A trip to the turkey farm, deals on wild shrimp and wine at Whole Foods

The Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff calls itself the only live market in Bergen County.

The market, established in 1948, sells naturally raised capons up to 12 pounds and turkeys up to 40 pounds.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

There is something special about getting your Thanksgiving turkey at the only live market in Bergen County.

Today, on a beautiful fall afternoon, we drove the 10 miles out to the farm on Goffle Road in Wyckoff, even though I no longer eat turkey, and my wife and other members of the family prefer drumsticks, thighs and other parts.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, the small farm store was crowded with workers taking phone orders or waiting on a steady stream of customers.

Turkeys are free range, fresh killed and raised without antibiotics -- or "approximately one level down from organic," according to the farm's website.

We called ahead for large turkey drumsticks ($1.69 a pound), large turkey thighs ($2.69 a pound) and turkey necks ($1.99 a pound).

At the store, we also picked up 3 pounds of cleaned chicken feet ($1.99 a pound).

A flier in the store advertises a 3-course Thanksgiving Dinner at Chakra Restaurant in Paramus on Nov. 24, when one of the entrees will be Brandy-Maple Brined Goffle Farm Turkey with cornbread stuffing ($49 per person).

Besides turkeys (stuffed and unstuffed) and chickens, Goffle Road Poultry Farm sells fresh-killed quail, rabbit, goose, and duck, plus chicken and duck eggs (the latter are $1.25 each). 

The retail store stocks Uncle Dougie's barbecue and wing sauces from Chicago ($5.95 for an 18-ounce bottle). The Sweet Luv'n Small Batch Barbecue Sauce we bought is made with honey and dark-brown sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

The poultry houses and live processing shed appear to have more solar panels than I saw in previous years.

Details

Goffle Road Poultry Farm, 549 Goffle Road, Wyckoff; 201-444-3238. Closed Sundays. 

Website: Live Poultry Market

On Tuesday, wild-caught Gulf Shrimp were on sale for $12.99 a pound at Whole Foods Market in Paramus. Thanks to a tip from a reader, I found a coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase on the store's app, which I downloaded to my smartphone. That worked out to about $10.80 a pound on a purchase of 2.05 pounds.

The shrimp are previously frozen, but that doesn't affect the taste. At 16 to 20 per pound, 2 pounds of shrimp provide generous servings for three people with leftovers. A fish-counter employee gladly deveined them for me.

Shrimp with pasta

Wild shrimp deserve a great pasta and sauce, so when I brought home more than 2 pounds of them on Tuesday, I went into the cupboard for a package of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Capellini from ShopRite and a bottle of Trader Giotto's robust Puttanesca Sauce. 

I usually use bottled marinara, adding red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, anchovies, dried herbs and seasonings, including garlic powder, black pepper and red-pepper flakes.

But Trader Joe's mildly spicy Puttanesca can stand on its own. Ingredients include anchovy paste, capers, black and kalamata olives; garlic and red-wine vinegar.

I used about 12 ounces of the 16 ounces of whole-wheat capellini, which take only 3 minutes to cook, so I prepared the shrimp first as I brought the unsalted pasta water to a boil.

I sliced unpeeled garlic, sauteed the slices in olive oil until they were fragrant, and added a few ounces of leftover Victoria Marinara to the non-stick pan.

The 2 pounds of deveined shrimp, marinated in fresh lime juice and a little sea salt, filled the 12-inch pan in one layer, and after a few minutes in the simmering sauce, I flipped them over and cooked them until they curled up and turned pink. 

I drained the pasta, added it to the bubbling sauce, and dinner was served.

At Whole Foods in Paramus, inexpensive bottles of red wine have been moved out of the main wine section and now are displayed inside the Bergen Town Center mall entrance, above and below.

I bought six bottles of cabernet, tempranillo, shiraz and carmenere priced from $3.99 to $6.99, and got a 10% discount at the register. Whole Foods gives you a 20% discount on the purchase of 12 bottles.

Jumbo New Jersey mug, salty herring, summer fruit, red wine and more

The Jumbo New Jersey Mug holds 24 ounces or a day's worth of coffee. Trenton, which is in a perpetual state of political gridlock, isn't listed on the side of the cup.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I went looking for a sugar bowl and came away with a bonus -- an unusually large mug with a lighthearted graphic of the Garden State on each side.

I found both at Bed Bath & Beyond, off Route 4 in Paramus, after a fruitless search for a sugar bowl at the nearby IKEA, a maze-like furniture store with a grocery section I tackle once a year, if then.

IKEA has a smaller collection of kitchenware than I remember from my last visit.

I did purchase a pair of thin, flexible IKEA cutting boards that you can carry to the stove and funnel sliced garlic or chopped onion directly into the pan ($1.99).

When I couldn't find a sugar bowl, I also bought three colorful metal canisters for storing flour, sugar and other dry ingredients ($4.99).

From IKEA's grocery section, I bought a box of Muesli, a cereal mix with dried berries and nuts ($4.99); Oat Biscuits and Organic Ginger Thins ($2.49 each), and a package of addictive Rye Crispbread ($2.99).

At Bed Bath & Beyond, the sugar bowl was $4.99 and the jumbo mug $5.99.

I stopped buying pickled herring at IKEA after reading the label and seeing the high sodium content. Five pieces of this herring in dill marinade has 1500 milligrams or 62% of the daily recommended intake of sodium.

IKEA's packaged sauces for fish, left, have the same high sodium content as the herring, and none of the cheeses offered are made from part-skim milk. Sparkling fruit drinks contain added sugar.

IKEA's restaurant offers a dinner entree for only $4 -- mashed potatoes, vegetables and antibiotic-free chicken, lower left, something you don't find in far more expensive places.

A pint of New Jersey blueberries was $1.99 and a box of 16 sweet Ataulfo Mangoes was on sale for $10.99 last weekend at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, below. A 15-pound bag of Kokuho Yellow Label Rice, grown in California, was reduced to $9.99. 

Wild Gulf Shrimp from Whole Foods Market cooked in minutes after I heated up olive oil and sauteed plenty of sliced garlic until it was fragrant. First, we marinated the shrimp in fresh lime juice and seasonings. I served them with mashed Kabocha squash and a medley of cooked sweet peppers, red onion and fresh corn.

For four people, I bought 2.2 pounds of wild-caught shrimp (16 to 20 per pound). On Thursday, they were on sale for $14.99 a pound, and the employee behind the seafood counter at Whole Foods in Paramus deveined them for me while I went to pick up other items.

The wild shrimp in the dinner cost about $8.50 per person. They cook in minutes after you put them in hot oil. I turned them once. They are ready when they turn white and curl up. 

The Whole Foods in the Bergen Town Center also had a sale on antibiotic-free chicken drumsticks for 99 cents a pound, above. Four ears of local sweet bi-color corn were only $2.

Whole Foods has a smaller selection of inexpensive red wine and no bottles for $3.99, as before. Still, I found six bottles of sangiovese, shiraz, tempranillo, tinto and a cabernet-merlot blend for $5.99 or $6.99 each. You get an additional 10% discount when you buy six bottles at one time.

A 1-pound box of 365 Everyday Value Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from Italy is $1.49 at Whole Foods. Here, I prepared the spaghetti with four cans of skinless-and-boneless sardines, a can of anchovies and a 40-ounce jar of Victoria Marinara Sauce, and served the pasta with sauteed fresh spinach. The canned fish and sauce were from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

We're adding Cuban roast pork, wild shrimp to our Christmas menu

Cuban Sandwich master Belarmino Rico, 76, at the plancha, the heated grill that transforms an ordinary ham, pork and cheese sandwich into a hot, crispy Cubano.

On Wednesday, Rico checked the pork he roasts for five hours in a pizza oven at La Pola Restaurant, 5400 Palisade Ave., West New York. Today, in an annual holiday ritual, he will be waiting on hundreds of customers who will flood into the small luncheonette to pick up Christmas orders -- including whole butterflied pigs, ribs and hams, plus all of the Cuban side dishes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Wednesday morning, when we pulled into the tiny parking lot of La Pola Restaurant in West New York, we witnessed the calm before the storm.

Belarmino Rico, who justly deserves the title of "King of the Cuban Sandwich," was roasting pork and waiting on an occasional customer in preparation for today's onslaught.

As my wife enjoyed a hot, crispy Cuban Sandwich or Cubano and I sipped a cafe con leche, Rico explained that he had stopped taking orders for Christmas.

Today, three generations of his family and his loyal employees are greeting hundreds of customers who come in to pick up whole pigs, roast pork, ham and ribs, which will be displayed on racks and tables.

They'll also take home such Cuban dishes as congris, rice cooked with black beans; yuca with garlic, chicharrones or pork rinds, and a tortilla Espanola, a Spanish potato omelet. 

Rico named his Cuban sandwich shop for La Pola, the small town in Spain where he was born before he emigrated to Cuba.

We had a prior commitment today so on Wednesday, we picked up roast pork for our Christmas dinner on Friday.

On Wednesday, La Pola Restaurant was experiencing the quiet before the storm.

At La Pola, a Cuban Sandwich is made with a 12-inch section of water bread filled with roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, moistened with a garlic sauce called a mojito and heated until crispy in a press.

La Pola's own Plaintain Strips are delicious and low in salt.

La Pola, on Palisade Avenue and 54th Street in West New York, is cash only.

Wild Gulf Shrimp are on sale today at Whole Foods Market in Paramus.

Going wild for shrimp

The roast pork from La Pola Restaurant in West New York is for the meat eaters in the family.

This morning, I went to Whole Foods Market for another main dish, Wild Gulf Shrimp, which were on sale for $14.99 a pound.

That's about what Costco Wholesale charges for farmed Black Tiger shrimp from Vietnam. Customers are told nothing about how they are raised.

On Friday, we'll also have a wild Red King Crab Salad dressed with Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice, seasonings and fresh chopped cilantro.

Side dishes include mashed Kabocha Squash and Organic Carrots, Organic Quinoa with Garlic and a salad of Organic Spring Mix. 

Whole Foods Market in Paramus has the best fresh seafood counter in North Jersey. One of the employees, left, gladly deveined the 3 pounds of wild shrimp I asked for.

As I waited for the shrimp to be deveined, I munched on samples of cheese, nuts and dried olives.

These bunches of Organic Cilantro are about twice as big as the conventional cilantro sold at the nearby Paramus ShopRite for 99 cents.