Ben’s Best is Da Best, A Boulder Review, Nate n’ Al the Sequel, and Wilensky’s Highbrow Nod
Thursday, November 19th, 2009Buffalo, NY
Well friends, it’s been an insane week. Basically i woke at 5 am the past three days, got on an airplane, flew to a different city (Richmond, Tampa, Buffalo), and did some great JCC talks. I’ve been to the Charlotte airport more times than any man reasonably should, and have seen the sun rise on runways one too many times.
So apologies for not posting. I haven’t been able to do much but sit and wait for the landing gear to deploy.
A few things to catch up on…and for once, it’s not all about me.
Ben’s Best got a great nod from the Zagat guide, according to the Queens Gazette.
Ben’s Best, a Rego Park landmark with 65 years of experience as a consummate neighborhood deli and caterer, has just received Zagat’s “23” (very good to excellent) rating for food quality.
The lofty rating coincided with the publication of Save the Deli, a new book by David Sax, released in hardcover on October 19, which laments the loss of one of New York City’s oldest and most venerable institutions.
“We’re campaigning to help save the deli,” a spokesman for Ben’s Best said. “We’re trying to ride the wave! The neighborhood is changing but the strong are surviving and Ben’s Best is one of the hardiest among them. You can find Mexican, Thai and Italian but you can’t find a good kosher deli like ours. They are a dying breed with only about 21 notable ones left in the city’s five boroughs.”
Mazel tov to Jay Parker; a hell of a deli man, a great skier, and not too bad looking either.
The Boulder Jewish News wrote up my talk at Jimmy and Drew’s 28th Street Deli on Monday night.
Once we were stuffed ourselves, and ready for a little break before dessert, author David Sax took us on a cultural journey of the Food Of Our People. Tracing the rise and fall of the deli back to the destruction of the Second Temple, Sax shared the backstory most of us didn’t know – where the flavors and spices came from and how different groups and culinary traditions melded in the lower East Side to give rise to over 2,000 delis in New York by the 1950s.
But after the Holocaust, there were no more vast waves of immigrants coming to America. The demographic changes conspired with the growth of supermarkets (offering longer-lasting bread and packaged deli meats) to effect a significant change on the deli’s traditional customer base:
For the first half of the twentieth century, deli food was the food of an immigrant people. . . the first generation (in America) eats it everyday. The second generation eats it with their parents, maybe once a week. The third generation eats it maybe once a month. The fourth generation eats it maybe once a year, if that.
Nate N’ Al finally has a second location, says the LA Times. May the Mendelson empire spread accross Southern California like a meaty wildfire.
photo credit: LA Times
The new location is in the Thousand Oaks mall. I have no idea where that is, but I’m sure it’s sunny and there’s plenty of parking. Who will be the Larry King of Thousand Oaks? Go check it out!
Nate ‘n Al, 2200 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. (805) 494-3354.
Finally, I’m on the plane today, reading the New Yorker Food issue, and I am halfway through Calvin Trillin’s story about Poutine, when he takes a detour for Wilensky’s. How awesome.
The Universal World Records Are IN!
Friday, November 13th, 2009Almost four weeks after the killer launch party at Ben’s, the records from the Universal Record Database are verified and posted.
Here we go:
Lindsey Weber repeated the phrase “I’ll have whats she’s having” 22 times in 30 seconds.
Mark Lamster complained to a deli waiter eight times in 30 seconds. He delivered 12 complaints but the last four were not within the designated time. My personal favorite is “Gilad Shalit is having a better night than me.” So tasteless, yet so masterful.
Finally there’s “David Sax pulled a line of sausage 162 links long out of a sausage box.” That’s not the name of the record, and I should remind everyone that the deli owners pulled the sausage out.
If you want to try to beat any of these records, make sure you document your attempt and upload it to the Universal Record Database at urdb.org
Rabbi Jarrod Grover’s Save the Deli sermon…Shabbat special
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Good Shabbos everyone. I know I shouldn’t even be on the computer, but as I’m back in Toronto for 24 hours, and it’s such a nice day, I wanted to share something with you. Two weeks back, my friend Amanda Blitz told me that her rabbi, Jarrod Grover, delivered the Saturday sermon at Toronto’s Beth Tikvah on the topic of Save the Deli. Well if that’s not the coolest thing I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.
And so, after a few weeks of transcribing, the good rabbi has sent me the text of that sermon, which I’m sharing here with you on this Shabbat:
Rabbi Jarrod Grover
Bereshit 2009
TWO TALES OF SELF-DESTRUCTION
This Shabbat I want to share with you two stories. One from our parsha and one that is a true story about a particularly modern trend. And both stories, I submit, are stories of self-destruction. (more…)
The Varsity Jews “Piled High Pastrami On Rye”
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Ok, so here’s a sweet treat leftover from the Toronto launch party, courtesy of the University of Toronto’s Varsity Jews. Yes folks, they’re available for parties, simchas, and other book launches.
Many thanks to Rachel Malach and the rest of the VJ’s for this. An instant classic.
D Day
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Well folks, here we are. It’s been over three years since I started writing this book, over two and a half since I launched Save the Deli, and now, 735 blog posts later, we’ve arrived at publication day.
I’m filled with a combination of excitement, trepidation, and fear. And, I must admit, a touch of pride. The reaction has been tremendous, and utterly surprising. People genuinely want to save the Jewish delicatessen, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve got a big tour coming up that’ll take me into Thanksgiving, and my posts will slow down as I travel around talking at delis, synagogues, bookstores, and JCCs. So as the book hits stores, and as we prep for the big party tomorrow night at Ben’s, I just want to reprint below the mission statement from this site. Read it, buy the book, go out to your deli and eat. You’ll do your part. I’ll keep doing mine.
Save the Deli is a space dedicated to the preservation of the Jewish delicatessen, a hallowed temple of salted and cured meats. The past half century has seen the deli’s numbers decline greatly, in New York, across the USA, in Canada, and Europe. Those that remain are endangered and in need of our support. Though the challenge is arduous, and the deli’s foes are many, we will persevere.
Save the Deli stands for the family restaurant who refuses to modernize for the sake of greater profits, preferring to slave away tirelessly because that’s what the customers love, and because the food tastes better that way.
Save the Deli stands for classic Jewish food: sandwiches on rye with mustard…never on white or whole-grain or foccacia…never with vegetables…and god forbid never with mayonnaise.
Save the Deli stands for grease stained aprons, and worn cutting machines. For beat up tables, fading photos of B-list celebrities, and kids playing loudly while eating smoked turkey.
Save the Deli stands for deli education, deli pride, and a revival of deli culture across racial, cultural, and generational divides.
Save the Deli stands for saving that last bite of brisket…because there’s no finer treat at 3:00 AM than a bit of cold brisket.
Save the Deli stands for all things deli, because it’s about damn time someone stood up for the Jewish delicatessen!
See you Monday night at Ben’s. And thank you.
Atlantic Food Blog #5 “For Better Deli Meats, Slice by Hand”
Thursday, October 15th, 2009One more Atlantic blog post…on a very important subject.
photo (of me, at Katz’s) by Christopher Farber
For Better Deli Meats, Slice by Hand
I wonder how the Jewish delicatessen counterman felt back when the deli’s owner brought in the first automated Berkel slicing machine. With its whirring circular blade, mechanized springs, and feeder tray, here was a device that could quickly turn a whole corned beef brisket or navel pastrami into uniform ribbons of sandwich meat. (Navel is a kosher cut of beef from the belly of cattle, just below the brisket–similar to brisket but not as fibrous and stringy, and with a denser cap of fat.) Did he think, “This is great. Now I can stop icing my arm at the end of the day?” Or did he just stare in silence, aware that his existence had just been made obsolete, and contemplate smashing the thing to pieces?
The Luddites were a misguided, naïve, and somewhat violent group of idealists, but they weren’t wrong. The automated weaving looms that they vainly tried to destroy did end up replacing them, and their livelihood died off.
As the number of Jewish delis have shrunk over the past century, so too have the number of delicatessens that hand-slice their meats. The introduction of the automated slicing machine was Jewish deli’s industrial revolution. It allowed deli owners to make more sandwiches with fewer countermen, to waste less meat, and to encourage uniformity. In terms of business, it was a no-brainer. Taste? Not so much.
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Jewcy Blog Post #2 “A Near-Death Sandwich”
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009The second of my series of posts for the sweet folks at Jewcy.com
A Near-Death Sandwich
I’m often asked what was the highlight of writing my book Save the Deli. What’s the best Jewish deli I ate in; where did I discover the tastiest pastrami sandwich; who is the most interesting deli owner I met? So far, no one’s asked me about my worst experience…the low point of Save the Deli.
It occurred as I drove between Kansas City and Denver in the middle of February, 2007. I wanted to sample fast food’s take on Jewish deli and so I’d pulled over for lunch at an Arby’s and ordered their version of a Reuben sandwich. On the menu picture, it looked to be the most perfect Reuben ever…thick slices of swirly marble rye, moist pink meat folded gently like fine satin drapes, a corner of Swiss poking over the edge with its telltale holes, a little garnish of sauerkraut and a few droplets of Russian dressing. Peeling back the paper wrapper, I saw an entirely different sandwich. The intricately layered folds of corned beef were in fact a squished pink mass, still sizzling from a nuking in the microwave. My crisp marble rye had become two slices of good old-fashioned white bread with some food dye. The sauerkraut limped sadly into the oozing mass of processed “Swiss”; a slice of white American cheese poked with decorative holes…about as Swiss as a North Korean watch. It looked small, dismal, and loveless. The only thing abundant was the Russian dressing, which oozed out of the sandwich each time I pressed down.
I raised the sad sandwich to my lips and bit in. (more…)
Atlantic Food Blog #4 “The Search for Real Rye”
Thursday, October 8th, 2009Food.TheAtlantic.com October 8, 2009
Anyone with even the faintest knowledge of construction knows that a house is only as good as the quality of its foundation. You can build golden McMansions to the sky, stock them with plasma screens and granite countertops, four-car garages and modernist furnishings, but if the foundation is shaky, you might as well be living in a tarpaper shack. So why should a sandwich at a Jewish delicatessen be any different?
There’s a crisis in the Jewish deli, and it starts at the bottom: the rye bread. Simply put, most of the rye bread at delicatessens around America is not worth the effort it takes to chew. Of all the ryes I tasted in my global research into Jewish delicatessens, none were more disappointing than the supposedly legendary New York rye. The bread at such landmark delis as Katz’s or the 2nd Ave Deli is a disgrace, and the delis’ owners readily admit to it. The crusts are limp, the centers dry, and there is hardly any yeasty aroma to account for. It falls apart under any real stress, leaving you with a handful of greasy meat and mustard. If the finest musicians in the world shine on the stage at Carnegie Hall, doesn’t the finest pastrami in New York deserve a canvas to make it sing?
Real Jewish rye, made with a large percentage of coarse rye flour, hasn’t existed for years in New York. Most so-called “rye” is made from white flour, tossed with a few caraway seeds, and diluted with just enough rye flour to legally call it rye bread. The change came about during the postwar era, when white flour became cheaper, and easier to preserve, than rye flour. Industrial bakeries, such as Levy’s, hooked many on the taste of a packaged, pasteurized rye bread with their famous slogan “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.” That the bread paled in comparison to traditionally-baked loaves wasn’t the point. It was hip, it was cheap, it could last longer. Jewish eaters followed suit. As independent Jewish bakeries succumbed to their larger, industrial competition, quality rye bread disappeared from delicatessens. (more…)
Eiran Harris: Montreal’s Human Deli Encyclopedia
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
A few months back I wrote a tribute to Eiran Harris, a great deli lover and scholar from Montreal. Some might have thought this a bit strange. Why did he deserve praise, say, when deli owners haven’t even received the same tribute.
Now you’ll see.
After years of research, working closely with Mr. Harris, my friend Lara Rabinovitch has posted an extensive interview with the master in the journal Cuizine, chronicling the history of smoked meat and delicatessen in Montreal. Prepare to learn a lot.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH PODCAST
Lara Rabinovitch: This is July 27th, 2009. We are at the Jewish Public Library Archives in Montreal. My name is Lara Rabinovitch. I am a PhD Candidate at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and the Department of History at New York University. I am here with Eiran Harris, who will now introduce himself.
Eiran Harris: My name is Eiran Harris. I am the Archivist Emeritus of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of this narrative is to provide an accurate chronicle of the renowned Montreal-style Jewish smoked meat which has been enjoyed by millions of hungry consumers from all over the world for more than one hundred years.
Lara Rabinovitch: So, Eiran, what were the origins of Montreal-style smoked meat?
(more…)
Shana Tova
Friday, September 18th, 2009Happy New Year all my Jews, Delis, Jewish Delis, and lovers of Jewish Delis!
Yes, it’s the Rosh again. The Hashanah. The Jew Year. Blow them shofars, dip them apples, slice them honey cakes, braise them briskets.
With the release of the book just one month away, it’s going to be a sweet, salty, and just fatty enough one for all of us. May you spend it with friends, family, and loved ones, and feel a sense of strong community, whether you find yourself in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, or out there in Salt Lake City.
Shana Tova…take it away Muppets.
