David Sax
By David Sax
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Food Kaddish for Knishes? Post-pandemic, Jewish delis face an uncertain future
“Once this whole thing is over,” my father declared, early in January, “one of the first places we have to go is to Sammy’s!” He was speaking, of course, about Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse, the legendary restaurant on New York’s Lower East Side known for its chopped liver, garlicky karnatzel and blackened skirt steaks, leaden latkes,…
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Food It’s official: Expert says best bagel is whatever you grew up with
I ate a bagel for breakfast this morning. It was a St. Viateur bagel from Montreal, shipped to the supermarket in Toronto, sliced, frozen, and toasted, then shmeared liberally with Western Dairy cream cheese. I split it with my son. It was perfect. At least for me. Since that most glorious day in Jewish history,…
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Food Smoking Hot Kosher Delis Come to Toronto and Texas
Just days before his kosher delicatessen, Ben & Izzy’s, opened for business in Toronto in April, Dino Venasio pulled a giant smoked brisket from his steamer and laid it on the cutting board. As vapors laden with garlic, coriander, cloves, fennel and half a dozen other spices blanketed the small space, Venasio began slicing methodically,…
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Food Shiva for the Stage Deli
After 75 years in business, New York’s Stage Delicatessen announced its closure today. For a deli world already used to deaths and disappearances, having seen thousands of landmarks wiped clean from our palate over the past decades, the end of the Stage plunges deep into the heart of deli lovers. The magnitude of its loss…
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Food Shabbat Meals: David Sax’s Sweet and Sour Meatballs
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…
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Opinion From Generation to Generation
Last week, my father was looking for help. He’d recently teamed up with an Israeli nonprofit serving the mentally disabled, and wanted to recruit younger Jews to head up outreach in Canada. So naturally, he came to his 31-year-old son to help him bring young Jews aboard. I called the first friend I could think…
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