My Schmaltz Stimulus, PBS Arts Beat, The Art of Living, Edible Manhattan, and Tampa’s JCC
Philadelphia
In just two hours I’ll be talking at the Philadelphia Free Library, and boy and I thankful that the Phillies won last night. Otherwise it’d be a pretty hostile crowd. You haven’t heard from me in the past three days because I’ve been in Miami, where they have a little thing called sunshine and sand, where my ass was plopped when I wasn’t at deli related events. A good time had by all.
Tomorrow is Montreal, and the source of all this deli love, which is going to be great. Thursday night I’ll be talking at Paragraph bookstore, and the folks from Schwartz’s, Snowdon, Lester’s, Wilensky’s, and Abie’s will be slingin’ meat. It should be awesome. Come on out.
Last Friday I had a piece in the New York Daily News, announcing my own stimulus plan for Jewish delis in New York City. Read on:
A schmaltzy stimulus plan for New York: Five steps to save the Jewish deli
Hold on to your pickle: New York City is no longer America’s Jewish deli capital. In the 1930s, there were literally thousands of delicatessens in the five boroughs. Today, there are fewer than two dozen remaining. Meanwhile, in L.A., delis are flourishing, and their quality is surpassing ours. The Langer’s pastrami sandwich outshines Katz’s, and no kishke in New York comes even close to the real deal at Brent’s (still made from real beef casing).
Before you light the fire under my effigy, bear with me, New York. I write this out of love and a firm belief that better days are ahead. Just as the 2nd Ave. Deli can die and come back to life, so, too, can the Jewish deli scene across this great city revive.
But it’s going to take a smart stimulus - based on five hard-earned rules.
Rule one: Hit the road. New York needs to drop the attitude and learn from others. Yes, you can get excellent deli outside the tristate area, and many of those cities do certain deli staples better than New York’s. If we want our matzo balls to be No. 1, we need to check out the delis in other places with an open mind.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST
The good folks at PBS Arts Beat blog (part of Newshour) have a writeup of my talk in DC two weeks ago, where I chatted at Sixth and I with Ezra Klein.
A Mission to Save a Cultural Legacy, One Deli Sandwich at a Time
Last month, writer and journalist David Sax visited the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., to kibitz about a favorite, salivating subject: the delicatessen. Sax’s findings and dispatches on the cured meat business, and what it has meant for changing contemporary Jewish identity, are collected in his first book, “Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen.”
A Toronto native now living in Brooklyn, Sax’s travels have taken him to delis around North America and across the Atlantic, from Detroit to Los Angeles, Montreal to Brussels. With true immersive journalism zeal, he even landed a one-night gig slicing meats at the legendary Katz’s Deli in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He likened the experience to “a minor league ball player being called up to pitch in the bigs.”
Amid his more amusing anecdotes — such as how his belt size actually remained intact over the course of his research, despite making up to six trips to different delis every day for three months — Sax also drives at the more serious issues facing delis in the 21st century. Tracing the downfall of the authentic, ethnic deli, he holds out little hope for its comeback, blaming cultural assimilation and shifting values over the last several decades. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST Check out the video below:
Untitled from ryder Haske on Vimeo.
Then the other night I had a nice conversation with Art of Living podcast host Olivia Wilder. Check it out below.
In the latest issue of Edible Manhattan, Roadfood mavens Jane and Michael Stern cry out “Long Live Pastrami”.
Like a towering, multi-level arpeggio of corned beef, pastrami, brisket and turkey with mustard, Thousand Island dressing and coleslaw on pumpernickel, Save the Deli is an awesome congress of many tones. David Sax’s new book plots the history of the delicatessen going back to the Ashkenazi Jews arriving on the Lower East Side, a stirring ode to the edible ecstasy of smoked meat and dill pickles, a eulogy for iconic delis that no longer exist, a lament for all-but-extinct double-baked rye bread and a practical guide to good delis still thriving downtown and around the world. And, as the title suggests, it is a manifesto that celebrates traditional food and foodways and passionately argues that we must save the deli.
Sax worries that when diverse cultures pour into a melting pot, they tend to lose their soul. “The edible is often the last line of defense before total integration,” he writes, arguing that the disappearance of the classic deli (due primarily to New York’s onerous rents) is the loss not only of excellent matzoh ball soup, smoked fish and chopped liver, but of a major touchstone of ethnic identity. Indeed a good, old-fashioned deli “is one of the few places where you can instantly immerse yourself in an organic Jewish experience.” Although Save the Deli ends optimistically with the rebirth of the Second Avenue Deli, it is revealing that its original title was The Death of Deli, which Sax describes as “very much a swan song.” In other words, this book is urgent. Go, eat a pastrami sandwich now!
And in a prep for my talk at the Tampa JCC on the 18th, here’s a little Q and A with Lisa Robbins.
