Good food -- and a little red wine -- saw us through North Jersey storm

On Saturday night, I opened my front door to experience the calm after the first major snowstorm to hit northern New Jersey this winter. On Friday night and as the snow fell on Saturday, I enjoyed a series of small, comforting meals.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I got our snow blower to roar to life on Saturday, but the white stuff kept on falling and blowing into my face, and I gave up after clearing the sidewalk and half of the driveway.

At least we didn't lose power.

On Saturday morning, I prepared a 10-inch frittata from seven or eight whole organic eggs, Campari Tomato halves, prepared pesto and Mexican-style salsa.

All of the ingredients came from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, as did a fully cooked Trident Seafoods slow-smoked Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Fillet we had in the cupboard.

We also had leftovers -- organic whole-wheat pasta shells with pesto, black truffles and pignoli nuts, and boiled Kabocha squash and garlic mashed with extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings.

I was in Englewood on Wednesday and Friday, when I bought a restaurant-quality takeout dinner from Jerry's Gourmet & More, and fresh spring mix and baby spinach from the cafe at the hospital where I volunteer.

Damn the storm. We ate well, and enjoyed a few glasses of red wine.

And the sun is shining brightly this morning.

A wedge of frittata, and organic whole-wheat shells with pesto, black truffles and pine nuts. Costco Wholesale's pignoli or pine nuts are imported from China, but now are organic.

Slow-smoked wild sockeye salmon with mashed Kabocha squash and a wedge of frittata.

Slow-smoked sockeye salmon in a salad of fresh spring mix dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

From Jerry's, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, tender Calamari Fra Diavolo with string beans, and roasted potatoes with peppers and onions. I washed down the meal with a couple of glasses of red wine from Italy.

Jerry's Meal To Go included Eggplant Caponata, above, and was marked down to $5.99 after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, when I picked it up.

Plating favorites from Costco and Jerry's Gourmet

A no-mayo salad uses canned Genova-brand Yellowfin Tuna from Costco Wholesale. Two other Costco items, Campari Tomatoes and Earthbound Farm Orgnaic Spring Mix, and Italian olives from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood complete the plate.

Chopped sweet peppers, carrot and onion, and a can of drained and rinsed anchovies, in bottled Kirkland Signature Marinara from Costco add up to a tasty dressing for imported organic whole-wheat spaghetti ($1.39 a pound at Whole Foods Market in Paramus).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Canned-fish salad makes a great sandwich or cold plate for breakfast or lunch.

I use Genova-brand Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil, Bear & Wolf Pink Salmon and Season-brand Skinless & Boneless Sardines, all from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

For a crunchy salad, I mix the fish and their liquid with lots of chopped sweet peppers, onion and celery, and dress everything with Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice and ground cumin to taste.

Six cans of the solid light tuna were $11.89, six cans of the wild Alaskan salmon were $12.99, and five 3.75-ounce cans of the Moroccan sardines were $6.19 after an instant $2.25 coupon.

The Moroccan sardines (with skin and bones) I buy at Fattal's in Paterson are only 99 cents, and the can is larger, but the Season sardines have less sodium and the container is BPA free.

Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood has an unusually large selection of cheese, with many free samples (410 S. Dean St., 201-871-7108). If you think the streets are choked with traffic, the aisles at Jerry's often are jammed with people grazing on free cheese, bread, olive-oil and other samples, as they were at mid-afternoon on Tuesday.

A complete dinner from Jerry's: Chicken alla Milanese, Macaroni and Cheese, Baked Artichoke, Zucchini Flower, and Shrimp and Broccoli Dumplings ($7.99 or $5.99 after 4 p.m.). Plate the food before reheating in the microwave, and finish the meal with a salad.

Grazing at Jerry's

At Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood, you'll find containers of mixed Italian olives with whole garlic cloves for a low $3.99 a pound.

Jerry's Meals To Go are complete, restaurant-quality dinners for $7.99 or $5.99 after 4 p.m., if there are any left.

At mid-afternoon on Tuesday, I picked up three dinners: Chicken alla Milanese, Monkfish Ossobucco and Fillet of Sole Francese, but the last one contained chicken, not fish.

That's the first time I've encountered a mislabeling in the years I've been buying Jerry's Meals To Go.

I also picked up a 2.2-pound bag of Lavazza Crema e Aroma Coffee Beans from Italy for $19.99, and a 1-pound bag of Garofalo Whole Wheat Pappardelle for $2.59.

A 20-ounce jar of Bella Rosa aged Asiago, a shredded cow's milk cheese, was only $6.99.

Add to egg whites for a simple omelet or elaborate frittata, as well as to pasta, soup or salads.

Something new at Jerry's are larger, more readable receipts that are a welcome change to shoppers who have spent years squinting at narrow strips of paper with hard-to-read print.

Imported egg noodles, Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and pre-washed organic baby spinach -- all from Costco -- made a terrific one-dish dinner tonight.

Pesto and spinach

In my cupboard this afternoon, I found 4 ounces of dried egg tagliatelle, which are handmade noodles imported from Italy by Costco.
They cook up al dente in just four minutes, and I added a big handful of organic baby spinach to the boiling water in the last minute of cooking.

I drained the pasta and spinach, returned them to the pot, now off of the heat, and added about three tablespoons of prepared pesto.

Far from authentic, but delicious just the same, especially when washed down with a glass of red wine.

A pound of the organic baby spinach was $4.49 last week at my Hackensack Costco, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix was $4.79 and 5 pounds of sweet potatoes were $5.99.

A 70-ounce jar of Half Sour Pickles were $5.89, and two 96-ounce bottles of Kirkland Signature Organic Lemonade (18% juice) were $5.99.

Crisp Pink Lady Apples from Washington State were $9.99 for 5.5 pounds, and Made in Nature Organic Calimyrna Figs -- they are non-GMO, sun dried and unsulphured -- were $10.99 for a 40-ounce bag.

These Turkish figs are soft and sweet, quite a contrast to the jawbreakers I've bought in supermarkets, and they can be stuffed easily with a cinnamon-dusted roasted almond or two for a great snack or paired with cheese for dessert.

A 3-pound bag of sodium-free almonds are $14.99 at Costco, which also sells Ground Saigon Cinnamon from Vietnam.

I roast the almonds in the oven at 275 degrees for 1 hour and 2o minutes, let them cool and liberally shake the cinnamon container over them.

Good food that helps me watch my weight

Crunchy cucumber kimchi at So Gong Dong, the soft-tofu house in Palisades Park.

Instead of tofu stew and lots of white rice, I had So Gong Dong's seafood pancake.

Organic eggs, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese and pesto make a fluffy frittata. Instead of bread, I eat all of my egg dishes with leftover brown rice or whole wheat pasta.

Egg-white omelet with reduced-fat cheese, kimchi and picked jalapeno.

Canned-fish salad (sardines, salmon, tuna) with chopped celery and red onion is flavored with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin, not mayonnaise.

Cabbage and salted cod fish with Korean 7 Grains, a mixture of brown rices and beans.

An omelet with sun-dried tomato, pesto and cheese is finished under the broiler.

I bought two Seafood Fra Diavolo takeout dinners at Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood for $5.99 each (reduced from $7.99 after 4 p.m.), and plated the tender shrimp, squid and octopus with vegetables before reheating them. I left rigatoni in vodka sauce and two bread-crumb-and-cheese stuffed zucchini for someone else.

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More great food from Costco

How do they get 15 avocados in "every batch"?

Editor's note: Today, I discuss more great food from Costco, and restaurant-quality takeout dinners from Jerry's in Englewood.

Every time we enjoy Wholly Guacamole from Costco Wholesale, I think of another guacamole, this one prepared at your table in Rosa Mexicano, where every dish is made from scratch.

Three pounds of preservative-free guacamole -- divided among three peel-and-serve trays -- cost $9.49 at Costco.

Rosa Mexicano in Hackensack charges $12 for its guacamole -- made with a single avocado -- but includes small corn tortillas fashioned by hand in the dining room and a couple of salsas.

At home, we add bottled salsa and serve the guacamole as a side dish at any meal, dispensing with chips or tortillas.

Extra-virgin Spanish olive oil is a new item at Costco.

Arbequina is the name of an extra-virgin olive oil from Spain with the kind of "protected denomination of origin" you usually find in wine.

Two 1-liter bottles were $11.99. Compare that to the $5.99 you'd pay for a liter of 100% Spanish extra-virgin olive oil at Trader Joe's.

The label says the small Arbequina olive is used, producing "a golden oil characterized by low acidity and a rich, fruity olive flavor with delicious apple notes."

I'm looking forward to using this oil in salads, drizzling it over fish and using it to fry eggs sunny side up.

Black is beautiful.

Black apricots are a fruit I haven't seen before, but I found them at Costco next to the traditional kind.

They are black outside and apricot-colored inside, and very sweet, though I don't agree with the label they are "the sweetest fruit you ever tasted."

A 3-pound package was $7.79.

The biggest jar of capers I've ever seen.

Capers are hand-picked from a Mediterranean bush.

I asked by wife to look for capers at Costco, and she came back with a 32-ounce jar of Paesana Non Pareil Capers for $4.99 that I expect will last us a couple of years.

Tonight, I used 2 or 3 tablespoons of drained capers  to prepare snowy Icelandic flounder fillets I bought at Costco for $7.99 a pound.

The recipe, from Mark Bittman, calls for sliced tomato, capers, chopped red onion and olive oil. I added crushed Aleppo pepper and fresh lime juice.

The Kashi bars on the left contain chocolate and seven whole grains.

In comparing labels at Costco, I found Kashi Go Lean Crunchy variety bars, which contain chocolate, have the same or fewer calories and calories from fat than Kirkland Signature Variety Nut Bars.

The Kashi bars list total fat as 5% to 8%. The Kirkland Signature bars list 15% total fat.

One or two of these and similar bars allow me to skip lunch and maintain my weight loss.

Dinner at Jerry's

Calamari Balsamico.

Grouper with Roasted Peppers.

Roasted Pork Chop.

No. I'm not getting a cut of the profits from Jerry's Meals To Go, the restaurant-quality takeout dinners that cost only $7.99 each -- $5.99 after 4 p.m.

I just think they are a delicious bargain that allows you to put a balanced meal on the table without cooking.

Plate the food, heat it in the microwave for about 2 minutes, pour a glass of wine and go to town.

I had the Calamari Balsamico dinner on Wednesday night and enjoyed the combination of tender rings and baby squid, along with pasta, vegetables and potato.

I tasted my wife's Grouper with Roasted Peppers, and it continues to be one of my favorite fish.

The Meals To Go usually go fast, but after 4 p.m. on two recent Wednesdays, I've found several in a small refrigerated case.

Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood; 201-871-7108.

Shopping at Jerry's: Walk, stop, munch

At one point during two visits to Jerry's Gourmet and More in Englewood yesterday, every customer I passed seemed to be chewing on one of the great food samples the store puts out every day: several cheeses and cheese spreads, fatty mortadella, walnut bread, Neapolitan pizza, extra-virgin olive oil, chocolate, cookies and crackers.


Customers of the Italian specialty store know the routine well, strolling around slowly with a cart or basket, pausing at the sampling stations, tasting and moving on. Virtually all are shopping for the superb take-out food, wines, olive oils, dried pasta and so forth, but I saw at least two customers enter, sample several items and then leave empty-handed. At Jerry's, that's OK. There are even free wine-tastings on Friday and Saturdays.


I met a friend there, then returned 90 minutes later to shop for dinner. I sampled the food on both occasions -- too much, as usual. But I came away with three wonderful Jerry's Meals To Go: Chilean sea bass, grouper and chicken balsamico, complete with small portions of salad, dumplings and vegetables.


I know I have raved about these meals before, but they are restaurant-quality food at such an incredibly low price -- a mere $6.99. My buttery sea bass was a good inch thick and baked just enough to keep it moist. It was covered with a red-pepper sauce and accompanied by a salad of rice, shrimp and broccoli; shrimp and vegetable dumplings, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and stuffed mushrooms.


This is a meal that calls for a glass of wine and a toasted slice or two of great bread to make it complete. I added a small green salad. At that price, it is unlikely you can find a better take-out dinner in North Jersey. Here's a hearty round of applause for Jerry's.


Jerry's Gourmet and More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood, (201) 871-7108; open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., except Sundays, until 2 p.m.

I promise I'm not shilling for Jerry's

Here's another enthusiastic report on Jerry's Meals To Go, the complete, restaurant-quality dinners sold for only $6.99 at the Italian specialty store in Englewood. I promise that I pay for these dinners and Jerry doesn't know me from Adam.

The portions are sensible (12 ounces total), the food is delicious and healthy and the price is right for our uncertain economic times. When you finish one of these meals, you're left with a sense of well-being. The selections Saturday afternoon included fish, chicken and pork.

I plated my food, then heated it in a microwave: cod Livornese, topped with tomato sauce and black and green olives; roasted potatoes, crisp-tender carrots, broccoli and brussels sprouts, and a zucchini half stuffed with spinach and ricotta. I drizzled the food with a Colavita oil-lemon blend ($3.99 for a quart) that was available for tasting at Jerry's.

I split and toasted a Balthazar Bakery roll, poured some red wine and sparkling peach juice from Spain (in separate glasses) and dug in. What a great dinner.

Preparation tip: Don't heat this food or any other in plastic takeout or storage containers, which might transfer chemicals during the heating process; plate the food before heating and cover with a paper towel, not plastic wrap.

Bartolomeo's v. Jerry's Gourmet

My wife and me drove to Englewood today for a late breakfast at Bartolomeo's, the first serious challenger to the dominance of Jerry's Gourmet for Italian prepared food and groceries. What we found is a much smaller place with the quality but not the selection Jerry's has become known for.

Bartolomeo's is in an impressive new brick building at North Dean Street and West Demarest Avenue, less than a mile from Jerry's warehouse on South Dean in the shadow of an elevated section of Route 4. The former lags in the variety of cheeses and prepared foods, and doesn't sell any wine, but bakes pizza on the premises. Bartolomeo's also doesn't offer complete meals to go. Jerry's restaurant-quality meals, at $6.99, are among the best takeout values in North Jersey.

At Bartolomeo's, I struck up a conversation with an elderly Italian gentleman who said he was the owner. He said he had a successful business -- a store and adjacent pizzeria -- for more than a decade on Grand Avenue in Palisades Park, but that in recent years his revenues declined because the increasing number of Korean residents didn't eat a lot of Italian food.

The Englewood building has a vacant second floor, which is for rent. The man scoffed at my suggestion he open a pasta restaurant that serves a great bowl of spaghetti and meatballs or a Neapolitan pizza joint. Mentioning the wealthy residents of Englewood, Tenafly and nearby towns, he insisted only a high-end place that charged $200 a couple would be suitable for the space.

For our late breakfast, I had eggs, potatoes and peppers and my wife chose sausage, onions and peppers, both sold by the pound, $7.99 and $6.99, respectively. The hero roll we split was another 75 cents. You can get a cup of espresso at Bartolomeo's, and the store stocks a large selection of refrigerated and dry imported pasta, including dry pasta in crockery ($14.99).

And Bartolomeo's isn't nearly as generous with samples. I tried a couple of small, but delicious slivers of foccacia with olive and tomato there, in contrast to the half-dozen cheeses and salami I tasted the day before at Jerry's.