I'm getting tired of all this running around before Thanksgiving, other major holidays

SYMBOLS OF THE SEASON: Our white Christmas tree, above, and our menorah, made from Murano glass, that I brought back from Italy in 2010, below.

VENICE'S JEWISH GHETTO: I bought this menorah in a shop in what was once the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy. I vividly recall a large display of wall plaques telling the story of Venetian Jews who were sent to the death camps during World War II.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The headline for this post could have been, "Shop too much, cook too much, eat too much."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- I dashed out of the house a little after 8 this morning, skipping my usual big breakfast, and drove to Whole Foods Market in Paramus.

I was hoping to buy wild-caught lobster tails for our Thanksgiving meal before the surface lot off of Forest Avenue became packed and frenetic with shoppers, as it was before noon on Monday.

Meanwhile, my wife drove to the ShopRite in Englewood for an organic turkey to donate to the Center for Food Action, and to a Teaneck market for goat meat for her and the other meat eaters in the family.

Our Thanksgiving menu includes turkey drumsticks from the Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff that we purchased last week, and 3 vegan dishes I ordered online and picked up at Whole Foods on Monday.

I'm a pescatarian who eats only seafood after giving up meat and poultry nearly a decade ago.

Food shopping follies

Last year, I spent $88 on Alaskan Red King Crab Legs at Costco Wholesale, and made a salad with diced sweet peppers and onions, all dressed with Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice and cumin.

This year, I was planning to buy the crab legs on Tuesday, but gave up that idea after my wife, who made her weekly trip to Costco on Monday, reported the Teterboro warehouse was packed and there were no whole turkeys or the smoked wild salmon on our list.

We eat well all year around, including wild-caught seafood, antibiotic-free chicken and as many organics as possible, so all this running around for a special holiday menu seems a little ridiculous.

And we still have our Christmas dinner to shop for in a few weeks.

Dinner out for a change

With all of our Thanksgiving food shopping done, my wife, son and I splurged on an early dinner at Legal Sea Foods in Paramus, where prices and quality are both high.

I enjoyed oysters on the half shell, and all of us had jumbo lump crab cakes, scallops, shrimp, mussels  and lobster in a variety of appetizers and entrees, as well as a kale salad with diced sweet potatoes and ricotta salata, all washed down with white and red wine.

WHOLE FOODS MARKET: This morning, I went to Whole Foods Market in Paramus for wild-caught lobster tails, but also brought home cooked shrimp and cocktail sauce, below.

ORGANIC PRODUCE DELIVERY: On Tuesday, we received our second box filled with 10 pounds of organic produce, including radishes with their greens, from MisfitsMarket.com. We just started the subscription, which cuts down on food shopping, and get one box every 2 weeks.

MORE MISFITS: Organic bok choy and green beans, as well as an extra-cost item, organic blueberries, also were in the box, below.

Overeating, pushing leftovers to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve

BACCALA WITH GARLIC AND BROCCOLI RABE: I used the 2 pounds of boneless salted cod (baccala) called for in this recipe from Whole Foods Market, plus garlic, tomatoes, wine and a big head of organic broccoli rabe. The codfish was boiled three times to remove the salt, then 2-inch chunks were dredged in a little flour, fried and turned over.

ORGANIC PASTA AND WILD SHRIMP DRESSED WITH PESTO: I used a 1.1-pound package of Garofalo Organic Casarecce Pasta from the Costco Business Center in Hackensack, 1.5 pounds of cleaned wild-caught Key West White Shrimp, sold frozen at Whole Foods Market; and dressed them with plenty of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco.

Our New Year's resolution:
 Shop less and eat less food

Editor's note: The first version of this post included a video that didn't play and a number of typos, but I've fixed them and included a link to the cooking video at Victor's Healthy Kitchen on YouTube.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- All that's left is a celebratory meal out today (New Year's Eve) before I can return to eating normal amounts of food.

And return to baking small sweet potatoes, a bread substitute I can eat to my heart's content without worrying about gaining weight; or another great side dish, an electric cooker full of organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes and plenty of garlic.

Yes. I love to eat, and I'm happiest when I'm eating. But we simply buy too much food, and I can no longer dismiss all that shopping by saying it's good exercise, especially if you park far from the supermarket or warehouse entrance, as I do.

We've tried to ignore the profiles of pastry chefs in newspapers, even as some of them have published entire sections devoted to pie, and continue to avoid too much sugar, salt, butter and other saturated fat.

My wife and I don't compete in the kitchen, but on some nights we prepare two meals, because I've eaten only heart-healthy seafood for the last decade, and she and the rest of our family eat meat and poultry, as well as fish.

Too much food

So, on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we ended up with too many entrees (a half-dozen), and I am still eating leftovers from a Feast of the Seven Fishes I prepared for last Tuesday's meal.

I cooked only three of the seven seafood courses, relying on leftovers in the refrigerator for the rest: 

A tuna-sardine salad dressed with Dijon, lemon juice and cumin; silken slices of smoked wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon from Costco Wholesale, and leftover fried squid from a Lotus Cafe delivery (total of 4 fishes).

My annual battle of the bulge is trying to stay under 200 pounds, and this morning, I tipped the bathroom scale at 200.4 pounds -- down from 205.6 pounds.

I had dipped under 200 pounds just before Thanksgiving, meaning I needed nearly 3 months to lose the weight I had gained on a 15-day vacation in Alaska in August, where we ate three big meals a day.

New year dinner

I made reservations for tonight at Rosa Mexicano, the fine-dining restaurant in Hackensack, where we'll order a la carte to avoid the desserts served with the fixed-price holiday menu.

Still, I'll need willpower to avoid eating too many of the scrumptious little corn tortillas (usually made in the dining room) with our guacamole and other food.

And, of course, I won't be able to resist ordering a bottle of Negra Modelo, one of Mexico's great beers.

Pushing leftovers 

On Sunday morning, I made an egg-white omelet to use the last wild-caught shrimp and some leftover sauce from our Christmas dish of Organic Pasta dressed with Basil Pesto.

I still have a little bit of the Baccala with Garlic and Broccoli Rabe, and some of that tuna-sardine salad, but it will be futile trying to get anyone else to eat them. 

NO-FLIP FRITTATA WITH PASTA PESTO: The day after Christmas, I used leftover organic pasta with shrimp and pesto, plus egg whites, to make a no-flip frittata covered with grated parmesan, tomato slices and spoonfuls of pesto. See this how-to video.

GIVING THANKS FOR RED KING CRAB: For Thanksgiving, I prepared a salad of cooked Red King Crab and diced sweet peppers dressed with Dijon mustard, fresh lemon juice and ground cumin.

VEGAN PLATTER: I also ordered a vegan Thanksgiving meal from Whole Foods Market in Paramus, including a head of cooked cauliflower, center; squash, chickpeas and dressing, all of which required reheating in the oven. We decided to throw away the dessert, which was way too sweet.

Biggest paper of the year from The Record lands with the thud of an enormous turd

LOCK THEM UP! From the Dump Trump Daily Facebook page, one of several that excoriate President Trump and call for his impeachment.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The story of what has happened to The Record in the past decade could be called, "The Incredible Shrinking Newshole."

Even before my local daily newspaper was sold to Gannett in July 2016, the amount of space devoted to news -- including reports from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area -- shrank dramatically.

For example, four or five years ago, then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg decided saving money on newsprint was more important than providing a comprehensive local news report.

He ordered the local-news section for Bergen County and a second one for Passaic and Morris counties to be combined, which explains why Hackensack readers see more Paterson news than stories from their own city.

Gannett boast

Starting last Monday, a banner across the top of the front page promised "OUR BIGGEST PAPER OF THE YEAR" on Thanksgiving.

It was anything but -- unless you counted numerous advertising inserts.

I don't read the Sports section, and wasn't going to join the Black Friday madness at the malls.

So I was left with four sections with only 40 pages of news and ads when I finally got around to looking at the Thursday paper on Friday.

Long drive

In Friday's Better Living section, the editors recommended shopping center restaurants, including Legal Sea Foods and California Pizza Kitchen in the far-off Mall at Short Hills.

Those same restaurants operate at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, in the heart of the circulation area, but there was no mention of that.

Store shooting?

The Record publishes photos from the newspaper's archives in a feature called "Vintage New Jersey."

On the front of last Monday's Better Living section, photos of Bergen housewives shopping in supermarkets in the 1970s appeared innocent enough.

But on 3BL a caption on one of the photos said:

"1977: A&P shooting scene on Lincoln Avenue Glen Rock."

What shooting? And was this an appropriate choice for the photo archives feature?