Category Archives: Markets

Smoked whitefish at Costco

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Whitefish in shrink wrap sold at Costco in December 2007

Joy of joys, they started selling smoked whitefish at my Costco.  This is a cleaned whitefish that has been fully deboned, though the skin remains.  They put the two halves of the cleaned fish together in the package so it looks more or less like a whole fish.  My mother made some whitefish salad out of this, meaning she flaked the fish and mixed it with Hellman’s and a bit of sour cream.  Not bad, but this is one salty whitefish.  In fact, this is the saltiest smoked whitefish I ever bought.  If you can deal with that, and I can, since it is this or nothing, then give it a go.  I don’t know about your place, but working with smoked fish products here has the dog skidding into the kitchen.

Mom and the dog making whitefish salad in December 2007

A little Manchego

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I found shards of Manchego on Berry’s futon today.  Who the hell is feeding the dog Manchego? Is it really necessary to give him sheep’s milk cheese?  I know full well he is the main consumer of all the mozzarella sticks I buy, so let’s get real here.  While we are on the subject, I know many people are pooh-poohing Manchego in favor of other Spanish cheeses these days, but I still enjoy and purchase it now and again, usually from Costco.  It is a semi-hard cheese that lasts a long time if you treat it right, so it is perfectly fine to buy it in those Costco-sized hunks.  I love the strongish, zesty, salty flavor and eat it with some type of marmalade rather than quince paste, which is the traditional accompaniment.  If you have Manchego on hand, a baguette or two, a good marmalade, perhaps some sweet butter and most certainly a strong Spanish or Italian red, you are set for dinner.  If you have young children you can serve them grape juice.

Fish from 99 Ranch in Richmond

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Fried whole fish from 99 ranch in richmond california

Dinner last night was striped bass (two of them) from 99 Ranch Market, cleaned and prepared under their option #6, “crispy fry.”  This is very helpful if you want a decent dinner and you have no time.  All you have to do is pick out a whole fish and they’ll take care of the rest.  Grab a number and then a plastic bag from the top of the counter.  Use the bag like a glove to rifle through the fish, select one and then to pick it up to hand it to the fishmonger when your number comes up.  You pay only the price per pound, nothing extra, and I have had all kinds of fish done this way.  Sometimes they’ll have really great whole fish at $1.99 per pound.  Just buy some steamed rice at their prepared food section on the way out and you are good to go.  Throw together a sauce using a bit of chili oil, soy sauce and vinegar, if you want to add a little spice.

Happy Easter 2007!

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Salmon sides with lemon and rosemary ready to roast

The first Easter in our new house!  Jon is here, too, which has become a wonderful Easter tradition.  We had baked salmon, crab aspic, duck confit on crostini and French-style green beans.  We purchased a large, oblong, teak dining table from The Wooden Duck in Berkeley this past year, to do justice to the actual dining room we now possess.  No more squeezing into a coffee nook!  Now all diners are able to move about the room freely, without being locked into place to eat!

Christmas leftovers

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Smoked pork chop in aspic german-style

We are eating Christmas leftovers now, and I am happily working through my Sulzkotelet stash.  Oh, beloved Sulzkotelets!  I ate them as a child and would be happy with nothing but pork and aspic products during the holiday season.  A Sulzkotelet is a smoked pork loin chop (Kassler Rippchen) in mildly sour aspic with a slice of egg, carrot and pickle.  All are set attractively in a little pork chop shaped mold.  They taste great with a nice sourdough or hearty rye bread or with boiled potatoes.  When the hot potatoes come into contact with the cold aspic you get some highly desirable melting action.  Karl Ehmer in Flushing, Queens, used to sell these when I was growing up.  Though the Flushing store is long gone, Karl Ehmer still has a number of retail stores in New York and also sells via mail order, though I am invariably told that they only produce this item “off and on” and have not been able to get them sent to me in California.  If you live near a Karl Ehmer retail store and like aspic products, I advise you to investigate their availability.  I generally order them from Stiglmeier’s, even  though they are skinnier and boneless, since Stiglmeier’s has other things I order anyway.  I am not sure if Schaller & Weber, another major producer of German sausages and cold cuts, carries Sulzkotelets these days. When I lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the early 1990’s, I used to get them at their retail store off 86th street (1654 2nd Ave).