Latest / Meet Me At The Deli / Exploding Matzoh Balls with guest Aaron Israel of Shalom Japan

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Exploding Matzoh Balls with guest Aaron Israel of Shalom Japan · Meet Me At The Deli

• Heeb Media: Hey everyone, it's Felicia here, the producer of the Meet Me at the Deli podcast. Just a quick note to say that this episode was recorded before Passover. So Liz and Jeffrey aren't going to talk about how their satyrs went. They caught up with each other after the episode was filmed and of course had you all on their hearts and minds at their satyr table. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Welcome to Meet Me at the Deli, a food advice podcast where the pickles and slaw are always free. I'm Liz. And I'm Jeffrey. Every episode we're answering your burning food and culinary questions and we're sharing our stories and insights from years working in the industry and living in our self-made shtetl. I wanted to tell you about a fail, a cooking fail I had and you know it's like I know what I did wrong but... What's funny is, you know when you preach something, right, and then you do this thing that you preach again, it's like, so I wanted to share it with you because it's the kind of thing I share with you. It might be relevant to the people listening as well. So you might recall that at the end of February, you and I had an event scheduled, and one of the dishes we were gonna make for this event was Tzimis. This is a classic Eastern European sort of stewy thing. could be made with meat. It's traditionally made with carrots. and it's a little bit sweetened, it's a Rosh Hashanah dish, but it can be made so many different ways. So you and I have developed a recipe for atzimus that's roasted vegetables, so it doesn't just have carrots, it's also sweet potatoes. And didn't you get like a ton of sweet potatoes? Exactly. The night before the event, you know, it going to cook in the morning, we found out it was going to be that blizzard. And there was that crazy blizzard, like a truly epically crazy blizzard. So we postponed the event and I still had all of these sweet potatoes and carrots, like epic amounts, and instead of sort of like thinking more practically, I was like, I'm just gonna chip away. I'm gonna chip away at these. I'm doing so many things. I'm making mashed potatoes with sweet potatoes. I'm roasting them. Yeah, I think I made a couple soups that included them. And I'm still, like I still have these sweet potatoes, know, like weeks later, and I'm sort of like, man. So we had this idea to make sweet potato latkes and do a breakfast for dinner. And you know, full disclosure, you probably know that I don't even like sweet potato latkes, but it was like, this, like it's such a low level latke. for me of all the vodkas, but here I am trying to use these sweet potatoes, so I go and I shred it all by hand, I thought you'd like that, and make this batter, totally working, and I go to fry them and they just, they are not thickened together, they're not working. And I know that what was happening is that I wasn't using enough oil. And I also know that I didn't have any binding that was really good in my house. I had like very, crappy bread crumbs that I didn't want to use and no flour at all. And there's not a lot of starch in sweet potatoes. There was so much going on and I just, I knew exactly what I was doing and I saw myself just failing. It was almost like I couldn't stop. You know, I was like, I don't even want these fucking sweet potato latkes. I just want these sweet potatoes out of my house. So what we did in the end is we made a sheet pan latke. You know, like put it all out. I think that's called a cougel? Sure. Sure. Sure. I don't know if it had enough egg to be a cougel, but you're right. You're not wrong. then I took the olive oil, heated it in my sheet pan, laid all the stuff in, got a little more crispiness. It was good, but I guess what I'm telling you the story because I felt embarrassed for myself. It is embarrassing. You know? Yeah. It is. Yeah. You should know how to make a good latke. I'm extremely experienced in this department. When was this? Was this yesterday? It was two days ago. Okay, coincidentally, and we are far from Hanukkah, I spent last night making a shit ton of latkes. I had a scare there, because I actually, I don't, I stopped measuring with latkes. I just do it all by feel. And then I pulsed some of the potatoes. I did mostly shred them. used the, I made enough that I used a processor, which I don't always use. Yeah. And the texture was just a little bit off and I was putting in the potato starch and I was making them gluten free too. So no bread crumbs, no other cheat things. I was worried it was little bit looser than I wanted. I just shredded some more potato and it solved itself. I bow to you, Lacamaster. Thank you, Liz. Okay, I wanted to share with you, I got a text message not long before we came here that was one of the sweetest things that I had ever seen. And I, as a pickle maker, it warmed my heart. This photo from a friend. We've got a kid of shaggy hair. Maybe he's nine. He's very cute. He's got all these jars of pickles in front of him and it looks like he is using a pH test strip. That's what I'm looking at. It's very cute. So this kid, I think seven or eight years old, he chose for his science fair project to make pickles, lacto-fermented saltwater pickles, classic New York pickles, and he wanted to test the pH levels of them and determine which salt ratio gets to the proper acidic level that he's looking for to get a nice sour pickle faster. And so he was measuring and rating these. so I actually got, like beforehand, I got this poster of his science fair. ⁓ it's like the poster board with the three parts. It's standing up. It's half sour, call it lacto fermentation. There's a chart. There's a ⁓ line graph. Read the question. How does the amount of salt affect microbial activity in lactic acid fermentation? So I... Science fair. I hope he won the science fair. Do people still win the science fair? I don't know if it's a competition, but uh... It used to be. I was proud of this kid that I've come to know and love and appreciate, but also proud of the dad because you know what? Like you get your kids in on your interests like this. There's a lot of questions in life and all that. Like I got this. Seeing this, I'm like, I get it. I get why having kids is awesome. Like, you know, if you're a pickler, you get your kid to do a whole pH experiment, your science fair. Ugh. So I just wanted to share that with you. I thought you would appreciate this. It totally warms my heart and it feels aspirational. Like this is what I want to do when my kid gets old enough. Well, I want to see your kid making some pickles for science She just might. Okay, Liz, I think we should get into questions. Let's do it. We have some really good ones today and we have our first guest. We do. We have a question that we really needed. We needed some insight to help us get some answers. And so we want to introduce our special guest, Chef. Aaron Israel. From Shalom Japan, one of our favorite restaurants in Brooklyn and the world. I dare say, come on in Aaron, welcome. to meet me at the deli. Welcome to our deli booth. So happy to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I have to say, when you reached out and you said, you you invited me, I thought this is so exciting. It's probably more exciting than if someone had asked me to meet the Pope. Yeah. What do you have to say to the Pope? You know what I mean? Like, this is who you really are. And first off, know, she loved Japan. Also, you opened a couple of years ago at end of 2024, Tokidoki, right next door. Quickly just tell us a bit about, like, where were you and what caused you to open this restaurant? Maybe you can tell us just a bit about it. I had been working before. I worked at Therese Italian Specialties and they were really, really into this idea of Italian food. and their own exploration of it. And it really got me thinking a lot about exploring Jewish food. And so I kind of, I reached this point where I was like, really want to open up a place and make it about Jewish food. But I met along the way my wife and she's from Japan and we started dating and we started talking about each other's cultures and we started really connecting. with each other through food. We kind of re-reached this point in our relationship and we're like, you're a chef, I'm a chef. We cook together all the time. And if we're gonna open up, if like, if I'm gonna open up a restaurant and she's not gonna be a part of it, we're never gonna see each other. So we were like, we're either gonna do this together and see way too much of each other or maybe not really see each other that much. So we're like, well, let's do this together. And then that's sort of where we started thinking about like, well, what? What would this restaurant look like? And, so was still about like this idea of Jewish food, but then also more like an exploration of these two people who are figuring out their cultures together. I really appreciate that. It's, know, you chose the name Shul of Japan because that was just some like a cheesy kosher Japanese. Wasn't that like. Well, we, we had, it was like an inside joke to us. were sitting in the Brooklyn library and she was doing some research. I was doing some research and I found this. this guidebook to actually to the Lower East Side to like where we are now from 1983 and it was written by Oscar Israelowitz. Really cool. was this walking tour of the Lower East Side from 1983 exploring all these Jewish sites. But I did the tour, you know, and at the time like Shalom Japan was there and we were reading like it was giving food recommendations and I showed Sal, was like there was a place on the Lower East Side called Shalom Japan in 1983. And she looked at it and she laughed so hard. We laughed and we're like, if we ever open a restaurant, we're gonna call it Shalom Japan. ⁓ my gosh. It's such, I've never heard that story. It's such a good story. And it does feel good to be on the Lower East Side just talking about all of this, I would say. you know, even though Jeffrey and I don't do like, we don't do Jewish Japanese food, we always feel a spiritual alignment with the thoughtfulness of Shalom Japan. Because there's something so real about it. Like the food is so realized. You know, and of course you're well known for your matzo ball ramen. And maybe we should get into the question because there's more to say. I tried your matzo ball recipe for the first time in a few years. The first time it went so well. This time, all seemed to go fine until I shaped the balls and put them in the water. Some of the balls held together, but about a third of them came apart rather quickly. It was so disappointing to see the matzo ball crumble in the liquid. Luckily, I didn't cook the balls in the soup. Something similar happened with the different recipe as well, but only some of the matzo balls came apart. Where did I go wrong? From Sofia in Cincinnati. This is a good one. think we're really glad you're here. I'm so excited. Dive in, Chef. Wait, wait, wait. We should, one of the reasons why we wanted to bring him here. Oh, yes. OK, right. Not long ago, we had a conversation about matzo balls. I think you, so you. encountered something similar to this and I have encountered something and Liz have you ever encountered this? Oh, I've encountered this. Okay, so and I know that you were thinking very clearly about how to resolve this because you make a lot of Matzah balls. a lot. Before we get into this answer, why don't you talk to us about your version of this problem and then maybe we can get to some of the solutions. Yeah, sure. So we opened in 2013 and I would say somewhere along the lines of 120,000 matzo balls. I've personally been involved in it. Not that I've rolled them all, I've been there for them. touched them. You've whispered to them. Help What do you think? Did you roll about 30,000 or something? Yeah, probably. Definitely. Definitely. When I reached out to you, I was having a mini internal meltdown. Because we're about 13 years into this thing, and I'm like, why are we still fucking these up? Sorry for the language, but. Or why are they not coming out, right? I think that cooking on a lot of levels can be broken down. Why are you succeeding and why are you failing? What are the variables? How do you control them? And kind of understanding them. So, like in a pickle, ⁓ my pickles didn't come out right. Did you weigh the salt? Did you weigh the... And we've been making these things for so long. And... You've explored the variables. We've explored the variables and they are so maddeningly inconsistent sometimes. And it just makes you want to hit your head against the wall. I kind of just reached this point where I was like, we have to figure this out. Like we have to figure out why this recipe that we know works is not working. You know, not working right. So we really did like a pretty deep dive. The problem that we were having was that a lot of the balls were just not expanding. They were just, they were staying like- They were too tight. They were staying really hard. And again, there's a lot of different variables to this. Did the person who made the recipe, did they, did they weigh them? Did they weigh everything out right? you know, are the eggs weighed? Because, you know, eggs are different sizes. you know, maybe, you know, maybe you were using a large egg and now, you know, all of a sudden you've got the extra large eggs. So, you know, we, we try to look at every, at really every variable in it. And you're, scaling. I mean, when you're at home making this, you're not like a difference between the large and extra large egg. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's not so big, but when you're doing this, 20 times, 30 times a normal recipe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we're, yeah. So when we're doing it, we're doing usually about, um, about like 60 to 80 mots of oils at a time for various reasons about what we've settled on. But we started doing bigger batches and that's when we were having more problems. So we were doing everything the same and then they're, and then they're staying really small. Well, the recipe is the same. We're weighing everything the same. So I was really having like an internal crisis, Jeffrey. To get a call from a chef that I respect from one of my favorite restaurants to call and say, hey, can we talk through what's going on with my matzo? Well, this was one of my highlights. I'm like, this is why I live is for this kind of conversation. And I have had this conversation. told me about it right away. I was, off, blown away that you were having an issue all these years later. I actually remember making, testing your recipe for your cookbook and thinking, ⁓ wow, his matzo, well it's like really consistent. was like, it's like actually, like I remember being like, wow, like this is like, this is, it's a different matzo ball approach that we take, I would say. But I was like, ⁓ but this is like worked. So yeah, so I'm so curious. Liz, just very quickly, I mean, any? I mean, I've got a lot of thoughts. I think, you know, for me, I'm just gonna start diving into this, which is that because we've always, we really love to crush our own matzo. I've definitely found that the texture of the matzah is a huge piece of this. you know, like when we, I have attempted to make a more rustic matzah ball, which is in fact, I believe in our cookbook, what we call it, rustic matzah balls, because we like to see the texture, but I have found in general that if I do not go fine enough with grinding my handmade matzah, I will, it will fall apart. It will not get the right texture. So what we like to do always is mix. the ground matzah with some matzah meal because matzah meal on its own almost feels too smooth. There's not enough texture. I like a little bit of texture. So that's where I've always seen the issue and that's usually where I can catch it. I'm like, I look at it I go, that is not going to stick together, know, grind it some more. Yeah. Let's hear what it, where did we land on the two tight balls versus these falling apart ones in Shalom Japan world. So So also, and this is also part of the, we've had matzo balls just explode as well. And I'm be honest, I don't know why. That part, but that is a much less common occurrence. Like it'll be very occasionally and I think maybe just my prep guy is like asleep at the wheel and like doubles up the amount of baking powder. That's what I'm hearing, I'm hearing that. Eric, did you? put the right amount of bacon crazy. Definitely. like, so, and you don't know, right? mean, like, cause you can't go back. then, so I'll just preface with the occasionally we do get an exploding batch of matzo balls that were just like, you you put them in and then you open the lid and you look at it like five minutes later and they're like, and you're like, why are they that big already? But we don't know if, if this question Sophia's If they exploded or not, we just know that they fell apart. I guess for me when I when I think falling apart, think it just it over saturates and it just starts to disintegrate for me When I think about how we do it For like a for a little thing. There's there's just there's so many minute like maddeningly minute variables in it so the things that we consider is that like egg size also how we mix it because I found that if you don't, if you're not like homogeneous with the way that you mix it, like, so we always mix the fat in first with the dry and then we add the egg in, but we mix the eggs really well before we add them in. we don't get like clusters of like, right. You can sometimes get a little like egg white cluster. Yeah. And that's not, that's not going to be good. That's going to help that it's going to fall apart. It could fall apart. It could explode. could be. Yeah. Okay. So we, so we start with that. We were pretty confident that we were. getting a pretty consistent route on that. Schmalts or no schmalts on this? We've done both. We were using canola oil. We have used duck fat. We've switched because we also do a vegetarian version. And so we kind of cook the balls the same. So we don't want to like, you can't tell them apart. No, no. And our broth has a pretty good amount of chicken fat in it. So there's that. We also started weighing the actual end result of the batch. to see like, okay, this batch itself. Yeah. So we all the ingredients and then actually to see where it landed after we weighed everything. And weirdly enough, they all weighed slightly different, even though we weighed everything perfectly before. I don't, can't explain that. All right. And then you have to get into your, your rolling technique, right? Cause there's, we have a restaurant, we have different people that are sometimes touching it. So then. Who's rolling it? Is it person A? Is it person B? How's that person's technique? Are they squeezing it too hard? Are they a little loose? So I would definitely say that if it's rolled a little bit loose, that could also lead to it falling apart. But if you roll it too tight, you also can restrict it from expanding. there any culprits? Is there like clearly a loose roller and a tight roller? Yeah, mean, we've also, like, there have been some people like me and like our chef Matt will be like, yeah, no, I don't think they should roll them off anymore. They're just, they're not coming out good. I of like ban them from rolling them for a little bit to be like, don't, they're, they're not, the touch isn't right, you know? And some people have a really good feel for them. And we're like, yeah, let's, yeah, you know? I think also, and I don't know this is as much of a factor for people who are doing this at home, but for us, when we're doing it in a large batch, it's really about keeping the matzo ball from getting a skin at all. So like when we roll them, you know, we're rolling them and then maybe you're rolling 60. So if you roll the first 20 and then you get distracted, cause like, you know, you gotta take care of something else or whatever, right? Sits a little too long. You know, you get the skin. I think the skin can affect. So we try to keep it nice and, and more. gets dried out. Cause it gets dried out. Yeah. I think that can affect how, how well it expands. So we tried to control that a little more too by just spraying them down really well with some Pam spray. they stay nice and moist on the outside. But that still honestly didn't fix the problem. So we also considered... This is a great advertisement for Shalom Japan. We also considered the moisture level of the matzah meal. Like maybe... depending on the time of the year. Where it's stored. Where it's stored. Maybe we need to toast the matzo meal. Maybe it's a little too moist. That had random effects on it as well, which was telling us that clearly this was not the solution we looking for. And matzo factories, they start making matzo six months or longer in advance. And so how fresh is your matzo? getting the old, you know, sometimes it can be a year or two old. Like how old is your matzo, which, you know, might be more dried out and harder to, it might be harder for it to absorb the liquid. You know, that's also a consideration. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't solve the problem though. I wanted it to, I was like, ⁓ maybe it did. So, you know, I think really what it came down to is that we had started making larger batches of matzo balls by about 50 % more. And we always knew that the way that we cook it would kind of have an effect on how the matzo ball kind of comes out. But there's a real, we started really diving into that. And there's a real thing about how much water or liquid, and we use stock, we use like a vegetable stock with some kombu and you know, how much liquid you have that you're cooking the matzo balls in. There's a ratio that if you have too many matzo balls in there, they don't. they don't expand. doesn't really have to do with them not having the room to grow because they'll like, they have plenty of room to grow. There's plenty of liquid. Where we kind of landed was that you need the walk, the stock to be circulating enough, boiling hard enough to actually move the matzo balls and circulate them. So if you put too many matzo balls in the stock and they're kind of like, They could, it will still be boiling hard. And, but if they're not actually like kind of tumbling appropriately with the movement of the stock, then one side will get stuck next to the other and that side won't expand right. And so we were getting, because we were getting maybe like losing as much as like 30 to 40 % of these batches when we were doing too much. And when we started doing like 50, when we started, we cut the amount that we were cooking in half and we would cook half and then cook the other half. there's the ratio of like matzo balls to stock adjusted. then they were coming out. And it worked. Wow. That was a lot about matzo balls, everybody. We did great. I hope Sophia, that we answered your question. I think we should, yeah. We should definitely move should move on. Okay. But I will say, feel inspired to know that even a restaurant that's best known for a matzo ball soup, a matzo ball ramen soup, even that restaurant, even the chefs that are behind it, even struggle with something like a matzo ball. Yeah. If you're struggling with your matzo balls, you're not alone. Okay. Aaron, can you stick around? We've got a couple more questions. think the other questions are going to be fun for you too. Great. I would love. All right. Let's do it. This next question is from Anna in Atlanta. What is the strongest, most pungent thing you ever fermented? The thing that I have, it might be one you're thinking about. Because when we were together, we first went to Poland and we went and met the mad pickler, Alexander Barona, chef in Poland. He came, he took us to his restaurant and he has just had this. This was Soledge 44th, it's closed. But he just had jars of all his fermented things. In Warsaw. And we looked at one, all along the wall, we looked at one and we said, what is that? It looked like an alien in this giant one, like a one gallon jar basically. And he takes it out and ⁓ he said, ⁓ this is ⁓ a parsley root that I put in about two years ago. Let's try it. And I just remember him opening this jar and I just remember like expecting the smell to come and I didn't smell anything. And then suddenly it just hit me. Like that was... like rotting cheese. It's what I imagine like Hukarl, Icelandic fermented shark to smell like. Or he reminded me of being in Sweden, that sour herring, the source rotting. And it was just so intense. I almost had a physical reaction. And then he takes this out and he had the root with all of the parsley leaves fermenting for two years. Pulls it out in a lacto ferment. and then he takes out a board and he cuts a piece of this and gives it to us to taste. Like slices it all delicate. And this is like in middle of service, know, and we were just like doing this on the side. like, you know, it was a wild thing. And then he serves it to us and it was like eating cheese. It tasted like it was like cheese. The texture was a little, still had some crunch to it. And then I remember both of us went back and were like. We gotta do it. gotta do it. And so it's hard to find a parsley root with all everything intact. you know, because you think celery root, that's easy. Parsley root is harder to come by. And I think you got me I got them in Hasidic Williamsburg. And then I made a, I made my own version. I had it in the, I think I had it go fermenting for nine months and then I had it the fridge and it just kept on going a little bit in the fridge every so often. And so I had, I got to give people that same pungent experience when they would come over. And like, was like, for me, it was pretty exciting. was dank. It was dank. Yeah. It might've been on that same trip to Poland where we saw entire heads of cabbage being fermented, or maybe we just saw images of it somewhere and we're like, we need to ferment an entire head of cabbage and see what happens. Just like a whole head, but obviously it's going to take an extremely long time. So I want to tell you that I still have an entire, like, I think I fermented it for about... six months or something and it's in the fridge still to this day and I at some point was clearing out the fridge and was like, I'm gonna get rid of this. And I just like, I couldn't do it. I was like, I need to eat a three year fermented cabbage. So I think maybe next time we record this podcast I'll bring you some of that cabbage. It's not actually that pungent. It's much more mellow than you'd think. I just used some juniper berries in the brine so it's a very simple brine. Juniper berries, you know, some peppercorns, some salt, but the experience of an entire head of cabbage in a jar in and of itself is quite pungent. I would definitely say my friend's homebrew of fish sauce. Oh, yeah. he was doing it on the deck, so I didn't really get the full... We weren't in an enclosed space. fish sauce is legit. Yeah, I mean, was pretty pungent. It came out great though. mean, he gave me some later. was awesome. Okay. All right. Good question. Good little question. All right. We now have a more thoughtful question. It's more thoughtful, but I want to challenge you to rapid fire it and make it as succinct and concise as you possibly can. We got it. We got it. to the high level. OK. What does the future of Jewish delis look like to you from Jason in New Jersey? I can, say something quickly. I'll do it. It's something that we talk a lot about, so you know, it's good, I'll steal your thunder. And before you do that, I think it's worth noting that we will probably be exploring this topic. Yeah. A lot. I think that's right. I think we wanted to answer this question because it struck a chord with us, but I hope we'll answer it in many ways, in many formats over time. Okay, so the future of Jewish deli. So what we already have seen with Jewish deli... is that there's a combining of Jewish institutions, of Jewish type places into one. So the deli used to be the meat place and the dairy restaurant was the dairy place and the appetizing shop was like the fish bagel-y kind of place and then the bagel shop is where you got the bagels. And then, you know, if you were lucky, maybe you went to like the cafeterias, right, that were, you know, in New York and you could go get some like blintzes and stuff in this like hot bar. So there used to be all of these. different type of Jewish institutional restaurants. And what we've seen in the modern era is that the Jewish deli has sort of brought it all together, right? It's less important to separate the milk from the meat from the whatever. And the other trend that we've seen is way smaller menus, just smaller menus. So we're bringing together more items and there's just like less on the menu in general. Those are the biggest things. So when I think about the future of the Jewish deli, what I think about is the boutique experience of it all. Right? Like I think about less of a deli and more of a restaurant that has a Jewish-ish menu where people can feel connected to Jewish tradition. But maybe it's not just Ashkenazi tradition. It's probably not kosher or even kosher style necessarily. Maybe it's, you know, it's all the genres in one, but it's a boutique kind of more curated experience. you know, the thing that I don't love as much is that maybe it feels also a little bit higher end, whereas I think of the deli as something that's a bit more relaxed. Yeah, well I would say, I this is difficult one, you know if we talked five years ago when the trend of vegan delis was starting, know, maybe we would say, ⁓ vegan delis are the trend, know, and many vegan delis are still around, you know. And I think, you know, back in 2010 that Maya Land opened in Brooklyn and they opened a Montreal style deli and in San Francisco, Wise Sons opened their deli and What all of them have in common, and it's something you spoke to Liz, is these young people wanting to express their identity, express their Jewishness, maybe their deliness, their Yiddishness in a way, and they're looking for a format. And I would dare say you are doing that too. What I like, and you touched on this Liz, is the third space of it all. A lot of people say the delis where all these immigrant Jews came to America and that's where they Americanized. In this place, in a secular synagogue. And so I actually think that there is a food element to it and there's these creators and these chefs that are making these dishes or spins on these dishes and whether it's a deli or a restaurant or a bistro, all these different concepts, but they're all just trying to create a space that brings people together. Aaron, what do you think? It's a great question. If I had a crystal ball, I would probably not have a 40 seat restaurant. But I would say, you know, when I think of like Jewish delis, I think of this sort of like consolidation of Jews from all over the globe, like kind of like funneling through the Lower East Side, close to where we are now. And sort of, this sort of melding of, you know, a little bit of German and a little Polish and Russian and like kind of spitting it out in this like very unique New York thing that got kind of transferred to other parts of the world. But the way people eat now is so different from you know, like when my parents were growing up in New York. I think, I mean, I don't know where it's going, but I feel like it's more like a re-globalizing of like Jewish food, where it's like that time was bringing all this food from all over the world together into these like mishmashed communities that like figured out how to survive down here. And now, you know, that sort of time has passed. And so it's these other people who were thinking about, okay, there's like... these flavors and this nostalgia of that, and then what are you incorporating from all these other cultures that you're experiencing? know, and New York is such a unique melting pot of like all these different cultures, and how could you not be like influenced by them? And so, sort of reintroducing other flavors from outside. You get Italian rainbow cookies at the deli. get... know, Nova Locks, was a Scandinavian-inspired Canadian-smoked ⁓ product that gets put onto bagels. All the ways that the... I'll tell you what the future of the New York deli is not. It's like a New York deli somewhere in Phoenix that just has a New York skyline and is recreating an idea of the New York deli from the 1950s. That is not the future of Although you know I would go there real fast right now. We made it, Liz. We're sliding into the vinyl seats at the deli so each of us get the chance to quvel or kvetch about food we've been thinking about or about ideas that maybe you want to share. All right, let's keep it short. We got to set a timer because we always talk too long. All right. I'm going to go first. It's short. It's pretty short, mine. So I wanted to bring something that was really cool that I discovered today that just felt relevant. So I met someone today that makes this conversation card deck about food. Her name is Abigail Houston, maybe it's Houston. I did meet her today. I did not ask her how to pronounce her last name. It's really cool. So I just thought really quickly, you open up this cute little deck of cards, really beautiful box. Everybody just pick a card, pick a card, pick whatever card. Okay, Aaron, why don't you read your card first? It says, how does dining alone make you feel? Rapid fire. and no, there's another part to it though. It also says, sorry. It says, describe a memorable solo dining experience. Well, I would say dining alone for me now feels really different from maybe before, cause I have two kids and a family. What a treat, dining alone. Now it's like. Sign me up. It feels like a. A dream. It's very. It's very quiet, in a good way. Okay. What dish always leaves you gladly overstuffed? think it's mac and cheese. Oh. And like, I have this like, you don't know this all this time, you know, there was like- I've never eaten mac and cheese with you in 15 years. I love mac and cheese. I had no idea. to this like child in me. I, there's a few foods I literally do not have an off switch with. And mac and cheese is one of them. Applesauce is another. I can just drink applesauce. Rice pudding is the third. I cannot stop. And to the point that I literally have to put smaller amounts in bowls. But mac and cheese, even if you go to a potluck or something and mac and cheese is an offer, I keep going back. Yeah, mac and cheese. I keep going back. And know, especially when there was like a trend of like elevated mac and cheeses like a number of years ago and everyone- Truffle oil. I didn't love the truffle oil trend, but just like there was like, you know, people were making like bechamel. It was like to elevating this whole experience. And people at home were four or five types of cheeses. I loved it, but I would go to someone's house and overstuff. Crush that mac and cheese. Yeah, yeah, so that's mine. Awesome. Well, thank you all for participating in this food stories activity. This was fun. I truly stumbled on these and I thought, how funny that I'm literally on my way to answer questions about food. Oh, amazing. Well, okay. Okay, so for mine, I decided to come with a kvetch. Okay, what's going on? Well... was thinking about this matzo ball quest, I thinking about matzo balls and I happened to have seen on social media a little bit ago, there was this Guinness Book of World Records, a social media influencer made the world's largest matzo ball soup. He was working with an AI company to scale the recipe and there was like a promotion. then it was just, it made a giant vat of soup. like, to the credit, like the soup was eventually portioned out and delivered and given away to a soup kitchen or something. Okay, okay. But it was just like the gimmick of this. I don't know if you remember Liz, but years ago when we were starting off and someone connected us with like a PR company and they like, make the world's largest gefilte fish. we were just like, no, like, no, like that's just cheating. Literally why? Like why would we do that? Like it was like, well that's, you'll get pressed. And I just remember being like, we're not gonna do that. Come on. And just seeing the gimmick of this. in this this giant vat, like just for the sake of content and for AI and like, do we want that with our matzah ball soup, this like precious piece of Yiddish deli culture and we are, we need AI involved? And like, I'm not an AI hater, but it was just like more like the why of it. I don't mean to be a hater, it was more just like, this sucks, I don't know, I just didn't No, this is rant worthy, it's just like here we are preparing this thing, people are writing us questions. Aaron's literally doing anything he can to make a beautiful bowl of fucking matzah ball soup, and now someone's just like, I don't know, let's just make the world's largest bowl of it because of Guinness World Records and AI. There's something about that that just is like, no, no, just do something else with your time. Why are you doing this? Well, and it was, I feel like so much of, and we've been in this world of Jewish food together for a long time, Aaron, you've been in it as long as us. And it's just like, seeing the The gimmicks that social media content have like churned out, everyone needs to have a new take on something. Every year there's like a new thing in the latke, you know? And just like seeing that gimmick for the sake of gimmick, not even for like, okay, maybe, you know, maybe it was for a talking point. Maybe it was just to explore flavors in a creative way. This was just for the pure outrageousness of it. And I'd like to see if they could have made the world's largest matzo ball and still keep a good texture and not have it explode. what I thought That would have been like challenge. That's what I you were going to With like technique, you know, and be like, look at it, slice it through. It's like perfect. Doesn't explode. I just want to see the vat that that was made in. The giant. at Matsubou, you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what really annoyed me about it, but it just like, I just, you know what, I looked at this and I said, this isn't the future of Jewish food. Like I don't want, I don't want this to I appreciate that because we've been on many a panel discussion where it is, what's the future of Jewish food? Like, I don't know, man, but it's not this. It's not the world's largest Matsubou soup. All right. Thank you, Aaron. Thanks for being here today. This is so much fun. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being a part of this. It's been awesome. And thank you, everyone, for listening to Meet Me at the Deli. Please send us your questions. You can send us an email to podcast at gefilteria.com, or you can DM us at our gefilteria Instagram, or use the form in this episode description. This show was produced by Felicia Reich, who is, it's true, from Florida. 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