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Monday, June 27th, 2011
Sorry everyone, but it’s summer, and I haven’t been posting too much. It’s sunny out, it’s nice, my family got a new dog, I’m traveling and just being lazy. I’ll be sure to post when there’s big news, but until then, get out and enjoy the weather kids.
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Monday, June 13th, 2011
This happened last summer (Caplansky’s won), and it’s happening again, this time with the added firepower of Wolfie’s, representing the old school North York delis. Let’s do this!
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Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
A lot of you have probably been wondering where I’ve been for the past month and a half. Unfortunately, my father in law was quite sick and passed away just over a week ago. Now that I’ve emerged from the mountain of babka and bagels we call “shiva week”, I wanted to pay tribute to him briefly here.
Howard Malach was a deli lover to the core. He grew up with Moe Pancer’s and others in north Toronto, and spread his love to Center Street, Caplansky’s, 2nd Ave Deli, Schwartz’s, Ben’s, and many more. He loved to fress. I’ll always remember him, oohing and ahhing over the chopped liver at the 2nd Ave Deli a few years ago, as How and my brother in law and I feasted one shabbat.
My relationship with Howard really blossomed at the end, but before that, we could always communicate through food and deli. He was there at the launch parties for Save the Deli in New York and Toronto, video camera in one hand, a sandwich or latke in the other.
In the past month of his life, as eating became a minor miracle, it broke my heart when he’d light up at something I brought him. In Florida, where he spent the winter, he was living on a very restricted diet, and had no appetite, when we went to a deli for a talk I was giving. “I’m just going to take a bit of coleslaw, for a shmeck,” he said, but as soon as he hit the buffet, his plate started filling with corned beef, pastrami, pickles, and potato salad. He tore into that sandwich, the last he’d ever devour, with a huge grin on his face (see pic above).
Less than two weeks later he was in the hospital, in much worse shape. After a week on fluids and pudding, he turned to me and asked for some real food “something to shmeck, to smell, even if I don’t eat it”. Over the next few days I ran out and got him everything he desired: cheeseburgers, milkshakes, Caplansky’s smoked meat poutine, whipped cream. One thing that remained constant was Vernor’s Ginger Ale, a deli staple to those in the Toronto-Detroit corridor. By his last two weeks, Vernor’s was all he ate. The bubbles felt good, it has a bracing, powerful flavor, but partially I think it also brought him back to the deli, to a place of love and safety and comfort, a taste of home.
Deli lovers, wherever you are, do How the honor, and pour out a Vernor’s for one of your own. We’ll miss you.
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Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
The folks at Vox Tablet’s podcast bring us a wonderful story about a deli luncheon in Mississippi.
Half a century ago, the Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville, Miss., was the state’s largest synagogue; its sanctuary overflowed during the High Holidays, attracting worshipers from the city and surrounding communities. But many children of those earlier congregants have moved away, and by 2000, the temple dismissed its full-time rabbi. One tradition, though, has held on: Hebrew Union’s annual deli luncheon, a fundraiser for the Temple Sisterhood and a much-anticipated event for both the Jews and non-Jews of Greenville. (In 2009, 1,400 corned beef sandwiches were served.) Reporter Philip Graitcer attended this year’s luncheon earlier this month and filed this dispatch from a tradition that might not endure.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE STORY
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Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
Recently, the Jew and the Carrot blog asked me to contribute a little story about shabbat food in my house. I could only think of one thing, Granny Ella Sax’s sweet and sour meatballs. Here’s a teaser for the story, found at Jcarrot , which is now the food blog of the Forward.
Unlike most of my friends, my parents didn’t inherit a lot of Jewish food traditions from my grandparents. My mother’s family had been in Canada for so many generations that they ate like WASPs. She grew up with roast beef dinners washed down with a glass of milk, and her mother’s cooking, which I experienced on visits to Montreal, was more a source of comedy than comfort.
His mother, though more closely linked to her Yiddish heritage, had a few dishes that were legendary in the family. In tribute to her, one of these became our Shabbat staple: Granny Ella’s sweet and sour meatballs. These were golf ball sized orbs of soft, tender meat, simmered slowly in a sweetened tomato sauce. When Granny made them, the meatballs were consistently round and juicy, and the sauce was bright and sweet, with a lingering garlic spice.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST, INCLUDING THE RECIPE FOR THE MEATBALLS.
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
Because we need some good time country feelin’ in this deli lovin’ world. Thanks to Bruce Kaplan of the Bay Area:
VIDEO
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Monday, February 7th, 2011
Ok, I’ll admit, I’ve been out of the loop for a long time, and for no good reason other than traveling, a lack of time to post, and sheer laziness. What do you expect? It’s the dead of winter here in Toronto.
So let’s just round up what I’ve missed in the past few weeks:
First, the bad news. Deli Tech, that plucky, over the top, little NYC deli in Denver that could, has closed down because they lost their lease. Says their website : “For the time being our in-house dining services will be closed until further notice. But don’t worry, Deli Tech is still available for your Catering and Delivery needs 7 days a week.”
This definitely saddens me. Fred Anzman and Barbara Simon were some of the most welcoming, vivacious, memorable, and hospitable deli owners I met on my odyssey across America. They were big in every way, but they delivered fantastic food, in a part of the country that desperately needs it. I’m glad to hear they’ll be keeping the business alive for catering purposes, and encourage anyone in Denver or visiting to hook up with them for some chicken soup, cabbage rolls, or a hunk cheesecake straight from the Carnegie. Good luck guys.
Now, on a lighter note, some more fuel for the forever pastrami rivalry in New York. The esteemed New York Daily News has published a pastrami poll for the best in the city, with Brooklyn’s Mill Basin Kosher Delicatessen getting the top spot. Mazels. King of New York delis, Katz’s, follows close behind, and bringing up third is half-centurion Loeser’s, of the Bronx, which seems to be hitting its stride five decades going. Honorable mentions go to Ben’s Best, Junior’s, and some place called the Ave T. Deli in Brooklyn. Anyone know about this place? First I’ve ever heard of it.
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Thursday, January 20th, 2011
It’s not deli, but it’s another Toronto Jewish food institution gone under. Sigh. Tears. Where will my dad get his dobosh cake?
From the Toronto Star:
Open Window Bakery closes after 54 years by Laurie Monsebraaten
The Open Window Bakery, one of Toronto’s oldest family-run bakeries closed Monday, throwing 150 employees out of work.
Tough economic times and changing shopping habits hurt the business, which resisted mechanization and prided itself on producing European-style hand-baked goods, said the company’s Chief Operating Officer Gail Agasi.
Agasi said she hopes new investors may be able to rescue the company her father, Max Feig, founded in 1957 after surviving the holocaust and coming to Canada with just $7.
“This is his legacy,” Agasi said in an interview. “That’s why I’m trying so hard.”
Agasi said she is particularly concerned about the company’s employees, many of whom worked for the bakery for 25 years.
The business, which at one time employed more than 250 and ran 10 corporate and franchise outlets, including its main bakery near the corner of Finch Ave. and Dufferin St., had just five stores when it closed, Agasi said.
The bakery’s specialty breads, buns, cakes and pastries were also sold through large supermarkets such as Longo’s and Highland Farms as well as numerous medium-sized grocery stores and scores of neighbourhood corner stores.
“The world turned upside-down, you could say, in 2008,” Agasi said.
“As consumers started watching their pennies, they weren’t choosing our products,” she said. “It’s because we don’t compromise on quality. A lot of this stuff is still made by hand.”
Agasi said “numerous companies” have shown interest in the business.
“I’m prepared to step down, if that’s what it takes,” she added.
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Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Just when I thought I was going on vacation…
I just got sent a story from Austin that the Texan capital’s venerable Jewish deli, Katz’s, is closing down. Says the city’s American-Statesman newspaper :
Marc Katz’s delicatessen, a West Sixth Street institution, is closing, after 31 years in business and two bankruptcies.
Katz, whose company, M&M Katz Inc., has been mired in U.S. Bankruptcy Court since July, said the deli will shut down Jan. 2.
“I have to go,” Katz said. “It has been 31 years. I want to leave while I am happy and suppliers and employees are taken care of. I just think it is time.”
Katz informed workers at the restaurant a few weeks ago that it would soon shut down.
“We rode so high for so many years. I just don’t want to do it anymore,” he said.
That gives the restaurant one more Christmas Day in operation. For many years of its operation, Katz’s was known for being one of the few prominent restaurants in Austin that was open on Christmas Day. The all-night deli’s well-known slogan was “Katz’s Never Kloses.”
The parent company to the deli first filed for bankruptcy in 2004, citing heavy debt payments to lender Amresco Commercial Finance and Katz’s son, Barry, who runs a separate restaurant in Houston. That case was closed in 2006, after Katz sold three properties to raise cash.
The second bankruptcy case was filed in July, listing debts including $161,637 to the Internal Revenue Service and $52,635 to the Texas comptroller’s office for unpaid state sales taxes.
According to court records, Katz’s revenue was $582,548.44 from July 21 through Oct. 31, but it had a cumulative loss during that period of $60,030.
This is really too bad. Marc Katz helped establish downtown Austin’s late night scene, and though he was a brash and often controversial character, he was part of Austin’s Keep it Weird soul. Katz’s boasted that it never closed. I guess it will forever. Katz’s…you’ll be missed.
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