Latest / Meet Me At The Deli / Corned Moose Recipe from the Great Yukon Beyond with Liz and Jeffrey

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Corned Moose Recipe from the Great Yukon Beyond with Liz and Jeffrey · Meet Me At The Deli

• Heeb Media: 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. Okay, Liz, I have been wanting to see you since I got back from LA. I have a lot. I have not seen you since then. I know, I have a lot of things to tell you, but I'm also really excited. We have some great questions for this show. Listeners, friends, please submit questions. Submit your questions, your advice questions. At www.biltoria.com slash podcast, and we'll answer them on the show. There's also a link to submit your questions in the bio of this episode, the show notes. Totally. Okay, but Liz, I was in LA and I had some experiences that I needed to share with you. Centered around Bagel Fest West. Yes, you told me you might attend such a fest. I wasn't sure if it was gonna happen. So I was debating it. I was like, I'm going out west for a holiday, family, but I couldn't resist. I knew enough people that were gonna go and I loved the... ...Jewish food fest. And so I got together with Bagel Fest West and ⁓ they asked me to judge ⁓ bagel sandwiches. So we were together at Bagel Fest the past couple of years. We just did a general judging and we did a schmear judging. the cream cheeses and all that. But this was the sandwiches. But they also asked me to moderate a ⁓ panel on Jewish deli in Los Angeles. Oh, do you even know about Jewish cellies in Los Angeles, I know a little bit, but I was actually like, oh crap, I need to brush up on some of these Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of my really embarrassing revelation I will share here was until this trip, I had never gone to Langer's, which is like the OG, the Katz's of the West. And so I did make an effort to go to Langer's while I was there. I actually got to meet norm Langer the owner of the deli who was holding court. I got to I got to hang out Wow, I got we just talked for like 15 minutes and he was great We're now emailing and I got to have the famous number 19, which Alyssa mentioned last week and last week's show Alyssa Heller of Edith's what's the number 19 sandwich their ⁓ Pastrami on a really nice rye bread like a marbly rye with some coleslaw So it's kind of like a ⁓ variation of a Reuben, it's coleslawed, and there is slices of cheese that's not melted. So it's pastrami, not corned beef. It's coleslawed, not sauerkraut. And it's just a nice sandwich. And the number one is the same without the cheese, which I actually like better. But I got that. Fantastic experience. So I also went to other delis that were gonna be on the panel, the Nosh in Beverly Hills, and I went to all in One day, was insane. I went to- How did you feel after going to multiple delis in a day and then judging Bagel Fest, Geoffrey? I'm just wondering. I went to the nosh. I could only order the cheesecake. I'm not insane. I got some rougelac at Factor's deli. And Cantor's was on the panel. I had been to Cantor's before. So I got to go. So Bagel Fest West, I just want to tell you, it was a bizarro Bagel Fest because it was all these West Coast bagel bakeries. You know, and judging was very interesting because I was with these West Coast judges for the most part. So we were looking for very different things in bagels. You and the West Coast judges were looking for different things. They were looking for, you know, farm fresh wheat or something, you know, tomatoes. don't know. No, there was like a strawberry bagel that had lots of things on it. And like, I literally ate this thing and I was just like, too sweet. No way. and they all loved it and they really were excited about it. There was a varia bagel, like a beef Mexican flavor, dipped in a sauce. Wow, whoa, whoa. You would not have seen that at Bagel Fest East. You would not have. And there was a conversation, there was a panel about what is the West Coast bagel, and it's a bagel that isn't confined to the conventions of East Coast bageldom. And so lots of sourdough bagels, just different types stuffed bagels with things. And I was of course looking for like riffs on like a good classic New York bagel because you know, I'm not a heathen. I love a good New York bagel. And so the bagel sandwiches I wanted, my favorite was the smoked, smoky beet instead of lox bagels. And everything bagel is from a place called Bell's in the LA area. I've heard of Bell's. I've heard of Bell's, a really cool deli bagel. and they had an everything bagel. I actually really loved the addition of fennel seed on the everything bagel. So there were some interesting things. There were some, I'd say, outlandish LA things. Lots of spicy, like ceviche bagel type things. And so it was just like a whole other world, but it was a lot of fun. I wanted to share with you things that I did that were maybe the inverse of what you just described, which were. I had this past weekend, a really unhinged culinary weekend where I kind of ate like weird things that made me feel kind of delighted and I wanted to share them with you, like two extremely unproduced experiences that I had. one of which is a very close friend of mine had her 40th birthday. And, ⁓ so we had a big party for her. Thank you. Thank you. Shout out to Amy. She'll love hearing her name on this podcast. so. went to this birthday party, was upstate at a friend's home, everybody came from Brooklyn to this party. And one of the things that Amy loves are foot long hot dogs. So the host of this party had like gone to Costco or Restaurant Depot and gotten one of those like hot dog roller things, you know what I mean? Like the professional one, like the one that as at 7-Eleven, like a full real one. And they had set it up and the like meal at the party, which was a whole long day of like 12 hours. were foot long hot dogs and with like all the fixings. You know what I mean? And I actually know you love a hot dog. So I thought of you at this gathering. And I also like, I got home from this party and basically all I had eaten that day was like a foot long hot dog and some potato chips. And I was like, wow, this is, I feel terrible and so happy and nourished. Yeah. I only put ketchup on the hot dog. Yeah. I love ketchup on hot to hug. Do you what why are you so you seem surprised like ketchup doesn't belong in a hot dog? What do you put on a hot dog mustard and sauerkraut is my No, no, I'll do that on a sausage, you know, like a like a you know a nice Bratwurst kind of situation but a hot dog now always feels like that's like the kids hot dog, you know When you're eating a foot long hot dog, you just you're not really thinking about your adult experience All right, let's get into the advice questions. We've got some great questions and ⁓ really just want to remind everybody listening to submit their questions. It could be about food. It could be about food culture. It could be some long lost recipe you're trying to find. It could be frankly a story because you know people are going to just give us crazy stories. Etiquette. Yes. Cultural norms, whatever. ⁓ We love to see it, check out the show notes, submit it in the form. We'd love to hear your questions. Okay, so I'm gonna kick us off for the first question. And this one is emotional to me ⁓ because this is like, we're like in this very lively state. ⁓ So a friend of mine passed away just over a week ago. He was a big fan of ours. I actually first met him ⁓ when I went to Boston to do a gig for our cookbook many years ago. And then it turned out that we were very connected in many ways and stayed friends and, you know, friends of the family. ⁓ his name is Jim. His name's Jim. Many people know him, very beloved musician and just food lover and like... One thing about Jim is he really got what we do. one of my favorite things about the way that that presented itself in the world is that he would always send me articles. He would be like, I saw this and thought of you. And it always was something that I would really want to read. And I was going through my emails to be like, oh, let me look at all the millions of articles he sent me. And it was like, oh, Liz, did you see this queer food conference in Boston? And I was like, oh, yeah, I was speaking at that conference. It was like that. And the last time I saw him was in the fall when I had a meal with him at Lair House in Boston, which is this Jewish tavern. I think we've talked about it on the show before. So he passed away in a very quick manner. Many people, including myself, were very heartbroken. when I was preparing for this episode, I looked at our question form, and I saw that he had submitted a question. Oh, wow. Yeah, and it was just like maybe he submitted it five days before he passed away. Oh, my god. So love you, Jim. We're going to answer your question today. He says, what is the best mock chopped liver from Jim in Newton, Mass? And then he wrote, yes, Liz, it's me. Love the podcast. Oh, my god. That's So I knew he'd be listening. Thank you, Jim. Wait, does Jim have a special connection to chopped liver, Liz? He is just a Jewish food lover. I don't know. I don't know if he had, I could not find out if he has a particular chop liver love, but I know he was a cook and he was somebody who, really loved a deli. He loved Jewish food ⁓ all around, ⁓ you know, across the global world. And in fact, the reason I met him is cause he was curating that series of Jewish cooking classes from around the world. So ⁓ I don't know, but I will find out. Well, let's answer his question. Let's answer his question. What is the best mock chop liver? This feels relevant because ⁓ you and I actually have taught multiple classes on mock chopped liver. In fact, in the last 90 days, we have taught two such classes. ⁓ Getting this question, it was like so Jim, because it's like, of course he's asking me this question and he probably didn't even realize that we've been like teaching on the subject of mock chopped liver, faux chopped liver, non-liver chopped liver, vegetarian chopped liver, call it what you will. So what do you think, Jeffrey? How do we break down mock chopped liver? Well, I think it's worth noting that chopped liver itself, and we're not going to go into all the details here. I'm sure we'll talk about it later. But it is such an important food in the Eastern European Jewish deli canon. And some people say it's just a vehicle for caramelized onions, which I don't disagree with. ⁓ but it is so wonderful and a big part of culture for many reasons, one of which was chopped liver was when you ⁓ costured it, because liver, you're supposed to remove it from the blood, so you often broil it, and it loses its texture, and it loses the- It of dries out. It dries out. out, yeah. It makes it a bit A kosher liver is more bitter and dried out, So I like that if you have like a- You know, you just have like a, know, a potatoe foie, French style liver pate. It's so smooth and creamy. You kind of lose that. So the chopped liver, you kind of mix it with a hard boiled egg and caramelized onion to kind of bring up schmaltz. rendered chicken fat. Yep. Or goose fat. sweetness of the onions. I always, we add a little honey. That's a nice thing to lessen the bitterness. And then the egg helps also kind of create that texture. The creamy. it became really big in America and the delis and the Catskills and the Borscht Belt region. You had these mounds of liver. But of course, you also had Jews who don't eat meat. You had dairy restaurants like the famous Ratners on the Lower East Side that were like the anti-deli that also wanted to serve a version of it. And you had this mock chopped liver that arose. ⁓ I happen to love, I love chopped liver. like mock chopped liver even more when it's really good. Wow. Strong statement. I know it's true. And so I don't know which one you introduced me to a few types. You introduced me. Yeah, there's a few types. There's a canned green bean version that you. There's a there's a canned green bean walnut version. There's a kidney bean version. There's a mushroom version. Yeah. There's the beet version that you invented. Yeah, I can't claim credit for the. OK, got it. What else am I missing? Lentils. Lentil one and I would say often sometimes these are mushrooms and walnuts or mush or yes You need a fat. ⁓ Yeah, right It's like the base of the walnut of the of the lentil of the mushroom of the and then there's like the fat of an egg of caramelized onion of nuts of Well, not small but oil right so mock chopped liver is really a dipper a spread that may or may not be familiar to you as mock chopped liver right lentil walnut pate Yeah, we mock chop. Yeah, we did a head to head and I made this beat one. It was ⁓ inspired by Ari Miller. It wasn't his recipe, but it was inspired by him because he rightly pointed out to me that beats are they kind of this, you know, metallic iron rich in taste sometimes. Yes. And which kind of reminds you of blood, which is something you find in liver. And so he used that and the redness, you know, sort of reference the blood that you remove from it in a way. And then he used ⁓ Slivovitz which I think he essentially the plum brandy. Yeah a plum brandy, but you cook down He created like a slivovitz aioli of some kind and huh and so I did a different version of that But I you know, I love my smoked plums from Poland I wanted to bring in the smokiness which and the meatiness of a plava of a prune ⁓ with the the metallic iron rich ⁓ Beat ⁓ and I think I did working a little bit of mayonnaise as well, just because it needed that fat. Yes, yeah, you need the fat, yeah. And it's a really tasty dish, but we went head to head. You made your chub liver, which I'll let you explain, and I think it's fair to say that yours was the winner. So I think we should tell. Jim, Jim, yeah, I'd say that the version that I developed out of mushrooms, again, not my own recipe. This is inspired by many cooks before me, but. I worked with ⁓ Jason, who's the founder of Hank's Deli in Jersey City on this pop-up. We did like a kind of a chopped liver pop-up. I mean, we really have a strong relationship with this food. And I made for this pop-up a really mushroomy ⁓ mock chopped liver in which I did tons of mushrooms, beautiful mushrooms, ⁓ caramelized onion, herbs. a bunch of different herbs. could use whatever herbs you can use. Thyme, can use parsley, like a lot of herbs. De-glazed with a bunch of red wine, which is really nice. And then mixed it with some hard-boiled egg to bring it all together. But no nuts in it. We did a nut-free. But the key was a real variety of mushrooms and giving them and the onions the time to really caramelize and cook down. Then that that red wine that depth of the red wine and and definitely like heavy salt heavy pepper, you know Yeah, this tastes better the next day. ⁓ I did forget that my beat one did have caramelized onions, of course. Yes ⁓ yes. Yeah hard-boiled egg, but you can I did it with some without egg some with egg yours was really good. I made it for another liver event that I ⁓ really liked it. And so I would say, and we should put this recipe up on our website. this is great idea. And but this is this was to me, this is now my favorite, my favorite chopped liver one. So kudos to you. That was a really wonderful recipe. And ⁓ Jim, thank you so much for the question. your support through the years. Love you, Jim. What do we have next? I'm really excited. You are really excited about this question. So this one came directly to me. Sometimes people find us individually. so John from Victoria in British Columbia. In British Columbia, OK. Emailed me. And I'm going to read you the email he wrote. I just ran across your name and your cookbook while searching for a recipe to pressure can homemade gefilte fish. I thought this would be a really useful way to be able to send some G fish he calls it to my son whose appetite and appreciation exceed his culinary skills Any information would be terrific love this guy I also was able to make the filter fish from freshly caught northern pike which are much different in the very cold Yukon waters They are very reminiscent of Lake, Winnipeg pickerel Okay appreciating the details here John he writes at the end also You may be interested to know that while living in the Yukon territory for 20 years, I developed an excellent and probably the only recipe for corned moose. Like not corned beef, corned moose. In parentheses, first catch a nice moose, dot dot dot, end parentheses. Regards, John. I love this job. Now, as you know, this is my favorite kind of email to get for so many reasons. One, I love the question about canning gefilte fish? Of course, if you've got the fish and you want to send it, what a wonderful question. It turns out you and I have experimented with canning gefilte fish. actually first, we started the gefilteria years ago, we thought we were going to make a better version of the canned gefilte fish. And we played around. We bought a pressure canner. And it turns out it really isn't great when you pressure can. The vegetables turn mushy, the fish itself, it kind of hardened. If you ever open a can of gefilte, you know it's kind of tough. It's Yeah, we couldn't get the texture to feel nice. And so we wouldn't recommend it. But I had to know more about this corned moose, okay? So I... So this is as much a question. I just want to say on this episode alone, you're emailing the owner of Langer's Deli, the Dutch pickle guy, and this guy in the Yukon territories. About corn moose. I just want to say this is all real. This is real life. Jeffrey This is what you're doing and it brings me such a light. So I don't know So that was kind of a question. I think we kind of have the answer, but I just needed to share I wrote to him and I I thanked him for the question and I said, please tell me more about this corn moose about your life and And so he wrote to me and he wrote about the moose He says thanks for taking the time to respond to my email and now the moose and he sent me a photo of him with a canoe I'm gonna show you in a second. He writes it's in the covered canoe I'll save the grizzly bear story for another time. Overall, moose is very lean, even a cut like brisket. I find that moose has quite a different taste as well as fat content from venison. I asked him specifically, is moose like venison? was curious. sure. He wrote, it reminds me more of a very well-aged beef, but with a bit more depth, perhaps due to the different diet, i.e. water plants and somewhat bitter barks and shoots. He writes, have included my recipe for corned moose slash pastrami slash Montreal smoked meat below. For corned beef, reduce the secondary rub to just salt, pepper, and paprika. If you don't want the Montreal smoked meat, don't steam. It's all described in the attached recipe. A friend and I also started experimenting with other cuts of moose and found that several, such as chuck and outside round, worked pretty well. But brisket is still the best. Regards. So I really I just wanted to share with you. I now have yeah, I didn't hear a question I was just wondering if you had a question because so the question no, no, know I know I know I love it. This was actually my question to him So I have here the recipe for let's it for corn. I want to see the picture Okay, so for corn, okay one moose brisket. The yield is one moose brisket You can do this with either flat or point sections or the whole thing Okay, wow. Okay, and it looks like a corned beef recipe. For those of you who go on regular moussins, I did ask John if we could put this on our website. He said yes. ⁓ okay, so we're putting it up. mean, wow. He said even with using the curing salt, it will still turn the meat red like corned beef. First off, I just love the idea that we have ⁓ an audience in deep into Canada, and we have a meat. If we ever find ourselves in need of a corned moose recipe, we have it. We emailed a bit also. I just had more questions. I this guy, I loved everything about this. And he told me he had at one point thought about opening up a deli in the Yukon territories. Yeah, totally. so I am just so delighted to have met him. And he also revealed to me that he made the canned gefilte fish because we went back and forth. And that it wasn't great. Yeah. So what we would have told him would have been true. Don't do it. Exactly. Thank you, John. We will not forget this anytime soon. And if there are any Delhi lovers in the Yukon territories or in Victoria, let us know. We'd love to make a little shidduch. And please, one day I hope there'll be a Delhi in the Yukon territories. And John, if you ever come to New York, we will take you out to Second Avenue Delhi on us. We would love that. OK, I'm going to read the last question. It's a little lighter. It's a little more relaxed. ⁓ This question comes from Lisa in Seattle. I'm fascinated by the surge in the number and quality of cookbooks these days, when really you can find so many recipes for free online. I find that a big part of a Jewish deli experience is being there, not just the food that they serve. Agreed. You feel part of the history, part of a neighborhood, part of a multi-generational community. So first. or really here's my question. What is your take on why a deli or a chef like you all write a cookbook? What are you hoping comes from it? I'm assuming it's not that people make things at home and then stop coming to the deli. So why do we write cookbooks? Jeffrey, we wrote a cookbook together, The Gefilte Manifesto, New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods. ⁓ It was an incredible experience working on it. It's been an incredible experience sharing it with the world since 2016 when it came out. Why did we write that book? And I'm not sure that our motivation is the same as Russ and Daughters that just put out a cookbook. Russ and Daughters is the famous appetizing shop and cafe in New York or all these in the My Lend cookbook from the My Lend deli or the Wise Sons cookbook that came out. these delis. Right. There's there's brick and mortar places and then there's you know people like we did not have a brick and mortar place but we're writing books. So you're right. The motivation might be a bit different. But I have thoughts on both. Yeah. So you know for us it's interesting is I actually we if you remember didn't set out to write a cookbook. We set out to write a manifesto and that's why our book was called that. We set out to write something that Connected people to this food tradition at the time when we first got started years ago It felt like ⁓ felt like the world was closing in on us. The delis were closing people from our generation weren't cooking Yeah that much at all. So when we first Reconnected we had met I mean we met years ago in Montreal, which you didn't even remember we met right when you were in high school I was first year in college. Yeah, but then we reconnected at a Shabbat dinner of a family friend and we and found out We started talking there you were about to move down to DC to work with Joe Nathan the Jewish cookbook alter Yeah, but we started talking and at one point we both realized like hey, we really love these foods. Yes unpopular among our generation at the time and these delis were closing and And and yeah, it just it just felt like people were kind of laughing at gefilte fish and chopped liver and these yeah These foods they were kind of funny, but then they maybe were part of our ironic kitch culture, but they didn't really feel like they were part of something that ⁓ was a coherent cuisine of value to stand alongside Italian or French or Korean cuisine, for example. so that's- Yeah, I think that they felt like something that was like a legacy, right? But not something that was alive. And I think you and I both, when we first met, really were like, wait a minute, it's alive. So I still remember driving down to DC with you. and us talking about writing a book, because we really wanted to get this out. A lot of our work has been promoting this food and making the case and going around the world and teaching and talking and cooking. so we wanted to write a book to make that impact. I remember talking about wanting a book that had greasy pages, that we wanted people to use it, not a book that was ⁓ a decorative book. I remember really caring about all those details and wanting to tell a story. It was very important for us that when we decided to write a cookbook, that it was a narrative book and we have an index, we did research. I spent a lot of time and so did you looking through old ⁓ Yiddish novels and history books. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ my gosh. We wanted to paint a picture and reveal something that was kept from us, which was that we came from a cuisine and a culture that made sense and not just a collection of random foods that make you feel terrible when you eat them on holidays. Right. And so that was our motivation and I can tell you It was, making it was incredible, especially because we lived across the street for part of it, and we'd just go back and forth with a pot of chowlant, like a slow-cooked stew, and with all these dishes to try. And we got to host events together and bring community together. But then seeing the book out in the world and seeing people make these foods was such a gift. I mean, I remember while we were working on the book, you met Ruth Reichel, who gave you some advice. Do you remember that advice? I do. She said, I remember it so well, and she said, You can find any recipe online, so a book is all about voice. It really is a beautiful process, honestly, it's really one of the most rewarding experiences. For me, it was getting to work on that with you. I agree. I agree. Yeah. OK, Liz, we're here. We're sliding into the vinyl seats at the deli, so each of us gets the chance to quail or crutch about food we've been thinking about or to share something that we have for the other one. OK. We're going to set a timer for five minutes so we don't go off on this entirely. All right, so Jeffrey, you and I have taught. 500,000 pickling workshops in our life together. And one of the things we say a lot in the pickling workshop is ⁓ we sort of talk about salt. And we talked about salt on another episode. But when it comes to pickling, we always talk about salt because, of course, when you're doing lacto-fermentation, old world Jewish saltwater pickling, you need to use non-iodized salt. And one of the most common questions that we get Hundreds of times is well, what kind of salt should I use if I don't have kosher salt? So we always recommend kosher salt Diamond crystal brand kosher salt, but we want to give alternatives to people. Yes, and you have this line Where you go? If you want to use pink Himalayan salt you can but like you're throwing money down the toilet, you know I mean you're always like you like sneer at people you go like anything You go. Okay, you you gotta use kosher salt diamond crystal brand kosher salt don't use anything called pickling salt that's a lie it's just a green box and then you go and don't use uh... yet you can use sea salt ike gas and then you know and uh... i mean i guess if you really want to you could use pink himalayan sea salt whatever just waste your money this is a speech that i have heard from you and you're laughing because you know i have your it's it's your stick so i and at Children's Activity Play Space in Brooklyn not so long ago. And they have a little cafe there where you go there and you spend a few hours. And I try not to spend too much time in places like this, but it's a classy one. I already know people in Brooklyn will already know what I'm talking about. They're going to know because there's only really, this is a big one. And I like it. I like this space. And it's designed by an artist. And it's like really for the like. elder millennial parent that I am, right? It's like, it is meant for us. It's cool. It's very like beautiful. It's artsy, you know, and in the cafe, which you cannot avoid spending at least like $40 in when you're there, even if you bring your snacks because they make smoothies in these like very beautifully shaped cups and they're, and they're clear and they're very colorful and they're called like the blue smoothie, the red smoothie, the whatever smoothie. Delicious smoothies, but you know your child will ask for a smoothie if you're gonna go there But they also have little sandwiches, okay? Yeah So I am there and I go up to the counter to order my child's blue ass smoothie and they have salt and pepper and next to the pepper are these fucking packs of Himalayan pink salt and All I can think of was you being like to this to the kids on their avocado toast. Like they barely even serve food there. They have an entire jar. I reached my hand in, I took as many of those packets as I could of the Himalayan pink salt. This is so expensive. You're like, where did you even get this? And I'm like, this is too much. What's going on here? Why do you have this fancy salt? It's so much salt. That's a lot of salt. It's a full teaspoon of salt, Jeffrey, in this. I would like to open it. So I brought this for you. Wow. Wow, appreciate you connecting this to my rant. You can't imagine what my body did when I saw that. All I heard was Jeffrey go, and if you want to use the pink Himalayan salt, sure, that's just fucking throwing money down the toilet. You wouldn't use the curse word in our workshop. It depends on the crowd. What I will say, is I really do, I'm not a Himalayan pink salt hater. I actually just think it's for pickling when you're No, no, you're not mad at Himalayan, this is about economics. I love a nice Practicality. love a You're right, you're right, right. But the mere presence of this, what it's signifying is It's virtue signaling of salt. it's using salt to paint a picture of like, look how good the quality of the food regardless. That's right. they couldn't extend that grace to the pepper. the pepper. The tube of the pepper from like McDonald's tube of pepper. So it is, is, in that contrast to me is really funny. This is- It's adorable too. This is very cute. I like it. I like it. This would make a nice little like tattoo, a temporary tattoo. Yeah. Thank you for this, Himalayan. Yeah, next time I go I'll bring you some more. I will go and I have something to give you and have something to tell you. so Well, I was in California and I went to the Santa Monica farmers market and I brought you some citrus Do you know that whenever anybody goes to California, I ask them to bring me citrus? I do know. And I did not. But I didn't tell you that I did. I forgot that I And so this is from the Meyer lemon. And I was with our Amelia Saltzman, our friend. Our cookbook author, chef. The farmer's market cookbook. she took me to the market. So I got that for you. And I also picked a lemon. I did ask you. I said, bring me a lemon. And I picked a lemon from a tree for you. Oh, Jeffrey. Thank you. This is the best gift. So I want to give that end in the spirit of having been to Bagel Fest out west. Right when I came back from California, had three, four urgent messages from boomers in my life who had to send me a text, who sent me text messages of the article that Julia Moskin wrote in the New York Times about venture capital backed bagel businesses. Yeah, we all saw that article. Oh, I saw it. I saw it. will tell you I have been feeling uncomfortable about where we are in the state of bagels right now And I have I've been holding it in and I just needed to share and get this off my chest Recently so there's a number of trendy bagel shops now in New York like Apollo bagels which is for it's like open-faced bagel sandwich and pop-up bagels which claims to have invented the rip-and-dip which is funny since you and I both have spent plenty of time in Montreal where It's all rip-and-dip baby. It's all rip-and-dip. It's been doing that for years They won't make you a bagel sandwich until recently and you had to buy the cream cheese and dip it. So these other brands that popped up. Now when we were in the Atlanta area for our food retreat that we host, Bataille Avon, we heard from people about one of these places opened right across from one of these, from Emerald City Bagels, one of these classic sites of bagel. Creation production, you know in Atlanta right across the street. I went to taste one of these new bagel places I want to know in Atlanta. I went to in New York. Sorry. Oh in New York. Okay, and I was on a street where This place had just opened. There was a newest shop There were two other bagel shops on the block in Midtown. One of them was an old bagel No one's even in Midtown anymore. bagel shop that's been around right near Madison Square Garden and the other one was further down the block And they opened, they saw a block that had two bagel shops and said, let's open ours. And so I have been very upset because I have been seeing these bagel places with long lines. In fact, a friend of mine from Boulder, Colorado was visiting and we saw a long line and he's like, what is this long line for these bagels? Are there a lot of bagel shops around? I said, well, this is the trendy viral bagel that people are seeing. And he said, doesn't smell good. And I said, it's because they exclusively toast their bagels. Whereas we know that a good bagel shop, especially the ones in New Jersey and New York, where you grew up in Long Island, those bagel shops, some of them don't even have toasters because it would be anathema to them. They're just pumping out fresh bagels. Just fresh bagels. So I've just been very upset because I've been thinking a lot about, you know... that I miss the bagel culture from New Jersey where I grew up, and I know you talk about this with Long Island, and I feel like something about New York, we just have these long lines of a lot of people who are not from New York waiting in line to eat bagels that are trendy and viral and have all sorts of things in them and on them and dip them into that aren't really lifting up the bagel culture. And then now we have big money in bagel. And this article, Julian Moskin wrote a great piece about this. One of these places opened their tw- a 30th shop, maybe it was the 20th shop, one of those. That's a lot of shops. across, you know, was just, my friend from Colorado said, ⁓ you know that place in DC? They just opened up a few in the Colorado area. Right, right. And I just, I wanna just put a plug out for the local bagel shop. I love the local bagel shop, and I know I sound like a curmudgeon and a hater, but with these, the trends, and the thing I saw at Bagel Fest West, which, was nice, but you know, but I kinda feel like, The merch was great, like fantastic. Great merch. And some of the bagels did not live up to the merch. But the design was fantastic. And I just kind of feel like we're at this state where you can start to see what's happening to the infusion of that big money. And I'm very worried about the state of the bagel because I really do appreciate what our friends at Bagel Up who are putting on Bagel Fest are doing. We're just actually trying to lift up and elevate and educate and really bring the standard to. bagel culture. ⁓ so I really appreciate some of those. But with their success, you also see this rise of that big bagel, of big money. I'm thinking back to that period of time when lenders created this big manufacturer. They mass produced bagels. And we're seeing some of these bagel shops are pumping them out, leveraging AI, building machinery to make bagels. And the hand rolled bagel is a beautiful thing. That's where I wanted to, I wanted to rant about that and I wanted to shout out the article which we'll post in the show notes. And I just wanna, let's all respect ⁓ a local bagel culture. And we grew up with a good one. For me, what comes up is I wanna see those PNLs. I wanna see those profit and loss statements. Because I'm like, I don't trust it. You really making money, venture capital, on bagels? On something that goes stale in essentially four hours? Like, I... Feel skeptical. Real estate in midtown? How much money could you be making? I know they're charging a lot, but I need to, I want to know because what I feel is I'm not worried about the state of local bagels because I think the local bagel shop has their business model down. And I think my hypothesis is that we're just going to see a bagel bust. It's going to be a bagel bust. These shops are going to go bust. And I don't want anyone to go bust. I want anyone who makes bagels for a living to thrive. I do. But ⁓ my, I guess I feel almost confident that it's all gonna work out okay. I do, I do. You know what I mean? I. In the meantime, let's just keep supporting our local bagel shop. All right. All right, Jeffrey. Great. Great talking to you. Great to catch up. We haven't seen each other in so long. Thank you all for listening to Meet Me at the Deli. Please send us your questions to Gafilteria Instagram, email our podcast at gafilteria.com or fill out the form in the episode description. 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