This past weekend, Mile End, Tablet Magazine, and ABC Home teamed up to present The Future of Jewish Food, where insiders from across the food industry talked Jews, food, and Jews eating food. Top Chef’s Gail Simmons (who wrote “keep cooking” in my copy of her book!) and Mitchell Davis of the James Beard Foundation (the only acronym that night where the ‘J’ didn’t stand for ‘Jewish’) discussed the future of the Jewish kitchen with food writer Joan Nathan, and then David Sax, author of Save the Deli, probed the future of the Jewish deli with the guys behind uber-trendy new-wave delis like Brooklyn’s Mile End, San Francisco’s Wise Sons, Portland’s Kenny and Zukes, and Saul’s Deli in Berkeley.
The highlight of the event was when Nathan asked her panelists to predict what Jewish food will look like in the year 3000. Simmons assured the crowd, perched on stylish chairs in the ABC Home event space, that there would still be matzoh balls. I like to imagine the ensuing sigh of relief as collective and not just mine.
Check out Tablet’s footage from the event, just be sure to wipe the drool off your computer keyboard after. We fully endorse event MC Alana Newhouse’s endorsement of lox: