Jean, Eggs and Ham

Mofongo to go in Paterson!!

I am cookoo for mofongo. I discovered this cherished Dominican (originally Puerto Rican) dish earlier this year, and I decided it deserved much more attention when I discovered it was the specialty of the house at D'Classico, a recently renovated upscale-Dominican restaurant in Paterson.

What is mofongo, besides a terrifically fun word? A savory dish made of gently fried plantains, mashed with salt, pepper, garlic and butter, traditionally mixed with fried pork skins (chicharrones), and served with various meats and seafoods. It's molded into a round dome and served with seafood, chicken, beef, or vegetables -- whatever the customer wants, frankly. And it just looks amazing. Look at it! And read more about it here!

                                                    

Paterson, Clifton schools offer "diverse" menus

I never thought much about God or church in the cafeteria during school lunch. Nor did I think that any student might wish for some meal of a completely different culture, with a name in a different language (pizza, raviolis and goulash were as exotic as my town got).

But my coworker Heather Haddon writes today about the daily effort in schools around Passaic County to create lunch menus, field trip menus, classroom snacks and more with a diversity of foods, from Latin American to Arabic, and foods that meet religious needs, like pork-less or kosher lunches.

I know some of you think this is great, yay for diversity! But I know others of you are scowling and annoyed; it seems unfair to give some people "special" treatment and to change what's always been done to accomodate a few. How will people ever become American if they can't eat American meals?

But what is American? 100 years ago, without any Italians, did we have spaghetti or our beloved (aforementioned) pizza? Before Irish, did we have mashed potatoes? Or the Germans, did we have all sorts of pastry and kielbasa? And, as Heather points out, today's immigrants assimilate faster than those of 100 years ago. Maybe all our fuss over being inclusive in meals in schools is to simply allow kids to thrive, and learn without feeling like an outcast, or confused, or plain hungry.

What do you think?

Now Dipp, baby, Dipp

I'm a sucker for ice cream. I'm an even bigger sucker for a love story.

So when I came across Dipps Ice Cream, a new ice cream shop on Lakeview Ave. in Clifton, I discovered its owners Darrin and Tiffany Miles were a husband and wife team with joie de vivre and a sunny outlook on business, risk, and their relationship (that's them in the picture). Why'd they open the shop? To make people happy, including themselves.

"People say, 'This is how an ice cream shop used to be,'" Tiffany said. "With that real homey feel."

Read their story here. And let me know if you've tried Dipps!

Montclair State looooves food scraps

What do you do with 25,000 pounds of food scraps? Montclair State says, "compost them!"

In a fancy groundbreaking ceremony yesterday, MSU officially became the country's first to promise to follow as many "green" policies as it could.  Officials signed an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to continue to develop new systems of green living. Since last year, it's composted all of those scraps in a fancy "Aerobic Food Composter" and generated electricity through solar panels on its roof, and it plans to conserve water.

We hardly ever think about the tons of food we waste, only the food we eat. But, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than one quarter of America's food (about 96 billion pounds) of is wasted, lying in fields, commercial kitchens, manufacturing plants, markets, schools, and restaurants. The U.S. spends an estimated $1 billion a year to dispose of it.

And we can each take steps to reduce waste (and no, I don't mean eat more, as tempting as that may sound). I just discovered this organization that gives tips on how. Check it out.

Power out? Raid the fridge!

As I poked around my fridge this morning for juice and an apple, I thought about the thousands of people in our neck of the woods in Jersey who lost power after the crazy storms Tuesday night. About 80,000 people in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex counties trudged along through Wednesday afternoon without refrigeration, air conditioning, microwaving and anything else requiring electricity, according to the Public Service Electric and Gas Co., writes my coworker Paul Brubaker today. Twenty locations in Passaic were slammed with downed trees and utility poles and many more in Clifton, Nutley, Belleville and Rutherford.

On the news this morning, one Nutley resident said she and her family have been eating all of their perishable foods first. She's right on. But I hope she got to them fast, because after four hours of losing power, refrigerated foods like yogurt, milk, eggs, meats, leftover meals and opened salad dressings or sauces become warm enough that bacteria begins to grow -- so says the Journal of Environmental Nutrition.

• If you lose power and can't eat all those foods within four hours, cook up as much of them as possible together into one meal or into something nonperishable (like salads, breads, cakes, cookies, smoothies). Then throw out what you can't use.
• Eat or drink juice, jelly, ketchup, hard cheese, raw fruits and veggies later, since those last longer.
• Meats in the freezer begin to go bad once they're thawed (if you can check the temp, make sure they're 40 degrees or below). Vegetables left unfrozen for more than six hours should be tossed, but keep frozen pasty and other foods for later.

Taste of Paterson: not so scary!

Last week I attended the Taste of Paterson fundraising event for YMCA at the Hamilton Club, where about 75 people munched on food from 21 restaurants including Toro's, Spain Tapas Bar and Restaurant, Libby's and more from Paterson and its environs. 

It was such an awesome scene -- everyone just eating, raving about the food, and marveling over the quality of restaurants in the area, of Paterson in particular. I felt quite smug -- I've long felt that Paterson's restaurants are underappreciated, and people beyond Paterson are too scared or snobby (cough, cough, Bergen County) to really explore it.

Read my story about the event here. And tell me what you think: what are your favorite Paterson restaurants? Is Paterson's food underappreciated?

It's tricky in North Jersey

A common denominator among nearly all local beefsteak, veterans' fish fry, church dinner or breakfasts (no, not the same-old, same-old menus)? Tricky trays.

My coworker Jennifer wrote today about this bizarrely popular North Jersey tradition, also called a Chinese auction, gift auction, silent auction and, to top the random scale, a basket game. People in Clifton, Passaic, Paterson and nearby freak for them. Like Iris Proper, who drove out from her home in Staten island to attend the tricky tray last week at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Clifton:

She described herself as a 'tricky tray professional' who travels far and wide to satisfy her cravings.

'We're tricky tray junkies,' said the 48-year-old Prosper. 'Even with a broken arm, I'm coming.'

Alright, not gonna lie, but local beefsteaks, dinners and breakfasts aren't exactly five-star dining. Does the thrill of hedging our odds to win soap gift baskets and mani/pedi gift certificates compensate for cole slaw and scrambled eggs? Would people even attend if not for the tricky trays? What do you think?

Inspect your gadgets -- in Clifton

One of my favorite tips for quickly evaluating the quality of a restaurant has to be this: the condition of the bathroom matches the quality of the kitchen. So if the bathroom's nasty, so is the kitchen. Why? If restaurant workers are appropriately anal about keeping a kitchen clean, their same standards would apply throughout the restaurant.

A dirty kitchen spells major trouble for diners. Raw chicken juice left on the counter, mouse droppings next in the pantry, cockroaches scuttling over who knows what. All of it ups the risk of food-borne illness. Tasty!

So praise the gods for health inspectors. My coworker Sarah writes about 26-year-old Melissa Spencer, one of Clifton's finest, who inspects some of the city's 420 restaurants every year. She checks for 52 different safety standards, from freezer temperatures to utensil storage. Restaurants that meet every standard earn a "satisfactory" certificate. Most do, she says, but inspectors handed out six violations in April alone.

What restaurants in Clifton or Paterson skeeve you out most? I can think of my top contenders but I'd rather hear your take.

We have a weiner!

Local independent sausage, bratwurst, kielbasa, and chorizo shops do the best business in the summer, thanks to Memorial Day, Father's Day, graduation and Labor Day barbecues. One shop owner, Aldo Iacovo of A&C Pork Store in Paterson, told me he did about double his usual business the Sunday before this past Memorial Day.

But like many speciality trades, sausage-making tends to stick within certain families, passed down from generation to generation. And today's sausage shop owners say their kids have no interest in taking it over.

"A lot of the smaller guys are aging," said Jay Winther, executive director of the American Association of Meat Processors, "and fewer people are going into the business. It's a good life, but it's a hard life."

What makes these guys so special? Read more about the local sausage scene, and some stores' newest flavors (jalepeno and cheddar, anyone?) here.

Passaic city pantries running low

Passaic city pantry stocks are getting low and may be nearly empty by summer, as more and more people who cannot afford food come in for basic staples. My coworker Meredith visited several this past week. She writes today that individual donors used to donate foods like macaroni and cheese or powdered milk to the Salvation Army pantry there. From today's story:

'"We would have that back wall full to the top," said pantry coordinator Marisa Brown, 46, in the small pantry, beneath fluorescent lights near a humming refrigerator. "We used to have mountains and mountains of cereal, powdered milk."'

Tough times, folks, tough times. And it makes me wonder, how can we help if we're all going through tough times? What should be done?