Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Scenes From a Foodie Street Fair

A Montreal-style pastrami sandwich from was just one of the many fabulous foods on offer at the Workmen’s Circle’s Taste of Jewish Culture street fair.

It was supposed to be a washout. Heavy rain, flooding rain, pouring rain… That’s what I kept hearing, all week long. But the intrepid organizers of The Workmen’s Circle’s Taste of Jewish Culture street fair were undaunted. They tweeted and posted that Sunday’s event would take place, come rain or shine.

And darned if it didn’t shine.

“It’s beshert,” author Cara de Silva said to me, sunglasses on, as we stood plotting a project under the bright blue sky in front of the Workmen’s Circle booth, where I said hello to Forward contributing editor Leah Koenig as she signed copies of her cookbook, “Modern Jewish Cooking,” and talked to Jordan Schaps about the fascinating “Eating Delancy,” which he co-authored with Aaron Rezny.

Falafel fixings from the Taïm truck. Image by Liza Schoenfein

I arrived hungry, so I made a bee-line for the Taim truck, where I picked up a falafel platter with hummus, quinoa tabouli and Israeli salad. There’s a reason Einat Admony’s Taim falafel was called the best in the city by New York Magazine’s Adam Platt.

Image by Liza Schoenfein

To the truck’s left, a tall, skinny man sold ice cream sandwiches from an adorable little cart. Made by La NewYorkina’s Mexican-Jewish chef-owner, Fany Gerson, the cool confections came in such flavors as mango-blackberry and chocolate babka, pictured above.

Image by Liza Schoenfein

At Brooklyn Sesame’s booth, I sampled a divine halva spread but decided to keep it classic, buying instead a jar of tahini, which was smooth and creamy and contained just a touch of honey for very subtle sweetness. Owner Shahar Shamir is above.

Image by Liza Schoenfein

Gorgeous babka and rhugelah were in big demand at the Breads Bakery](http://www.breadsbakery.com/ “”) booth, but I didn’t have an inch of space left in my stomach. Luckily, this purveyor — and all the others present at the fair — make their contributions to the city’s Jewish culinary renaissance available any time. For a more complete list of purveyors, [click here.

Liza Schoenfein is food editor of the Forward. Contact her at [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.