Books, Dates, Persian Beer, Bagels, and Benefits
Your weekend starts tonight with Andrew Friedman at Books are Magic!
Tonight: Andrew Friedman at Books are Magic!
Acclaimed food writer Andrew Friedman’s latest book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food, follows one restaurant dish back to its origins, tracing every hand that’s ever touched a meal to create a 360 degree look at our food supply through the lens of one dish.
As you might expect from the author of Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits and Wanderers Created a New American Profession (2018), his latest books is a rollicking ride inside every aspect of a restaurant dish, from the cooks who prepare it; to the farmers, foragers, fishermen, and ranchers who grow, harvest, and raise the ingredients; to the truck drivers who deliver the food to the restaurant and the dishwashers who clean the plates.
Tonight from 7pm-8pm he’s at Books are Magic Montague Street with Klancy Miller, the author of For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food, for a reading and Q&A. Get there if you can! More info here.
A Great Date at L’Appartement 4F
The folks at L’Appartement 4F have teamed up with Spring and Mulberry to create the first date-sweetened croissant available this weekend only! The collaboration, grounded in a shared love for dates, was a natural one. Spring & Mulberry co-founder Kathryn Shah discovered dates as a sweetener when battling cancer in her early 30s, while L’Appartement co-founder Ashley Coiffard’s Persian heritage means that dates hold a very important meaning. Ashley has fond memories of watching her Baba Bozorg drinking his afternoon tea and eating dates as a snack.
Stop by 4F, located at 115 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, on Saturday October 21st to grab one! They will have a plain, and a “Chocolat Baies"—a date-sweetened-berry-pain au chocolat.
BagelFest
Over 30 craft bagel makers will be under one roof this weekend at the 4th annual BagelFest. Join Baegel Babe, Utopia Bagels, Acme Smoked Fish, St. Viateur Montreal Bagels, Bad Bagel, BagelHound, and more for a day of best in show bagels, schmears and lox. But BagelFest is more than eating smoked fish and bread in the round: you can also vote for Best Bagel, take part in a bagel rolling competition, and immerse yourself in bagel art! BagelFest takes place Saturday and Sunday at the Starrett-Lehigh Building at 601 West 26th Street. Tickets start at $49 per person and can be purchased here.
Support Back Home Beer’s Kickstarter!
Two years ago I was sitting at Sahadi in Industry City while my kids were in the game room and I was craving a cold beer, as I often do. I spied a beautiful pink beer can with farsi writing on it, and obviously, given that I am half Persian, I had to order one. Turns out it was a new brew from Zahra Tabatabai who started making beer after her Grandmother mentioned how much she missed the taste of her husband’s beer back in Iran. (I wrote about it back then.)
From there, Zahra created a beautiful collection of craft beers based on the way beer was made “Back Home” in Shiraz, Iran, a place that is far different today than it was just 40 years ago. “It was a country where my grandfather was able to make his own beer and wine, share it with neighbors and drink freely,” she told me.
She learned to make beer on YouTube and started brewing right out of her tiny Brooklyn kitchen using flavors of Shiraz: barberries, sumac, sour cherries, dried black limes and pomegranate. With a $5000 loan from her brother to get the business off the ground, she officially launched Back Home Beer. Two years later, close to 250 accounts between New York City + DC, Zahra is ready to take the next step. That’s where you come in!
Zahra has launched a Kickstarter to build a Back Home Brewery and Taproom. She imagines a place that sounds a lot like memories from my own childhood with my Persian family: beautiful tiled mosaics, backgammon, music, and a room filled with a lots of love, food, and joy.
“I want to create a space where the community can come together, share stories, bring their family, eat Persian Street food, and drink some delicious beer. Whether back home for you is Iran, Lebanon, India, Mexico, Iraq, Peru, or anywhere in the world. I want to build a space where YOU feel at HOME,” she wrote on her Kickstarer campaign.
There are only 7 days left and Zahra has just $5000 left to reach her $100,00 goal. Together we can help her get there! In supporting her Kickstarter campaign, you're not only helping her build Back Home Brewery + Taproom, you're becoming a part of a story that bridges two worlds, especially during this time of upheaval in the Middle East, that seems very meaningful to me.
Two Dinners for Israel Next Week
In the face of the terrorist attacks on Israel last week, Simon Oren’s Barbounia and Dagon are hosting fundraising dinners. They promise to be delicious and raise money for the IDF and volunteer aid workers. Let me say this: I don’t want the Strong Buzz to become a forum for hate or anti-semitsm or anti-Palestinian voices either.
I am a New York Jew with family and friends in Israel who has felt gutted by the terrorist massacres in Israel at the Kibbutz and the music festival. I am also devastated by the death toll in Gaza and loss of more innocent lives; I feel awful for the families of Palestinians who have lost their mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. It is possible to feel both outrage at the massacre of my own people, and also at the events that have taken place in their aftermath. The human heart is not that binary.
Perhaps this is just too naive a statement, but we have to stop the hate. We are in such a cycle of hate and violence and this war is doing nothing to change that. Hamas is getting what it wants: sowing more seeds of resentment, hate, and revenge. Peace will never have a chance if we continue this way. The hate has already spilled into our own country: a muslim child was killed, a swastika was graffitied on the Second Avenue Deli, my son’s school is guarded by armed police.
I am exhausted by the death and the hate. I don’t know the way forward, but this is not it. One way may be to gather together, Jews and Arabs, and break bread, share a meal, share some tears, and find a way forward together. Perhaps food can be the answer, or at least part of the solution.
Barbounia - Monday, 10/23
On Monday, October 23rd, Chef Amitzur Mor, along with esteemed Israeli chefs Eli Buli (Masiba), Lior Lev Sercarz (La Boite), Asaf Maoz (19 Cleveland), and pastry chef Shir Rosenblatt (Masiba), will craft a multi-course dinner paired with Israeli wines chosen by Aviram Turgeman. Seating is at 6:30, 7:00 and 7:30 for $250 per person with the entirety of the proceeds going directly to supporting the vital work of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF). Barbounia is located at 250 Park Avenue.
Dagon - Wednesday, 10/25
Chef Ari Bokovza joins forces with Liebman's Deli, the last kosher deli in the Bronx, to present a four-course meal starting with matzo ball soup; Dagon’s mezze; a meat platter; and a milk and honey dessert. Seating is available from 6:00pm to 9:30 pm, and the $250 per person ticket (plus tax and gratuity) is a direct contribution to Yatar Israel. Yatar deploys highly-trained volunteer units to work alongside Israel’s Border Police and other groups. Dagon is located at 2454 Broadway.