Oi! ...I mean Oy!

“...emerging at the end carrying Ben’s homemade cream cheese with scallions and Tanenbaum’s fresh pumpernickel bagels, both of which would be combined with my Russ & Daughters’ Nova Scotia to create the single perfect Nova Scotia and cream cheese on bagel available in today’s depleted market.”
-Calvin Trillin

I’ve always wanted to recreate Calvin Trillin’s Lower East Side Sunday morning ritual. Jewish food just interests me, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because my knowledge about the cuisine stops at lox, but I think it’s really because I’ve listened to Jewish friends vehemently complaining about Gefilte fish and other oddities they were forced to wolf down at Passover dinners. Either way, I was going to be on Houston Street to complete a Craigslist purchase on Saturday morning and decided it was the perfect opportunity to nosh.

Unfortunately for me, Tanebaum’s and Ben’s are closed. I know that Ben’s Dairy was turned into Ben’s Cheese Shop, but all I could find about this store was a loving homage in a 1989 article in the New York Times. Yonah Schimmel is still in town selling potato kinnishes, and Katz Deli still whips up tons of pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, but it was 10 in the morning and I wanted some breakfast.


I wandered into Russ & Daughter’s around 10:15 and was greeted by a surly Asian man in front of the bagel display, a fellow named Jose behind the smoked salmon and two older Jewish women bickering about someone who was in the store earlier. I couldn’t tell if they were happy with the customer or upset, but they were arguing with purpose. There were a few other employees running around in the back but I wasn’t able to get a glimpse before the bagel man started hounding me for an order. Looking around, I realized there were only two other people in the store but the impeccably dressed counter man was insistent that I get my food immediately. Three blazingly quick minutes later I was out the door with a $12 scallion cream cheese and smoked salmon on a poppy seed bagel sandwich. I made my way over to a nearby park, sat down on an empty bench and opened up a thing of beauty. Perhaps I should delve into Jewish cuisine a bit more to discover what it’s all about. Maybe then I can complain about Gefilte fish too.