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:

The post I’ve Seen the Future of Jewish Food, and There Are Matzoh Balls appeared first on Jewcy.

We here at Jewcy are big fans of the restaurant website Immaculate Infatuation, and are always excited when people we like share their favorite places to eat in the site’s Friday Fives feature. This week highlights restaurant pics from sibling chefs Eli and Max Sussman, who just came out with a new cookbook, helpfully called This is a Cookbook.

Jewcy chatted with the wunderkind chefs (Max works at Roberta’s and Eli works at Mile End) back in December 2011, and learned this summer camp gem: “They both got their start in the Detroit suburb of their childhood. They were raised to appreciate food by an artist mother who cooked dinner every night and lawyer father who baked challah every Friday. As a result, instead of becoming counselors at their Jewish sleepaway camp, they ran the kitchen.” They also shared a pretty awesome latke recipe.

All grown up now, the brothers gave Immaculate some great restaurant recommendations. Eli’s pick for Classic NYC Establishment? 2nd Avenue Deli: “Our parents keep kosher, and our dad is a huge fan of tongue and pastrami. So whenever they come to NYC we head over to lunch and get this absurd gargantuan meat platter with bowls of matzo ball soup, a stack of pickles, and Dr. Browns all around.” Max went with Russ and Daughters, which is a choice we can get behind: “I’m a sucker for smoked and cured fish, and this is the place right here. Often imitated, never duplicated.”

Not starving yet? Check out the trailer for This Is a Cookbook:

This Is a Cookbook by Max & Eli Sussman (Official Trailer) from iBookstore on Vimeo.

Previously: Two Jewish Brothers Walk Into A Brooklyn Kitchen (And Come Out With A Latke Recipe)

The post Sibling Chefs Max and Eli Sussman Share Their Favorite Restaurants appeared first on Jewcy.

• A measured comparison of the pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Delicatessan and the new Mile End outposts’ smoked meat sandwich.

• Adam Levine sleeps with so many women because he just really loves women. And sex. And models.

• Forget Sacha Baron Cohen, it’s his first cousin Simon we should be talking about.

• Family Guy seeking “bloated, overprivileged Brentwood Jews” to vote for them for an Emmy:

The post Daily Jewce: Family Guy’s Fat L.A. Jews, Aaron Sorkin’s Bar Mitzvah Dreams appeared first on Jewcy.

• True story: Visa applications to Kazakhstan have increased since Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 Borat film.

• Sarah Silverman talks about prepping for her nude scene with Michelle Williams in their new film Take This Waltz.

• Jewish food festivals in the South are growing in popularity, and drawing a lot of visitors after church.

• Watch the Mile End team eat (and drink) their way through Russ & Daughters and Sammy’s Roumanian—though we could have done without the music.

The post Daily Jewce: ‘Mein Kampf’ to be Published Again in Germany, Sarah Silverman’s Nude Scene Prep, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

I grew up on Long Island – went to the college that at the time held the dreidel spinning record – moved to New York City and then Los Angeles, so in my very skewed opinion, my current home, San Francisco, is not a very Jewish city. Well at least until a few months ago when an oasis materialized in an unassuming coffee shop near the 101 overpass. It’s there Evan Bloom, who looks like a Jewish-version of the Brawny paper towel man, and Leo Beckerman, with dreads he’s been growing since his Bar Mitzvah, hold court over Wise Sons Delis, a once a week pop up restaurant offering a curated menu of Jewish deli classics.

The two grew up in the LA area, where schmeres and schmaltz was readily available. College brought both to the Bay Area, where they eventually met at Cal-Berkeley’s Hillel. It was there they started cooking together and observing the community building power of food. Yet, after graduating they went out on the career paths of kids raised hearing doctor or lawyer expectations; Evan got a job at a construction management firm and Leo moved to DC to work at a non-profit.

Then with Leo back in the Bay, Wise Sons was born out of meat-based necessity. San Francisco had a couple Jewish delis fail within in the last couple years, leaving a 13oz (the insane standard weight of an overstuffed corn beef on rye) void in some Semitic stomachs. What started as a home project to finally get some good pastrami, grew quickly into a mini-phenomenon.

Evan and Leo make everything themselves at Wise Sons from the bialys to the sauerkraut to the black and white cookies. Still, like any Jewish Deli worth its (Kosher) salt, the star is the pastrami. Theirs is the real deal – smokey, peppery, beautifully unctuous -and since this is San Francisco the cow it came from was assuredly given a proper upbringing. Though, it took me three consecutive visits before I was able to actually try it, as they always run out quickly. Out-the-door lines have been a fixture of the pop up since very early on. Obviously, this was something this city was looking for, especially done with this level of integrity and fun.

For the Jews like me, it’s a taste of home or at least hometown. However, friends are bringing friends that are bringing other friends and the Jewish concentration has dropped. Leo looks towards the second most popular food for Jews as a comparison, “you go into a Chinese restaurant, not everyone in there is Chinese.” This is important for Leo who wants to be able to educate his unfamiliar customers. He recalls the first week having to teach the uninitiated what a blintz was. A blintz!

Leo explains their popularity as part of a greater trend, “People are getting more excited about food with history. Whether it is the food you ate as a child or the food your friend ate as a child.” With every dish they are exploring the history the Jewish Deli. Partly, that means serving the right food but also that means creating the right environment. They look back to the past when delis in America represented a place where Jews from all over Europe would come together in one restaurant – a chilled melting pot of borscht. If you go to Wise Sons Deli on Saturday you’ll see something similar.

For many Millennials, traditional Jewish food is holiday food so, sadly, as many distance themselves from the religion, they also lose ties to the cuisine and the culture. Leo and Evan are trying to reverse this trajectory as much as they can. The centerpiece of this campaign was a series of Seders they hosted this passed Passover. They brought together 110 guests over two nights for a dinner where the fish was gefilted and the motzah was properly balled, though billed with a wink as “probably not as good as your grandmother’s.” Many in attendance hadn’t been to a Seder in awhile and some hadn’t ever (15% of the guests were goy). By all accounts, people loved it – it was a night different from all other nights – and if I had to guess, much of the time was spent raving about the food, seeing if guest one knew anyone who went to camp with guest four and trying to set up guest three with guest twelve.

With the Seders and the deli the hope is promote the reclamation of a withering culture. Leo likes to reference a saying he gleaned from his antique collecting mother, “My grandmother bought it, my mother through it away, and I’m buying it again.” Every Saturday, there are legions of loyals waiting to do just that. Hell, I’m just happy I don’t have to get on a plane to buy black and white cookies.

The post The Big Jewcy: Wise Sons Deli – The Best Damn Pop Up Delicatessen In San Francisco appeared first on Jewcy.