Dennis Miller and I chat deli
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
When I was a young lad, I worshiped at the alter of Saturday Night Live. Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, and most definitely Dennis Miller. Possibly the best political comic out there, regardless of whether you agree with his politics or not (he’s become quite the conservative).
So I was thrilled yesterday when I got an email from his producer, asking if I’d like to be a guest on the Dennis Miller Radio show. Here’s our talk from earlier today. I avoided the temptation to compare Putin and the SALT Treaty to a pastrami sandwich at Jerry’s.
A NY talk tonight, “Delicatessen” in Philly, and an NBC appearance
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
First off for you New Yorkers, tonight I’ll be talking at the Museum at Eldridge St, about the book, the quest, the whole mustard-laden shebang. It starts at 7pm sharp, and it’s FREE! More info here.
*I beg you Jews not to ask any long or complicated questions tonight. I plan to bolt out of there to catch the last period of the Canada v. Russia hockey game.
Secondly, some deli news from Philadelphia, a city where a lot of movement’s been going on in the deli business as of late. It seems that a new place, titled Delicatessen, is going to open in the former Kibitz Room space, which closed last November. Says Philly.com:
Matzo balls are due to start rolling again late next week at 703 Chestnut St., which was Kibitz in the City until it closed in November.
Newcomer is simply called Delicatessen, and the guy behind the counter is Elkins Park native Michael Spector, 32, who describes the concept as Modern Jewish Deli (think bagel and lox meet wasabe cream cheese and tobiko roe, mini-matzo ball soup, and the “Benny Rubinson,” a sandwich that weaves eggs Benedict into a Reuben).
(How about the name of the “Jubano,” a sandwich that has pastrami, spicy brown mustard, half sour dill pickles and American cheese pressed on challah.)
Some vegan dishes (rare for a deli) and all the classics are on chef Michael Yount’s menu, too. They’ll serve “microbrewed” sodas from Multi-Flow, whose syrups are made of cane sugar.
The 40-seater — whose seating includes reclaimed church pews (oy!) — will open at the end of next week, with hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; dinner comes online in the spring.
Very interesting. Hopefully it’s better than that douche-magnet Delicatessen in Soho.
Finally, the old bit of self-promotion. Here’s me, in 30 Rock. The building, not the show.
Deli News Roundup
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Some days, the Google Alerts just go off the chart here at Save the Deli.
Here’s what we got.
First off, I’ve got a little thing in Saveur this month, talking about delis in their LA food package. “Deli Capital of the World” talks about some of the best family owned Jewish delis in that great city.
Los Angeles and its adjacent municipalities contain more continuously family-owned Jewish delis than any other city in the country. In the hands of third- and fourth-generation proprietors, family recipes for matzo ball soup, knishes, and latkes have evolved into high art. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST AT SAVEUR.COM
Ruth Tobias at Stuff Magazine Boston is forecasting food trends to watch in 2010, and she thinks a Jewish deli revival is one of them:
Try it: burger on challah at Lord Hobo; corned beef brisket at Franklin Café; house-smoked pastrami-salmon at Henrietta’s Table
Mark my words: between the “scene” that hip New York upstart, Delicatessen, has become, according to Chris Langley, with its “plays on old faves,” and the success of David Sax’s bestselling cultural history Save the Deli, the renaissance of the Jewish deli is nigh. If, a year hence, you aren’t seeing funky twists on kishka, kreplach, and matzoh brei, I’ll eat my hat. (Make that my dear old zayde’s yarmulke.)
And finally, how safe is a hot dog? When I was in the 2nd Ave Deli yesterday, one of the managers there mentioned a campaign to change the shape of those famous sausages, because children were choking on them. A report by the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for warning labels on hot dog packaging, and a thought to redesign hot dogs themselves. See, of all the foods that children choke on, hot dogs top the list.
Without editorializing too much here, and while acknowledging that we need to protect children, shouldn’t this be a bit of a caveat emptor issue? If you feed any large piece of food to a child it can obstruct their breathing. Cut up your food. Chew it like a bird and spit it out if you can’t manage that. Unless manufacturers are going to make baby hot dogs the size of tic tacs, I don’t see how we can reengineer hot dogs in a way that’ll be “safer” and still tasty.
Maybe we should just ban this instead:
Saul’s debates deli’s future, an ode to my deli porn, and the bacon files
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Lots to talk about today in a week’s end roundup of press and other happenings.
First, if you’re in the Bay Area next tuesday, check out the killer debate Saul’s is putting on in Berkeley. Titled “Can a retro cuisine be part of the avant-garde?”, the debate on the deli menu will tackle issues like sustainability, portion size, and tradition in an event that’s so very very Berkeley, even Michael Pollan is part of the panel.
There’s a great New York Times story about it (I’m briefly quoted), and it’s worth checking out to have your say. Says the Times:
(more…)
Hello Seattle
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010Rainy? Check.
Starbucks? Check.
Lots of weird Boeing planes flying around? Check.
Must be Seattle, which is the last stop on this mini-tour, and should be a fun one.
Last night in Portland was epic. We had about 75 people in Kenny and Zuke’s, and I was there, passing out pastrami and bagels and knishes to everyone. It was the youngest audience I’ve ever had, and the one with the smallest percentage of Jews (about 25%), but it was a real party, and I think everyone had a good time.
Tonight I talk at the I Love New York Deli, here in the University District. It’s free, sponsored by JConnect, and takes place at 6.45pm. Come on out.
I Love New York Deli
5200 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA. 98105
Telephone: 206-523-0606
Welcome Back Portland
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Rainy? Check.
Bearded dudes? Check.
Amazing food carts? Check.
Home smoked pastrami and freshly baked bagels? Oh you know it.
Yes folks, I’m back in Portland, Oregon, home of Kenny and Zuke’s, and the finest eating town in the land. Tomorrow night I’ll be hosting a very special event at Kenny and Zuke’s, and I’d love for all of you who are nearby to come on out. $15 buys you entry, which includes pastrami, knishes, chopped liver, bagels, and the rest of the works that Kenny and Zuke are laying out for you. I’ll give a talk, sign some books, and happily shmooze.
Want to know more? Check out the advance press:
Says Portland Eater:
Nick A. Zukin–the Zuke in Kenny & Zuke’s–writes in to tell the transom about tomorrow’s pastrami-riffic event. David Sax, Canadian, writer, blogger, and author of Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen, will be spending an hour or two at the downtown deli, right next door to the Ace Hotel, tomorrow evening, starting at six. As Zukin reminds, “David spotlighted Kenny & Zuke’s in Gourmet Magazine as one of two shops that represent the future of delicatessen. He also named Kenny & Zuke’s as one of the top 10 delicatessens in North America.” (That was, just FYI, in Maxim, under the headline Stupid Fun.) Resident New Yorkers have been curious about Kenny & Zuke’s seemingly endless appeal in the face of the slightly fussy deli case and all-around not-yelling-at-you-ness of the staff, but word is that the bagels–from a recipe developed by part-owner and Oregonian writer Michael C. Zusman–are good, and the pastrami verging on Katz’s-worthy.
What: David Sax Pastrami-Ganza
Where: Kenny & Zuke’s, 1038 SW Stark St
When: February 2nd, 6pm
Cost: $15
RSVP: info@kennyandzukes.com, or 503.222.3354
Back in San Fran
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Always great to be in San Francisco. Every time I’ve come here in the past few years for deli business, I find the sun shining and the city as awesome as ever. I’m here to speak at the city’s Jewish Community Center tonight. Come on out! Details Here.
Opened up my morning Chronicle today and found an article about me in it. Not bad.
David Sax: ‘Save the Deli’ a call to arms
Louis Peitzman
Thursday, January 28, 2010
You don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate the Jewish delicatessen, but it helps. Being raised on deli food, however, creates a different relationship with the cuisine.
Just ask journalist David Sax.
“I grew up loving delis and eating at them with my family,” Sax says. “It wasn’t something that was overt; it was just something we always did.”
In his book “Save the Deli,” Sax examines the decline of deli culture, looking at the causes, effects and possible solutions. Despite being a lifelong lover of kugel and knishes, he wasn’t aware that delis were in danger until he and a friend began working on a paper in college.
“When I was researching that paper and speaking to a couple deli owners that I knew, they were telling me that the business was going out and people were having trouble surviving,” he says. “I never realized it was imperiled until I was looking into it.”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
Amazon’s #4 Best Food Lit Book of 2009, plus a view of Michigan’s Onion Roll Deli
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Thank you Amazon’s editors. You’ve blessed Save the Deli as the #4 best Food Lit Book of 2009. Gracias.
Check out the Amazon page to see how it stacks up against the rest.
Also, check out this great audio/photo essay from the Onion Roll deli in Royal Oak, Michigan. Owner Alex Yushkovsky seems like a great guy.
27302 Woodward Avenue
Royal Oak, MI 48067-0927
(248) 545-9804
A Blintz I’ll Mourn, plus a dirty podcast with Carolla
Monday, December 14th, 2009
photo courtesy Midtown Lunch
Oh what I’d do for a Channukah miracle. I just found out some tragic news from last week. The Diamond Dairy, a much beloved glatt kosher dairy restaurant in New York’s Diamond District, has closed. Most of you have probably never heard of or been to this ‘gem’. That’s because it’s found in the rear of a diamond exchange, perched above the stone traders on a glassed in balcony, a haven of gefilte fish and pea soup amidst the tummult of capitalism.
I only went once. Back in June, soon after I got engaged, I went with my fiancee’s best friend Rebecca to pick out a ring. We spend the better part of the morning haggling over stones and settings, our heads filled with karat sizes and clarity numbers…until we ran away to the Diamond Dairy to ponder our choices. I had no idea what I was doing, but everything came together over a trio of the finest cheese blintzes I’ve ever eaten. Most blintzes are fat and burst out their farmer’s cheese upon the first touch. The blintzes at Diamond Dairy were long and thin, like rolled crepes, and the ratio of cheese to crisp blintz was just sublime. I really regret not trying the homemade gefilte fish. It was supposedly amazing.
I normally don’t write about dairy places here. It’s a fleishig (meat based) space. But this is special and will be sorely missed. Alef ha Sholem Diamond Dairy.
Now, for something completely different, feel free to download my podcast interview on the Adam Carolla show. Just a warning. It’s got a lot of pretty crude language and is NSFW (not safe for work). Here’s another link.
Also, let’s not forget that Channukah is still on and Christmas is rapidly approaching. Click here or on the banner above to buy someone you love a copy (copies???) of Save the Deli.
Some UK Love: The Independent and Silverbrow on Food
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009Gotta love the UK. Not only is the salt beef, fried gefilte fish, hand sliced tongue, and chopped liver the tastiest, but there’s a core of solid deli lovers there. And though the book doesn’t have a UK publisher yet, there’s been a decent amount of press over there.
Today, Claire Prentice of The Independent examines the threat to the health of the deli, behind a corned beef sandwich at Katz’s.
Is this the end for the deli?
New York’s historic Jewish cafés are under threat from gentrification – and the health food movement.
By Claire Prentice
….The Jewish deli is as iconic a part of the New York landscape as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. But though in a handful of establishments you can still find enough knishes, kishkes and kreplach to keep the New York winter chill at bay, these culinary institutions are under threat. In 1931 there were 1,550 Jewish delis in New York City; today just two dozen remain. They are the victim of spiralling rents, the dispersal of Jewish communities, a decline in people keeping kosher and the rise of healthy eating. With a menu heavy on red meat, fat, salt and carbs, Jewish food is nothing if not artery-clogging. Gribenes – chicken skins fried in chicken fat – is a sumptuous mouth sensation, though less kind to the waistline.
“It’s hard work, the deli business. You have to be prepared to get your hands dirty,” says Katz’s co-owner Alan Dell. “A lot of people who ran mom-and-pop delis wanted their children to have a better life so they sent them to college and the family tradition died out.”
Once upon a time, you couldn’t walk a block in the Lower East Side without being hit by the meaty aroma wafting through the doors of one deli or another. “You had this concentration of Jewish workers who needed kosher food and these pickled and preserved foods were cheap, filling sustenance,” says David Sax, a lifelong deli lover and author of Save the Deli. Today there is only Katz’s left in what was once a thriving immigrant community. The delis, Jewish tailors and other immigrant businesses have been swept away by gentrification to make way for an influx of trendy bars and designer boutiques…. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
And now for something completely different. Well, kinda.
Anthony Silverbrow is a deli lover in London. He has a passion for pastrami, and he’s not been afraid to share it at his blog Silverbrow on Food. We spoke yesterday over Skype about the deli, its future, and the difference between North America’s deli future and the UK’s. HERE’S THE LINK TO THE PAGE
Hopefully this’ll generate enough interest in the UK to get distribution for the book there.
