earthbound Farm organic spring mix was $6.99; at Costco in Hackensack, it's $4.49.

Costco sells three cans of wild sockeye red salmon from Alaska, but you get better value buying one can of Bumble Bee wild sockeye salmon at Fairway or ShopRite for $4.99 (just under 15 ounces). ShopRite no longer discounts this red salmon during its Can-Can Sale, when it has been as low as $2.99.

My wife just called to report the pomegranate she bought for 99 cents at H Mart in Englewood is $2 at ShopRite in Rochelle Park, where she is shopping today.

I'm not sure what you can conclude from these examples and others I am sure you have seen yourself. All I know is that a food shopper's work is never done.

Passing along a guide to some healthy foods

After reading my previous post on sardines, a  friend sent me a link to a New York Times blog on those mighty little fish and 10 other "best foods you aren't eating." Here is the link:

11 best foods you aren't eating

Image via CrunchBase

 

Why don't sardines get more respect?

Among the fish we eat regularly, only the much-maligned anchovy is smaller. But that doesn't explain why the mighty little sardine is misunderstood or completely ignored. Last night, our dinner of fresh sardines flown in from Portugal was a revelation.

I started noticing something was amiss when I read an article on healthy-to-eat fish in the January/February 2010 AARP The Magazine, which claims to have the world's largest circulation for a magazine. Yet, the piece completely omitted any mention of sardines. In the same issue, an article about how to save at the supermarket ignored canned sardines, inexpensive when compared to red salmon and better for you than albacore tuna, which is high in mercury.

Then, this week, The Record of Woodland Park  ran a Chicago Tribune article on nutritious foods that contained misinformation on omega-6 fatty acids in the vegetable oil sardines are often packed in. The oil is good for you, according to the American Heart Association.

I've long been aware fresh Portuguese sardines are flown into Newark airport weekly, but I've only eaten them occasionally in a restaurant, and that was years ago. So I went looking for them Friday during a trip to Fairway Market in Paramus, my main source for salted codfish. My backup was Whole Foods Market, also in Paramus.

But there they were at Fairway, their slim, silvery bodies resting on ice, at $7.99 a pound. I asked for two pounds --cleaned with the heads on -- and got an unlucky 13 sardines, but we ate all but two for dinner, with spaghetti in tomato sauce and a big salad of organic greens. I cooked them in two frying pans with extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned with salt, garnished them with fresh, chopped cilantro and squeezed lime over the fish. The flesh was mild, tender and sweet.

The fishmonger said they would take only two minutes or so per side, but they need to be cooked longer. I could also see baking them or charring them on a grill pan, but the skin is delicate and pulls off easily.

Mostly, I'll continue to eat canned sardines -- in breakfast sandwiches with hummus, cheese, greens and tomatoes or in spaghetti with a sardine-tomato sauce (about two cans of chopped fish for one pound of spaghetti or other pasta). And I'll continue to buy them at Fattal's Bakery in Paterson, where Moroccan sardines are a low 89 or 99 cents per can.

How to spend $58 in 20 minutes

After our great lunch at Fuddruckers in Paramus yesterday, I decided to drive a few miles across the borough to Trader Joe's, which stocks bacon, hot dogs and other items without antibiotics, growth hormones or preservatives. We hadn't been there in more than a month to avoid having to fight holiday traffic on Route 17.

It didn't take long -- about 20 minutes -- to spend nearly $60. (Photo shows a Trader Joe's in California.)

I picked up one of my all-time favorite -- a nearly three-pound rack of St. Louis-style pork ribs from the Niman Ranch for $5.99 a pound. They come fully cooked with sauce. What could be easier to prepare?

I also grabbed two 12-ounce packages of Trader Joe's natural bacon ($3.99 each) and one package of uncured, fully cooked  beef hot dogs (also $3.99).

Image via Wikipedia

The rest of our purchases were sliced yogurt cheese with jalapenos ($4.69), three kinds of tortillas, including habanero-lime ($2.69); organic and Greek-style yogurt ($2.99 each), two 100% juices ($3.49 and $3.99) and organic blue agave sweetener ($2.99) that I drizzle over the yogurt. The tortillas can be frozen.


The total with tax: $58.59.

Trader Joe's, 404 Route 17 north, Paramus; 201-265-9624;
open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
http://www.traderjoes.com/