In Hackensack, a Costco with no crowds, spicy food warms us at Bangkok Garden

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

In the nearly two years since the old Costco Wholesale warehouse in Hackensack reopened, members have found an oasis of calm at what is now called a Business Center.

Another Costco member I know describes the reimagined Hackensack warehouse as a combined restaurant supply house and consumer store.

On Tuesday, I was out of organic spring mix -- which serves as my daily salad -- and organic spinach, and I had a 2-pound bag of organic coffee beans I wanted to grind for my daily brew at home.

When I bought the beans on sale at the Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, that warehouses' two coffee mills were busy.

So on Tuesday, I drove to the Costco Business Center, and parked in the uncrowded lot.

After grabbing a shopping cart and showing my membership card at the door, I headed for an enormous cold room in the back of the warehouse.

That's where shoppers find milk, eggs, OJ, yogurt and many other items they are familiar with from the busy Teterboro warehouse.

I picked up a 1-pound tub of organic spring mix and another of organic spinach (only $3.69 each), paid with the Costco Visa credit card -- which is also a cash rebate card -- and took my coffee beans for a Turkish grind in the mill, which has been moved into a corner of the Costco food court.

No fuss, no muss. See video on brewing coffee at home, below:

SOME LIKE IT HOT: On a chilly and rainy Saturday, me and my wife warmed up with a few spicy dishes at Bangkok Garden Thai Restaurant, 261 Main St., Hackensack. Our main dish was called Pla Nung, a steamed whole striped bass ($26.95). But instead of the Thai brown bean sauce topping, we asked for a chili pepper-garlic sauce on the side.

ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 10: As with the chili-garlic sauce we got with our fish, the server asked us how hot we wanted the dressing on the Som Tam Malakaw ($8.95) or crunchy Green Papaya Salad on a scale of 1 to 10. When I asked for 5, she cautioned me, so I revised that down to 3, and that was plenty hot for us.

SWEET & SPICY: We also shared an appetizer of Tod Mun Pla or Fish Cakes ($6.95) served with a Thai sweet and spicy chili sauce and ground peanuts. The menu says the chewy, deep fried  cakes are made with minced "fresh water fish." My wife also had a bowl of Thai Wonton Soup ($4.50 for small), made with chicken, not pork.

See: Our May 2017 visit to Bangkok Garden

Details

Bangkok Garden Thai Restaurant, 261 Main St., Hackensack; 201-487-2620. 

Open 7 days, liquor license, metered parking on street or in rear lot (25 cents for 30 minutes).

Website:

A Beautiful Setting for Thai Food

As Trump divides nation, men + women, Democratic voters are saying, Never again!

After President Trump asked the military to plan a July Fourth parade in Washington, D.C. -- like the one that wowed him when he visited France -- the popular vote loser was portrayed as just another tin-pot dictator by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As our long national nightmare drags on into a second year, women candidates and their Democratic supporters are vowing to turn out in record numbers in the November 2018 elections for Congress.

Racist, con man, pussy grabber, tax dodger and serial liar Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the antiquated Electoral College because of lower Democratic turnout.

"He won because Hillary Clinton was less attractive to the traditional Democratic base of urban, minorities, and more educated voters," Forbes opinion writer Ori Ben-Shahar said of Trump on Nov. 17, 2016.

"The story of Hillary Clinton's defeat ... is not the Trump Movement erupting in ballots.... The story ... is very simple: 

"The Democratic base did not turn out to vote as it did for Obama. Those sure-Democrats who stayed home handed the election to Trump," Ben-Shahar said.

Headquarters of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

'Slovenian Sphinx'

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing opinion column about Trump:

"He [Trump] is an idiot savant who plays in the roiling ocean of Twitter as naturally as a blubbery-necked sea lion.

"Only Donald Trump, a Rat Pack relic who spurred the reckoning with his transgressions toward women, could send out a tweet taking credit for the women's march.

"But the Slovenian Sphinx has her moments," Dowd said of Melania.

"Trump could humiliate his wife by being a big, horny pig [cavorting with a porn star and telling her not to worry about Melania, at home with a new baby], but he is the one who comes off as ... an embarrassing husband and an embarrassing president and an embarrassing leader of the free world."

See: Trump presidency cannot possibly last

Also: Media love Trump Liar of the Union speech


'Promises, promises'

The Record, my local daily newspaper, today launched a project to hold Governor Murphy "accountable" for the promises he made while campaigning for the job (1A).

The all-caps headline over the story, which covers half of Page 1:

"PROMISES, PROMISES"

I'm certain the Woodland Park daily never did this when GOP thug Chris Christie was governor nor have the editors bothered to hold Trump "accountable" for all the lies he tells about his so-called accomplishments.

Today, Dustin Racioppi, the reporter who covered Christie -- and served as one of the paper's chief apologists for his mean-spirited rule -- wrote stiffly:

"The Record will update this list as needed with the status on these promises as Murphy moves through his tenure."

Racioppi is no wordsmith, but the same can be said about Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and so many others left in the wake of the mass layoffs after Gannett bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family in July 2016. 

For these and many other reasons, readers and critics have long referred to The Record as "The Wretched."

Best bites?

I was shocked by the list of "Best Bites" from Chef Christine Nunn, owner of Picnic Catering by Christine, as published in The Record's Better Living section at the end of January.

She recommends food shops selling pork, beef, veal and cold cuts without saying whether any of the meat is free of harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and carcinogenic preservatives.

Is any of the produce she recommends organic? Readers don't have a clue.

For fish, she ignores The Fish Dock, a small shop in Closter that sells an astounding variety of fresh fish direct from Iceland, not from a wholesaler.

And the five -- soon to be six -- H Marts in Bergen County carry as many Asian ingredients as Mitsuwa in Edgewater, and at far better prices, plus the Korean supermarkets offer free food samples on the weekends.

Contaminated Ben & Jerry's ice cream, genetic engineering, sodium in pasta sauce

KIND snack bars at the Costco Wholesale Business Center on South River Street in Hackensack are displayed in boxes declaring they are made without "genetically engineered ingredients."

But when I bought Dannon's Oikos Yogurt at the ShopRite in Paramus, I learned from the label when I got home, below, that it is "partially produced with genetic engineering."

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Organic Consumers Association has launched a campaign to get Ben & Jerry's to go organic after breaking the news about Roundup weedkiller contamination in the company's ice cream.

Roundup or glyphosate, a weedkiller made by Monsanto, is "probably carcinogenic to humans," according to the World Health Organization.

The association, a non-profit advocacy group for organic agriculture based in Minnesota, says Vermont's dairy farmers feed their cows GMO [genetically modified] corn treated with glyphosate, and pollute the state's waterways.

Ben & Jerry's also sources dairy in western states -- all from non-organic industrial dairy farms.

Mostly Roundup

In 2016, the most heavily used pesticide polluting Vermont's waterways was Monsanto's Roundup or glyphosate -- 62,458 pounds, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

Ben & Jerry's said that by 2020, it would aim to eliminate "glyphosate-contaminated ingredients from its supply chain," presumably by not sourcing ingredients from suppliers that use glyphosate "to dry out" crops before harvest.

Ben & Jerry's, now owned by Unilever, also pledged to introduce organic ice cream in 2018, amounting to 6 percent of the brand's total ice cream production in the U.S. 

Less sodium

A half-cup of Shop Rite's Wholesome Pantry Organic Pasta Sauce contains only 8% of the recommended maximum daily intake of sodium -- compared to 18% for Victoria brand sauces and 20% for the Botticelli brand from Italy -- and no added sugar.

I bought four 24-ounce jars of Wholesome Pantry Basil and Tomato or Roasted Garlic, on sale for 99 cents each today, at the ShopRite on Passaic Street in Rochelle Park.

I usually buy a 1-pound tub of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring at Costco Wholesale every week, but the "use by date" is even harder to read than before.

Toyota has owners jumping through hoops to redress defects in the gas-electric Prius

On Jan. 11, I spent at least an hour at the Motor Vehicle Commission office in Lodi getting our 2010 Toyota Prius registered as part of the documentation I need to file a claim for defective headlight bulbs.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's update: On March 31, 2018, I received a check for $80.08 from Toyota Motor Sales USA to compensate me for replacement of Prius halogen headlight bulbs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Our 2010 Toyota Prius certainly is reliable, but the eco-friendly hybrid also has been dogged by several "safety recall notices" and one "warranty enhancement program."

The latter provides "enhanced coverage" relating to the halogen headlamp bulbs, which have burnt out prematurely.

Both bulbs were replaced for free in February 2013 as a "goodwill" gesture.

But when the driver's side bulb burnt out again last August, my Toyota dealer in Hackensack said I would have to pay for the replacement, a total of $76.97, including new license plate bulbs.

Then, I received a "customer support program notification" from Toyota Motor Sales in Texas, offering replacement of the bulbs, installation of "voltage adjustment wire harnesses," and possible reimbursement.

When I decided to seek reimbursement for last August's repair, I had to send Toyota copies of the repair order and enough documents for a court case.

Consumers often call this jumping through hoops.

The cover photo on the dealer brochure showed the 2010 Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid amid green hills and blue sky. That environmentally friendly message has been replaced with an emphasis on how well the new generation Prius performs. Below, the original sticker with an MSRP of $31,166, including an optional solar panel that turned on fans to cool the interior when the car is parked in hot weather.

Toyota's checklist

The first document requested was the repair order or invoice "showing the repairs are related to the covered condition."

Proof-of-payment was required, including a cancelled check, signed credit card receipt or copy of my credit card statement.

Vehicle identification also had to be sent in, such as the state registration, copy of the bill of sale and copy of the title (I sent all three).

In the process of gathering the documents, we discovered the state Motor Vehicle Commission never sent us a registration renewal notice for the Prius, which my wife drives. 

So, I spent about an hour at the MVC office in Lodi, updating our registration.

I sent in all the documents, and received a letter saying they are being reviewed. 

I won't be holding my breath for that reimbursement check.

See: Did Toyota ruin one of the most distinctive designs since the Volkswagen Beetle?

Built on lies, corruption, racism and more, the Trump presidency cannot possibly last

An illustration by William Hogan expresses the question that is on the minds of tens of millions of Americans outraged by the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

ONLY SOLUTION TO GWB MESS

IS TO DOUBLE TOLL TO $30

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Angry Americans are no longer reading between the lines when President Trump speaks or tweets.

They know his outrageous claims are designed to deceive both his supporters and his far more numerous detractors.

In fact, Trump seems to have hypnotized all of those reporters who hang on his every word and eagerly publish or broadcast those lies.

More than a year after Trump's illegitimate presidency began, news media big and small prefer those infuriating sound bites and unchallenged quotes to pushing back forcefully against Trump and his surrogates.

The major networks devoted hours of coverage to Trump's lie fest -- his so-called State of the Union speech last Tuesday.

The blowhard complained Democrats stayed seated and didn't applaud. Good for them. 

He should be grateful none of them called him a liar, as a GOP congressman did when Barack Obama gave one of his State of the Union speeches.

It's long past time the news media start acting skeptically when Trump gives a scripted speech -- such as recording the speech, but only broadcasting excerpts, and with instant fact-checking.

See: Trump's Liar of the Union speech

Mueller probe

That ridiculous GOP memo about the FBI will only prompt Special Counsel Robert Mueller to work even harder to obtain guilty pleas and indictments in the probe of Russia's election interference and possible collusion with Trump associates.

The Record, my local daily newspaper, ran the Trump-Mueller confrontation on Page 11A of today's paper.

Menendez column

One of readers' biggest complaints about Mike Kelly is they often don't know where the veteran Record opinion columnist stands on the issue or subject he is writing about.

Kelly's celebration of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., as a political "escape artist" is just another example of how the columnist has become little more than a space filler at the Gannett-owned paper (1A).

As usual, Kelly interviews political scientists and other so-called experts, but doesn't speak to a single Democratic voter about Menendez, who has avoided a second corruption trial after the first one ended in a hung jury.

Nor does Kelly mention Menendez might face a challenge at the polls in the primaries before the  mid-term elections in November.

He should have condemned New Jersey's senior senator for consorting with Dr. Salomon Melgen, a jet-setting fraudster who Menendez calls his close friend:

Democratic voters have no use for Menendez 

Jury should have found Menendez guilty

Raise toll to $30

The Record today continues extensive coverage of traffic woes in Leonia and other towns near the George Washington Bridge that are flooded with vehicles seeking short cuts around the growing  congestion.

Of course, the only real solution isn't mentioned in the Road Warrior column on today's Local front: 

The Port Authority must double the cash toll to $30 as an incentive for drivers to use mass transit or at least abandon their enormous gas-guzzling SUVs for car pools or gas-electric hybrids that get big toll discounts.

Leonia has blocked off side streets, but those restrictions are being challenged in court.

A couple of fish tales from here and there: At The Lambs Club and Seafood Gourmet

My $29 three-course Restaurant Week lunch at The Lambs Club in Manhattan on Thursday included one of the best fish dishes I've ever had, Icelandic Cod Loin with Roasted Vegetables and Miso Sauce, above. My starter was a Tuscan Kale Salad with Radicchio, Crispy Parmesan and Caesar Dressing, below.

RESTAURANTS OFFER A LOT 

OF FARMED SALMON YEAR-ROUND

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

During the semi-annual NYC Restaurant Week promotion, menus are awash with that old standby, farmed Atlantic salmon.

Cheap, artificially colored and usually raised on harmful antibiotics, farmed salmon doesn't have the eye appeal or robust taste of its wild cousins.

But Manhattan restaurants taking part in the promotion charge only $29 for a three-course lunch, plus tax, tip and beverages -- often less than the price of an a la carte entree -- so they turn to farmed salmon to cut their losses.

Barbetta, Charlie Palmer at The Knick, Toloache, Becco and Victor's Cafe, to name a handful, offered entrees of farmed salmon to non-meat eaters like me. 

So this week and last, I searched the NYC Restaurant Week site for other restaurants in or near the Theater District that served wild-caught fish, and had a delicious lunch at two, Esca and The Lambs Club.

The Lambs Club Icelandic Cod Loin entree I loved was listed on the a la carte menu for $35. My $29 three-course lunch cost a total of $37.37 with tax and a 20% tip.

 See: My $29 lunch at Esca

Once I ate the frisee salad on the plate with my main course at The Lambs Club, I found the Icelandic Cod Loin had been placed over a stack of crisp-tender roasted vegetables. The perfect entree: Heart-healthy fish, vegetables and salad.

My dessert was a trio of Sorbets

A small loaf of spongy bread, perfect for soaking up the extra-virgin olive oil I asked for instead of butter.

The Lambs Club restaurant is in The Chatwal, a hotel at 132 W. 44th St. in Manhattan, where the Art Deco-inspired lobby is a feast for the eyes, above and below.

Last Saturday night at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood, my wife ordered this wonderful dinner special, Grilled Chilean Sea Bass served with a Roasted Pepper Sauce, Smoked Gouda Cheese and Spinach Orzo ($28). The piece of fish I tasted was perfectly cooked -- moist and flaky.

I ordered another special, Seared Wild Salmon served over a Salad of Grilled Asparagus, Roasted Potatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Red Onion and Arugula in a Roasted Garlic Oil ($27). The fish didn't looked seared, and it came to the table overcooked (I asked for it medium). And there was far too much garlic-oil dressing for the salad.

 At Seafood Gourmet

I keep on striking out at Seafood Gourmet, the no-frills restaurant for fresh seafood behind a Maywood fish market.

I appreciate the chef's imaginative preparations, but have found that the fish and lobster I ordered were overcooked, even when I asked for a lighter touch.

Last Saturday night, my wife ordered an extraordinary Chilean Sea Bass entree, which was served with a small bowl of delicious Lobster Bisque.

I, on the other hand, fell for what was described as "Seared Wild Salmon," but what I got was a pale, skinless-boneless filet that didn't taste like wild fish at all.

Plus, I asked for it cooked "medium" and it came to the table cooked through.

Wild or farmed?

A few days later, I called the market to ask whether the wild salmon listed on the specials menu and displayed in a refrigerated case had been previously frozen, and where it was from.

It didn't have the deep red-orange color of raw sockeye, so I thought it might have been Pacific king salmon (also called chinook), the largest variety.

I was told the salmon wasn't previously frozen, and that it was wild and from New Zealand.

But when I looked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch site, I could find only farmed king salmon from New Zealand.

The small, no-frills dining room at Seafood Gourmet is often crowded, and dinner reservations are recommended. Website: The Restaurant at Seafood Gourmet

News media love Trump Liar of the Union speech, more GOP propaganda about FBI

President Trump during his first -- and probably last -- State of the Union speech on Tuesday night (photo by Win McNamee via AP). 

A photo of Trump that was published after he was fired by NBC for calling Mexicans rapists and drug runners. Same tie, same lies as on Tuesday night.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

I must be the only one who remembers when a South Carolina Republican shouted "You lie" as President Obama delivered a health care speech to Congress in 2009.

Where were the shouts of "liar" during President Trump's first State of the Union speech on Tuesday night -- or Liar of the Union speech, as I like to think of it?

Instead, I had to listen to upbeat coverage of the speech on the morning TV news, with only a minute or so devoted to a rebuttal from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass.

"It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics. But it's far bigger than that," he said, according to CNN. "This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us -- they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."

Local coverage

The Page 1 headline in The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, is puzzling, if not downright awkward:

"TRUMP TOUTS

OPTIMISTIC TONE"

One definition of "tout" is "attempt to sell." But can you try to sell an "optimistic tone" or should that have been:

"TRUMP ATTEMPTS

TO SELL OPTIMISM"

The sub-headline claims, "Speech advances infrastructure, immigration plans."

But no action  was taken on Tuesday night -- it was just a speech -- so "advances" is inaccurate.

Liar in Chief

After telling lies his entire life, does anyone really believe Trump -- con man, white supremacist, abuser of women and tax dodger -- was speaking the truth in his call for bipartisanship and unity?

"Trump offers same policies in new bipartisan packaging," was the headline over a Politico.com report.

Sounds just like media reports about Chris Christie, when he was governor of New Jersey and hailed as a "bipartisan compromiser" even as he executed one veto after another to keep Democrats in line. 

Fact Checker

Trump's claim that African-American unemployment "stands at the lowest rate ever recorded" is a total fabrication, according to The Washington Post Fact Checker:

"The African-American unemployment rate has been on a relatively steady decline since it hit a peak of 16.8 percent in March 2010.... "The rate had already fallen to 7.7 percent when Trump took the oath of office -- it is now 6.8 percent."

During the 2016 campaign, Trump claimed falsely that 58 percent of black youths were unemployed -- the actual figure was 19.2 percent, the newspaper said.

Secret memo

And the news media can't seem to get enough of the secret GOP memo about alleged investigative abuses at the FBI as part of the Russia probe.

Reminds me of all the time and space they devoted to the endless GOP lies about Hillary Clinton's emails -- stories that helped derail her campaign against Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

See: Media rewrite Christie history