Will the Real Slim Zaidy Please Stand up?

Some people look forward to March because it means Madness –basketball that is, others await the seminal seedlings of spring, but for me it’s a harbinger to the eight days of masticating matzoh. It gets stale.  Although the days begin to lengthen, it is at this time that I find myself most susceptible to Seasonal Affective Disorder.  In early March the Manischewitz items begin to cluster at the fringes of aisles. But this year, I may not be so dour.  If Zaidy's truly is, as the owner quotes on his website, "the best deli/restaurant in 
town?" maybe my spirits have reason to rise while my bread remains flat.

            

But first let’s get clear on semantics: There are two lineages of Judaism, of which, until a couple of days ago, I knew not which I was.  There are the Ashkenazis and then there are the Sephardics.  People ask me of my last name, usually butchering it in the process, "Ades [not Aids or 80’s but Ay-dis]...where is that from?"  And I reply, "Oh, it's Ashkenazic."  At times I feel it rings of more Sephardic undertones and I respond accordingly.  It isn't until a Jewish professor of mine poses the well placed question and I choose to answer, "oh it's either Sephardic or Ashkenazic" that he retorts, "well, it can't be both.”  I guess Ashkenazi and Sephardic are as different as blintzes and crêpes.  So that got me thinking, not enough to find out…just thinking; instead, it’s the possibility of being fact checked that goads me to dig up my roots.  I am a confirmed Sephardic –don’t judge me: Zaidy’s is an Ashkenazic deli.

So when I saunter into Zaidy’s –sans yamakah –I appreciate that they look past my lineage so that we can so seamlessly set aside our differences.  Actually, what I appreciate most is that when I do amble in circa 7:30 (thirty minutes before closing –something I didn’t know) and ask the man behind the hostess stand, vested in a paisley printed sweater, preened but not a fop, “if [you] close soon,” adding, “because I can come back tomorrow,” he embraces me at the forearm and says, “no, no, no,” and ushers me to a booth.  “We are all here,” he holds up his arms and gestures to the staff and other people dining.  The man, Gerard, turns out to be the owner.

He seats me in the booth nearest to the kitchen.  A section partitioned by the same mahogany-like wainscoting that circumferences the entire restaurant.  I choose the side of the booth that overlooks the partially open kitchen.  Zaidy’s is cozy and familiar, enchanting and foreign: Eastern Europe tempered with old-school diner. 

         

Zaidy’s (congenial for Zayde) means Grandfather in Yiddish.  Some other Yiddish terms you should know: shlimazel: someone with constant bad luck, schmendrik: a jerk or stupid person, schmaltzy: excessively sentimental, which comes from the word schmaltz –a term I will revisit, schmooze (you probably already know what this means…you also know if you do it too), and schmuck (to be resevered for those times when some yoyo in a Beemer cuts you off).  FYI: the true meaning of the word is penis –something to keep in mind.

            

But first things first: in reference to the title ‘is Zaidy’s authentic Jewish cuisine?’  Well yes and no.  It’s kind of like strolling through the MOMA, perusing specific galleries fraught with Dadaism (modern works painted on oversized canvas using one primary color that drips into different monochromatic gradations); sure it makes you feel smart, but is it really art?  Let’s face it, no “authentic” Jewish deli will serve you any Reuben sandwich because it’s not kosher –meat and milk just don’t coalesce.  Straight from Leviticus…look it up [7:23].  Seriously…my Zaydies would’ve curdled at the thought. 

            

It’s the same reason Ashkenazic Jews in long ago Eastern Europe cooked with schmaltz (chicken fat/grease –one melts the fat and collects the drippings): because they couldn’t use dairy (i.e. butter) and geographical obstacles precluded them from employing the olive and sesame oils that were available to the Middle East.  For further information on latitudinal consequences of early civilizations refer to Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel).

            

Less fat, more matter –let’s get to the heart of it: is Zaidy’s good food? 

            

Tolstoy begins Anne Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Zaidy’s is a happy family, an ordinary family; you’ll probably be hard-pressed to squeak out eight-hundred pages of a novel but maybe ‘ordinary’ isn’t so bad –perhaps if one plays Pachabel’s Canon enough, it’ll make it more appetizing.  But books and movies aside, who doesn’t want to dine out with a happy family?  For all its straight laces, Zaidy’s strings together some fine doilies.  One must understand the structure (of Judaism) that the deli/restaurant performs within –it’s a little like giving Miles Davis a one-three on beat and telling him to solo: can he still do it?  Sure, but you’ll constrict him and it’s going to sound kinda blue.

            

Most Jewish foods settle in the crepuscule that Teddy Roosevelt deems “the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  It’s easy to achieve goodness but it’s much harder to be great: it’s equally hard to flop.  Latkes, for example, are difficult to botch.  And in Vermont where the backbeat of legitimate Maple Syrup eagerly waits employment on the top tray of the fridge –they’re foolproof.  But in all of Jewish cooking there is one place where a cook can rise from the rest: the matzoh ball. 

            

The balls are where there is, hands down, the most room for a chef to climb up.  The beauty of the matzoh ball is that one can’t insert many froufrous to fluff it up.  The foundation starts with eggs but from there, butter can’t assist (by kosher standards) and sugar can’t supplement.  And while the soup can provide some support, the matzoh ball must maintain a sense of hydrophilicity –a mostly impermeable membrane that circumvents sogginess.  The taste of an excellent matzoh ball is tricky to reify, it’s like Keats’ ‘Grecian Urn’ –only through paradox can it really be dissected: ‘Beauty is matzoh ball, matzoh ball beauty’.  Of the three sects of Judaism: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, I think the one thing we unanimously agree on is that the only thing worse than a daedalian matzoh ball, one that strives for airy perfection but dishevels into its own self-destructive murkiness, is biting into a dinky, dense one.  

            

Zaidy’s pulls it off.  After my first bite, I am quick to kvetch that it lacks salt but by my third, I comprehend the syncopation from which the perfect mouthfeel ensues –how the diaphanous solution with its glistening, golden ripples of chicken fat mingle with a modicum of salt to compliment and espouse the balls, fully rounding them off.  Before my patiently awaiting kreplach cools, I finish my matzoh ball and guzzle down the remaining soup.

            

Kreplach is like a wanton –it is postulated that it was either brought by the Jews trading in China, who learned to make them there, or that the Khazars brought it to the Polish lands.  The dough consists of vegetable oil, salt, water, and flour: the filling is made up of a variety of vegetables usually combined with beef.  Zaidy’s kreplach shines in its own subtle way but again a structure that smacks Jewish, fetters the wonton.  It’s like matriculating into a college with an entire grading system based on pass/fail…no you didn’t invent the system but good luck when you apply for jobs.  If that metaphor means nothing to you, perhaps it’s like a figure skater who flawlessly performs an easy routine (if there’s a Frenchman on the judging committee, metaphor not applicable).  Kreplach can either be fried or boiled and I go with the boiled kreplach placed in chicken soup.  The dough is thin while maintaining enough tensile strength to brace the beef.  The meat filling consists of the meat, garlic, carrot, celery, onion, and oil.

            

I order the potato latkes for my entrée.  Syrup is not served as a side dish but sour cream and strawberry applesauce are.  FYI: really applesauce is the classic dressing, I (and most Jewish Vermonters) just impose syrup onto them.  These latkes are good –I taste no unwanted flavors and my sweet tooth can forbear until dessert; further, the strawberry applesauce quells my fleeting urges for my homeland’s syrupy substance.  A layer of grease, that I would prefer came as a side dish, anoints the surface of the pancakes; it’s a little unpleasant but more unnecessary.  Some people like such lubricants but my favorite latke experience comes from Laurel’s Kitchen (a cookbook): her usage of yeast while expending thrifty amounts of oil creates an airy texture that evokes the full flavor of the yeast and potato.

            

In addition, Zaidy’s makes a smorgasbord of sandwiches, eggs, steak, lox, blintzes (thin pancakes filled with cheese or brisket), kugel (either noodles or potatoes cooked in egg, butter, sugar, and other additions), and knishes: a dough filled with potato and spinach or kasha (buckwheat).

            

I haven’t mentioned my khaver (friend) until now…he is good company but brings little to the table; he orders a cheeseburger.  My Uncle often says to me, “you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”  You can’t pick what they eat either.  When I ask him how his burger is he comments in the same laconic manner that I would’ve responded fourteen years ago to my parents’ question, “how was your day at school?”  “Good,” he says.

            

I don’t think it’s by a simple twist of fate that the women behind me lamenting unemployment, choose to dine at Zaidy’s: with its reasonable prices (four dollars for a cup of soup, five for a bowl, and averaging $8-9 for an entrée), Zaidy’s caters kindly to our wizened economy.

            

A TV mounted above the deli makes the diner milieu even more apparent.  It broadcasts American Idol.  Gerard cleaves his attention between his customers and the show, every now and then leaving his place behind the stand to get a closer look.  I personally have never been a big fan of the contest –the blinkering, blabbering façade that is Simon Cowell has always seemed distasteful to me.  But with the volume turned to a considerately low level and Cowell’s own recent defection, it doesn’t disturb the ambience. 

         

Wishing that my friend wasn’t ushering me out as quickly as Gerard had guided me in, afraid that our post supper pandiculations were overstretching our welcome –it is eight forty-five, there is no time for dessert.  As we leave, I give a closer look to the pictures on the walls, the framed photographs that adorn the columns, expecting to discern subtleties alluding to Times Square and the Lower East Side (outside of Israel it has the largest Jewish population in the world; it is also where my father grew up).  But in these pictures, I see unsuspecting signs of Denver from many years ago and I realize that Zaidy’s isn’t meant to be a New York Deli facsimile; it is a Denver Jewish deli/restaurant and that is as it should be.  As I walk past the stools that line the counter, I peek through the two display cases near to the door: one exhibiting delicatessen, the other flaunting pastries.  The case is unostentatious; rather, it’s the baked goods inside that attract the eye (distill your own life metaphors from this).  My friend pokes me.

         

I walk by Gerard, we shake hands, and thank each other.  To him, trivial is the time on the clock when sampled with our enjoyment of the meal and the service.  The two other dawdling customers stand tethered to the TV, watching as American Idol wraps up.  We leave them behind, evading the status of rotten eggs (last ones to leave). 

            

But even as my friend and I remove the front wheel from my bike, I’m still addled by this question of authenticity.  I want the schmaltz, the taking of the challah (another sign of kosher), and why is someone turning seventy watching American Idol?  I realize that I am the curmudgeon unaccommodating to change.  I remember reading a quote from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America, on the ‘taking of challah,’ a sacrificial gesture in which the baker sets aside a piece of the dough, “You’ll often see that sign [challah has been taken] in a kosher bakery.  Jews seem to be masters at imbuing ordinary acts with symbolism.”  Maybe Nature has genetically bequeathed to me my schmaltziness.  Maybe it’s the difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazic.  Probably not.  Regardless, don’t pass over this jewbilation because when the end of March rolls around, I surely won’t.  There I will sit, enjoying Zaidy’s perfect matzoh balls on the patio where the umbrellas already sit tuckered into tables waiting to unfurl for that first glimmer of sun or for those willing to brave the cold.  But I will not open these umbrellas because during the eight tasteless days, I need the shades of sun to shield my susceptibility to SAD.  The real slim Zaidy, you need not stand because you are old and probably tired and I already know where to find you (121 Adams Street).