jewish grocery store day {may 21, 2022}

 Serendipity.

A couple weeks before leaving for New York City I read three articles from three different publications (the New York Times, Literary Hub, and Saveur) about Zabar's, a store on the Upper West Side. Zabar's is part Jewish deli, part specialty store (the cheese and bakery sections...wow!), and part home goods store. It went on my list of places to explore. Right before we left, I was looking for a book I wanted to read on the plane and stumbled upon a newspaper article that a dear friend who was a native New Yorker sent to me. (He lived in Hell's Kitchen at 10th and 50th back in the tough days). It was about another Jewish deli, Barney Greengrass, which also happened to be on the Upper West Side. Well, whadda ya know, lunch plans made for one of the days.

Barney Greengrass is located at 541 Amsterdam Avenue at 87th Street. It was a beautiful day, I had on my most comfortable pair of walking shoes, and took a 30-block walk past Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, and through the Upper West Side to this very busy lunchtime spot. The article mentions the chopped herring salad and I was all set to try that but it didn't look appetizing at all. I ordered some whitefish salad and potato salad.

Next stop, Zabar's at 2245 Broadway and 79th. Just a couple blocks over and a few blocks down for the Zabar's Classic Nova: rye bagel with plain cream cheese, lox, capers, tomato, and red onion.

The bakery at Zabar's is out-of-this world! Bread has been a part of human history for centuries and has played an integral role in daily life all over the world. It is a symbol of culture, history, hunger, wealth, war, peace. All these beautiful loaves of bread brought such a feeling of comfort as though some little Jewish bubbe had kneaded and formed each loaf with love. The loaves of Jewish rye brought a smile to my heart. That was my dad's favorite bread.

Waiting for my bagel. After that walk, my stomach was starting to growl but I didn't stay at the deli to eat. I wanted to walk a little more and take in the UWS neighborhood vibe.

I walked through Central Park and decided to go back to the hotel lounge to eat my lunch. Looking out over Avenue of the Americas with the Empire State Building in my line of sight and a most delicious lunch...this day was food for the soul.