Woot (with confessional)

Here is my piece for The Jewish Week.

It would just so happen that the second-most read article on the NY Times right now is on the same topic, albeit with greater depth and word count. During my follow-up interview, I basically high-fived this reporter on the way out.

I am also, perhaps out of naivete and frustration, going to include the original version of the article below. If you read both, perhaps you'll see why. If you don't read either then, you know, like whatever.

Steps away from the clamor of Atlantic Avenue, a small Jewish deli in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill is quietly building itself a big reputation. At Mile End, the menu arrives on a one-sided page roughly the size of a bookmark. Smaller, sweeter Montreal bagels are brought in overnight. There are no more than three sandwiches, corned beef and Dr. Brown’s soda are nowhere to be found. Instead, the signature item is smoked meat which, in the Montreal style, is brisket first cured for eleven days, smoked for at least eight hours, steamed for four more, and then finally served on local Jewish rye. The final result has more pepper than pastrami, is juicier than normal brisket, and has more heat than standard deli fare. This is where Montreal meets Brooklyn. In just under three hours, the day’s allotment of smoked meat—about a hundred pounds— will be entirely sold out and the deli will close early.

But beyond representing the unique taste of Montreal, which is earning Mile End a number of positive reviews, the deli takes on a different approach about its status as a purveyor of Jewish cuisine. “We’re Sunday morning bacon Jews,” says Rae Cohen, of herself and her husband Noah Bernamoff, the couple who opened Mile End in late January.

Cohen, 25, is not being flippant about religion when she explains the credo of Mile End. While the food is not kosher, the emphasis is on local meats, bread, and produce as well as the in-house preparation of food including curing, smoking, and steaming. The ultimate mission is sustainability, which Cohen and Bernamoff believe is a salient and progressive manifestation of Jewish values. According to Cohen, even the bagels, which are driven in daily by two of Bernamoff’s childhood friends from Montreal, are still considered local because the source is less than 500 miles away. “We always try to make sure that they bring something back to Montreal,” she adds.

Cohen and Bernamoff first met as students in a History of Jewish Philosophy course at McGill University in Montreal. Bernamoff, 27, who is from Montreal, was raised on the delis in the city’s Mile End neighborhood. Cohen, who is a New Yorker, grew up going to Manhattan delis. Both Cohen and Bernamoff are from conservative households and attended Jewish high schools. When they moved to New York together, the idea for opening a Jewish deli was not on their radar. Neither had any experience in the restaurant business or any formal culinary training.

“Noah went through two years of law school before taking a leave of absence.” Cohen explains. While in school, Bernamoff spent a year tinkering with recipes and smoking meats on the roof of their Park Slope apartment. “It was a little bit of a home laboratory.”

“My family hopes I’ll return to law school,” Bernamoff admits. “But if I’m happy, they’re happy.”

Backed minimally by their parents and a close friend who invested in the project, Mile End is essentially a family affair. The deli is also the upshot of a feverish entrepreneurial push by Cohen and Bernamoff. Last May, they found the restaurant space. They signed the lease in June and spent the next six months acquiring permits, building and retrofitting the tiny space with kitchen and deli equipment, designing the interior, pairing up with local food purveyors, and developing the menus. They stopped briefly in October to get married.

Upon first entry, one instantly notices that the dining area and the kitchen at Mile End are in one small room. The dining area decor is subdued in black and white tones and seats only nineteen between four tables and a counter. The tables and counter are made of wood salvaged from a bowling alley in upstate New York. However, behind a short partition, the kitchen is filled with the colors of distinct deli food. Red borscht with a white cream dollop, lavender coleslaw, and poutine, which is a decadent marriage of frites, cheese curd, and gravy. During Passover, the kitchen offered all sandwiches on homemade matzah, which was prepared to code in under eighteen minutes, but without rabbinic supervision.

Shortly after noon, Ken Goeringer walks into Mile End for the first time and grabs a seat at the counter. Goeringer is old school: the long-time owner of a neighborhood business, he is a devoted Jets fan and a deli aficionado. He looks around the room where two mothers are chatting at a table and a pair of art students have a splay of sketchpads arranged around their plates. A man in a shirt and tie looks up from his library book to balance a few bites of brisket-covered poutine on a fork.

Goeringer asks the waitress if there are knishes. She shakes her head no. Goeringer orders a smoked meat sandwich and a Pepsi. When the waitress explains that they don’t serve Pepsi but offers cherry soda, root beer, and cream soda from Virgil’s —a small purveyor— Goeringer shrugs. “Water will be fine.”

While much ink has been to devoted to the demise of the Jewish deli, a new model, represented by businesses like Mile End and a handful of delis elsewhere in the United States and Canada, speaks to a shift in the way Jews are approaching traditional cuisine.

“I’m not religious in any way,” Bernamoff says, “But I believe in the ethical responsibility of tikkun olam very seriously and to me, that extends to environment and agriculture as well as animals and humans.”

Bernamoff bristles at traditional delis that emphasize mammoth portions. “Jewish delis have pressure on them to keep the prices the same as they were in 1953. They end up using cheap meat to make big sandwiches at low prices, with mass produced vegetables, and they offer poor pay to illegal immigrants.” he explains. “When I walk into Katz’s, I feel like they’re laughing at me.”

At Mile End, you’ll pay seven-to-eight dollars for their lunch sandwiches; the portions are sizable but not overwhelming. “I could cut corners and pay $1.20 per pound for brisket, but if the meat is the central focus, why not spend $3.99?” says Bernamoff.

Goeringer’s smoked meat sandwich arrives on a small plate with no sides. “I like to put the mustard on myself,” he frets before taking a Katz-sized bite. “It’s different,” he notes full-mouthed. “Different, but very good.” Goeringer scans the room again. “Can I get a pickle?” he asks.

While a few people have voiced passing dissent about the portion sizes or asked why the food is not kosher or even kosher-style (Canadian bacon can be found on the breakfast menu), Boerum Hill, which is seeing its share of sustainable businesses, has seemed to embrace Mile End. Brooklynites of all stripes can been seen inside at the tables or wrapped in the wait line outside. A window offering “to go” service frames a constant snapshot of hustling customers both young and old. Cohen views Mile End as part of a community not only in Brooklyn and with local businesses, but inside its doors as well.

“I’ve even made a few shidduchs at the counter.” she admits with a laugh.