Crazy Day Roundup
Ok, the book is now six days away from launch, with the Deli-Licious NYC party at Ben’s happening on the 19th, the DC Sixth and I talk with Evan Klein on the 21st, and the Toronto launch party at Caplansky’s on the 22nd.
The Ben’s party has been getting particularly good attention. Today we got shoutouts in the listings of the New Yorker (for all you highbrow uptowners) and the Village Voice (for all you rocking downtowners).
Tonight, on NPR’s All Things Considered, listen as I sit down with host Robert Siegel at Ben’s Best Kosher Delicatessen, in Queens, NY, for an interview about Save the Deli. The show airs nationally from 4pm-6pm, though longer in some areas. After 7pm EST, the interview will be available online for you to listen to. Also, don’t forget that All Things Considered wants your deli stories and photos. Email stories to deli@npr.org and upload any pictures you have to Flickr with the tag “nprdeli”.
Lots more to come this week. Today I’m especially excited to do a taping for Bronx Flavor, by far the most amazing food internet TV show ever. Hell, it’s the best food TV show period. The Baron and I will be feasting on schmaltzy treats in the Bronx, whose succulent powers one can only imagine. If you haven’t seen the show, you must. It’s the Wayne’s World of this generation. Only real.
Finally, in international deli news, my friend Michal has reported to me that a Jewish delicatessen has opened in ….wait for it…. Tel Aviv! Yes. Huge news. I’ll let Haaretz do the heavy lifting:
Pleasure hunting / How to feed the sandwich generation
By Ronit Vered
The New Yorker
Sixty-one years after the establishment of the Hebrew state, salvation has come to Zion. The Reuben has finally made it to Israel. And what a magnificent debut performance by this sandwich - an Eastern European classic that was reborn in the delicatessens of the Jewish immigrants on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and became a symbol of New York. Forget about the fact it is actually named after Reuben Kulakofsky, who used to feed players in the illegal poker championships he organized in the basement of the Lexington Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, with a sandwich made from rye bread, melted Swiss cheese and thin slices of corned beef.
Gabi Zilber fell in love with the famous sandwiches of the New York delis when he was working as a cook in Canada and the United States. When he returned to Israel he convinced his friends at Murphy’s Irish bar in Herzliya - Regev Evron and brothers Tomer and Sagi Shalev - that there was a need for the Yiddish miracle of charcuterie in the Holy Land, too. For over a year the four engaged in meticulous culinary experiments and constructing the necessary special equipment. The result - the Tel Aviv sandwich bar that opened a month ago - fulfills all expectations.
The huge chunks of meat, from breast of beef or turkey, are marinated for several days and then stored in cool smoking rooms in the north of the country. At the sandwich bar they are kept in a steamer built for them, and then cut in paper-thin slices that are hot, steamy and coated with a wonderful black mixture of caramel and herbs. The modest slices of rye or white bread may seem a negligible matter, but they are what hold the amazing package together and lend solidarity to the flavors that mingle in your mouth: 200 to 400 grams of dense slices of pastrami, plus sauerkraut, raw onion rings, sharp mustard, horseradish sauce and so on. Other options are mayonnaise, fresh lettuce and ripe tomato slices. You wash everything down with cold beer on tap.
Reuben, 118 Yehuda Halevy St., Tel Aviv, 077-490-8050
To all you deli lovers who have made Aliya, or those Ashkenazi Sabras whose genes crave the salty meats of the Diaspora, it seems as though salvation may actually be at hand. Maybe the Bronfmans can pay for another Birhthright trip for yours truly to go and taste it. Otherwise, any Israeli correspondents who want to report back with text and photos? You can guest blog on Reuben’s, and even stop at Batya, the other quasi-deli in the White City.
