Improvising a breakfast frittata

A couple of days ago, I saw a recipe for a frittata with kimchi on the Arirang kimchi Web site and this morning, I started pulling items from my fridge to see what I could improvise. I eat kimchi as a side dish most mornings, so why not incorporate it into the main dish, I thought.

I had a jar of Arirang cabbage kimchi I bought in Englewood, egg whites, drug- and preservative-free bacon, thin-sliced Swiss cheese and a little leftover sauteed spinach from dinner Friday night.

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I chopped up spinach, kimchi and cheese, put them into a bowl, added the liquid egg whites -- enough to fill a 12-inch non-stick frying pan -- and seasoned them with salt, pepper and an organic  spice mixture from Costco. I also sliced a plum tomato.


I added a couple of ounces of extra-virgin olive oil to the pan and poured in the egg mixture. After it cooked a while and the edge was set, I placed three strips of bacon on top, along with tomato slices, salting them individually (the tomato, not the bacon). The frittata spent about 8 to 10 minutes on the stove and another 6 to 8 minutes under the broiler, until it was sizzling all over and the cheese oozed.

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I ate it with warm Syrian bread, hummus and seasoned tofu from H Mart in Little Ferry. I liked how the kimchi still had some crunch, but realized I had put way too little into the egg mixture. Next time, I'll add enough so its presence shouts, not whispers.

What else is in those processed hot dogs?

I would gladly join the lawsuit that was to be filed today against hot-dog makers by three New Jersey residents, who are seeking class-action designation. 

They are asking the court to order the food processors to add warning labels, and cite research showing a heightened risk of colon cancer in people who eat hot dogs and other processed meat.

I stopped buying cured hot dogs and preserved cold cuts a couple of years ago, hoping to cut down on harmful nitrates and nitrites. 

But I also didn't want to eat meat or poultry that was raised with antibiotics and hormones, and fed animal by-products, the industry euphemism for the bits of dead animals that go into the feed. 

Do you really want to eat beef from a cow that ate bits of dead animals and may have fallen down sick on the way to the slaughterhouse, only to be dragged inside to its death?

Trader Joe's, ShopRite, Stop & Shop, Fairway and Whole Foods sell a variety of uncured hot dogs, uncured bacon and unprocessed cold cuts. 

Applegate Farms produces a large variety of cold cuts without preservatives. You can find them at the ShopRite in Englewood and at Fairway in Paramus, among other stores.

I have some Nature's Promise all-beef hot dogs from Stop & Shop in my freezer. They are uncured and not preserved, and contain no nitrates or nitrites, "except for naturally occurring nitrates in sea salt, celery powder and nutmeg." 

Equally as important, the beef used was raised without antibiotics and hormones, and the cows were vegetarian-fed.

--VICTOR E. SASSON

To all you bacon freaks

Here is a comment I sent today to the Web site relish.com. Relish magazine comes with my local newspaper once a month (this allows the newspaper to do less food writing, not more):

I went to baconfreak.com, mentioned on Page 4 of your April 2009 Relish magazine, and it seems the vast majority of bacon sold there is cured and filled with antibiotics and preservatives such as nitrates. To call it natural, as you do, is a real stretch. It may be lower in fat, but I have read that pigs receive more antibiotics than any other animal raised for food. What's wrong with antibiotics? People who eat lots of poultry and meat raised with antibiotics are becoming resistant to antibiotics they get from doctors. There is no discussion On the Web site baconfreak.com of cured vs. uncured, antibiotics or growth hormones and whether the bacon sold there has them.

The Web site refers to people who want to avoid nitrates as "health nuts." It does offer a small selection of bacon without nitrates, but there is no mention whether this bacon contains antibiotics and growth hormones.

There is lots of uncured bacon without antibiotics, growth hormones or nitrates sold at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Markets. This is the bacon you should feature in Relish magazine.