By Carol Tannenhauser
March 14, 2022 Weather: Generally clear, high of 56 degrees.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events!
News
Purim starts on the evening of Wednesday, March 16th, which means bakeries all over the city are offering fruit-filled cookies shaped (some say) like the villain Haman’s triangular hat. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency sent a message saying five of the 14 best places to buy hamantaschen in NYC are on the Upper West Side (with another coming soon.) “According to Gil Marks in his Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, if the food we eat somehow references Haman, we ‘symbolically erase his name.’ So eat up!
One of the places to be proudest of in the neighborhood is the Wild Bird Fund, the nonprofit wildlife hospital — the only one in NYC — on Columbus Avenue between W. 87 and 88th. This week’s The New Yorker has an illustrated tribute to WBF and its director and co-founder. “Rita McMahon…who first began treating injured birds out of her apartment, will celebrate the Bird Fund’s tenth anniversary this spring at a ‘Flocktail Party.’ She thinks the recent uptick in reports [of injured birds] may be due to New Yorkers noticing birds more than before the pandemic.”
None less than Robert Sietsema of Eater has finally debunked the myth about UWS eateries. “At the start of this century, it was commonplace to say there were no good restaurants on the Upper West Side. It was wrong then and is even more wrong now, as new places open up,” Sietsema wrote this month. He proves his point with a list of 35 places to try, including “new classics like Bánh Vietnamese Shop House, Pastrami Queen, and Charles Pan Fried Chicken … Culinarily speaking, the Upper West Side … is always renewing itself,” he says.
Also from Eater, starting in April the most expensive restaurant in America, thought to be Masa, the Japanese place located in The Shops at Columbus Circle, will get more expensive, bringing the price of an “extravagant” meal at the bar to more than $1,000 per person, “and that’s before a single drop of wine or sake is poured.”
Extra! The West Side Rag newsboy has removed his mask, but decided to retain his pandemic-inspired headline, “We’re all in this together,” because it is, and always will be, true.
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I am trying to figure out under what insane circumstances I would pay over $2,000 for my husband and myself to have ONE MEAL. Forget the old, “eat your dinner, people are starving in India” trope. People are going hungry right here in NYC, every single day. $1,000 for one person’s meal is obscene. Obscene doesn’t even do this justice. I don’t have words.
Nice photo!!
You asked recently what changes your readers would like to see in WSR. This is a perfect example!
I wish you had thumbs-up and thumbs-down symbols to register agreement or disagreement without the need to give all the info you currently request. “Thanks for asking,” if it’s not too late!
I’d give Sam a thumbs-up!
Ugh. These are cookie hammentaschen. The “real” ones, IMHO, are the pastry version — made famous by Gertel’s on the Lower East Side. Every year I would look forward to driving down with my mother to purchase a dozen, which we would carefully wrap and refrigerate for future consumption after gobbling down a few while they were deliciously fresh. RIP Gertel’s! Can’t find the pastry version anywhere now!
William Greenberg Dessert sells yeast hammentaschen, I think this is the bread pastry you are looking for https://shop.wgbergdesserts.com/collections/purim/products/yeast-hamentashen
I found a yeast dough recipe that seems similar to Gertle’s hammentaschen. https://www.jewishfoodsociety.org/posts/2021/2/22/reviving-a-yeasted-hamantaschen-recipe-nearly-lost-to-the-soviet-era
The West Side Rag newsboy’s face looks fuller than I remember. Looks like even he became a pandemic poundage packer.
The Newsboy’s mask should be dangling from one ear, or the more familiar chin mask position. BA.2 is ramping up in the EU and some parts of Asia.
Breath easy, and keep your booster shots current.
Thank you, Dorrie!
right now the fresh baked ones at the counter at KOSHER MARKET PLACE ON BROADWAY AND 91 ARE HEAVEN
Zabar’s used to sell some boxed ones by a company called Erica’s which are made with butter and fantastic. Not at all like the ‘cookie’ ones which taste great but yes, like cookies. If I am remembering correctly this Erica’s version are much more like the pastry ones of my childhood, except made with butter- which my family definitely prefers.