Bread on the sidewalk is criminal, more so in a magazine that has a photo of a starving child on the cover. Jewish bread on the sidewalk? Vey iz mir. Glad that at least, ala Portlandia, you put a bird on it.
Oh for a bialy.....
Never had a bialys before. Looks almost like a bagel... except edible.
"Bialystok"
See also Max Bialystock, co-lead character from The Producers, as played by Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane.
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I agree that nothing beats Kossar’s bialys hot out if the oven. But buy a couple of dozen, cut them in half, and freeze them. Then you can enjoy fresh toasted bialys at home. The best!
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I'm retired and have leisurely mornings. I get my Bialy fix from Fresh Direct. Bell's frozen bialys: ... toaster oven ...then butter.
Perfect way to start the day.
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It’s 3 AM, I’m not up to hearing any more news about Trump and you’ve put me in a reminiscent mood; so here’s a partial list of things I like in addition to bialys:
Kosher hot dogs wrapped in bologna, topped with sauerkraut and deli-mustard served on old fashioned Kaiser rolls along with big kosher dill pickles and extra-thick, hand-cut onion rings.
Spaghetti Caruso.
Caesar salad prepared in a good Italian restaurant with checkered tablecloths by a waiter who knows what he’s doing.
White fish salad prepared in a good deli.
Books by and about Abraham Lincoln, H.L. Mencken, George Orwell, T.S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser and the U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II.
Goldenberg Peanut Chews, Cadbury Fruit and Nut Bars, Mr. Goodbars.
Willie Mays, the all-time center fielder of my dreams.
Beef tongue sandwiches, center cut, on Jewish rye.
Big dogs, preferably weighing more than 120 lbs., with heads the size of garbage-can lids, like the one here in the picture.
Cats who like to sleep on my feet on cold winter nights.
Citizen Kane, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Boys' regular haircuts.
Blue blazers, blue button shirts, khakis, striped ties, cordovan shoes and belts.
Women who wear just a touch of makeup and never wear dangly earrings.
Women who laugh at my jokes and read lots of murder mysteries.
Chanel No. 5.
Pearls. Good ones.
Dresses, not pants.
Maybe some more in the morning, along with lox and cream cheese on a bialy.
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One of the first things I do when I arrive in New York is to go to Zabar's and buy bialys for breakfast. They are in no way part of my heritage, being a part-Chinese Panamanian who divides her time among three cities: New York, Panama, and Madrid. But for me, bialys mean that I am really in New York.
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Growing up in Sunnyside, Queens, in a mostly secular family, my "traditional" weekend breakfast was bacon, tomato, and cream cheese on a Kosar's bialy. Kosher it wasn't and not so good for the coronary arteries, but the taste, wonderful. Living now in Netanya, Israel, this is not something I am ever likely to have again.
Imagine my surprise when this NYer, who moved to Florida 7 years ago (but moving back to nyc this spring! Yay!) found Ray’s frozen bialy’s at Publix, brought them home (with a lot of skepticism), toasted one, and WOW! Not bad at all! They will keep me satisfied until I can get a fresh one again.
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I sure do miss them, having moved from NYC 30 years ago.
I salt miss salt sticks.
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@Paul: I miss them too and I'm not even from the NYC area. I grew up in the Midwest, and Cleveland once had many fine Jewish bakeries and they made bialys and salt sticks and other stuff that is long gone.
While you can still get a good bagel here....the choices of bakeries has declined alarmingly....not just the Jewish ones, but all ethnicities. I was at neighborhood event the other day, chatting with someone about the SWEDISH bakery we used to have in the 60s, that made uniquely Swedish stuff like krullers and Swedish coffee rings (similar to stollen).
My grandfather was a master baker, but I wonder today how many young people go into this field -- and if they do, what they bake is "rainbow bagels with funfetti sprinkles". Geez, I'm having to suppress my gag reflex there!
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I love a good bialy ranging from hard to find to too hard to eat. However on multiple trips to Berkely CA. I have found the best bialys found anywhere East or West is at The Cheese Board on Shattuck Avenue. Sourdough, plenty of onions and poppy seeds make for a moist and delicious combination. They also sell their baking book full of recipies with their other winners.
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Hope the author is actually getting some behavioral therapy for panic attacks.
Describing the circumstances surrounding an attack in detail to anyone, including a therapist, is probably not going to help very much.
While avoidance of stressful situations can help prevent attacks (eg always ordering the same food item) it’s not always possible. And it can limit one’s experiences of life.
Therapeutic techniques (eg. cognitive/behavioral/imagined “exposure”) to help prevent as well as to treat attacks in the early (or even later) stages may offer many sufferers a greater quality of life, as good as these treats sound.
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@Kim: I am a panic attack sufferer myself, though my symptoms are under control. Of course I sympathize with the author, but I don't think his panic attacks have the slightest thing to do with bialys and distract from the article on that subject.
I also don't think his panic attacks have the slightest thing to do with "too many choices on the restaurant menu", nor will ordering the same thing -- whether a bialy or French toast -- HELP him avoid another panic attack.
As you correctly note, therapy and particularly behavior modification therapy, are very useful as are appropriate use of drugs. This is one condition where self-treatment -- including self-diagnosis -- are nearly useless, especially if they result in the patient avoiding every situation they have a panic attack in.
Oy Oy Oy , that we could have Bialys here in Nashville. My New York cousin ships them here on the sly. What food these morsels be.
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I weep at the thought of bialys from Kossar's. Mimi Sheraton, on tour with her magnificent treatise on bialys, visited Austin, TX, where I was living at the time. Though Kossar's did not send care packages with her, owners of The Sweetish Hill Bakery in Austin, did prepare a raft of bialys from Sheraton's researched recipe ... and, to this day they still sell them. They are quite good, but Kossar's they ain't. Sorry, but that's the truth. I am delighted to know that they still live on in NYC.
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The beauty of bialys is that unlike bagels, now available in endless flavor varieties — asiago bagel anyone? — bialys come in one flavor: bialy. Butter or cream cheese, that’s it for choices. Please, don’t load ‘em up with all kinds of stuff. Keep it simple. If you’re looking for a bialy in western Mass. try Barrington Bagels in Great Barrington. Fantastic bagels too. And smoked fish from the best source, Acme in Brooklyn. NYers (and wannabes), this is the place. You’ll usually find the co-owner (along with his wife) Bob at the register. Tell him I sent you.
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@eyesopen: I like the simplicity too, but it is because ... bialys never caught on like bagels.
Bagels are so ubiquitous that when my stepson first moved to a very remote part of Southern Ohio -- the foothills of the Appalachias -- so remote at the time, there was no cable TV and almost no cellphone coverage -- darn if the little wretched supermarket in town (17 miles away! each way!) did not have BAGELS. Frozen, admittedly, but still!
My recollection is there was some choice with bialys -- poppy seeds or plain onion, LOL. And personally, I prefer butter as cream cheese is too rich for a bialy.
Living in exile in Australia, in a city founded by the British and some of their Jewish convicts, in a neighborhood lately made great by post-War Hungarian Jewish immigrants whose grandparents really wanted to be from Vienna, even finding a decent bagel has been a trial. But I still dream of a morning bialy, picked up on my way to the F train on Ocean Parkway. A bialy, smeared not with butter but garlic cream cheese, gave me the strength to stand all the way into the city and do my day’s work.
I wonder, can they be made in a home oven?
What a way to shut up my Hungarian in-laws!
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@Meeka: you can definitely bake your own bialys or for that matter, bagels -- but it is a long process and remember: they are only good for a few hours after baking and by the next day, they are hard as rocks and inedible.
I suppose you could bake a batch, then freeze most of it, and thaw out one when you want it -- but then its not freshly baked and just does not have the crispness, wonderful aroma or fresh texture.
The issue of too much to choose from...
I remember visiting NY (from Toronto) and going to Sherry Lehmann to pick up a couple of very fine wines to bring back home. I left after 30 minutes without a single bottle. Just could not pick out two from the dizzying choices of great wines on offer. This has also happened elsewhere in varying circumstances. I suspect that from an evolutionary perspective, humans are not equipped to deal with many, many choices.
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Need some help here...
My dad used to bring home lox, bagels, smoked white fish, and, yes, bialys. But we called them something else: kochens. My mother explained that they were kochens from Bialystock. Did anyone else call them kochens?
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@John Wellington Wells
I've never heard that term, and my grandfather was from bialystock, but I see that term used in this recipe for bialys . . . So there must be some meaning to it.
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/brooklyn-bialy-recipe-bialystok-kucken-231195
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The terms were interchangeable in my grandparents' house. I believe the full, accurate name is/was "bialystoker Kochen", meaning a roll from Bialystok.
You can get great bagels and bialys at New York Bagel and Bialy in Skokie, Illinois . Just saying.
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Have loved their bagels and bialys for decades!
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@B Magnuson. Yes and on Saturday night we buy them warm from the oven. They are indescribably great
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@B Magnuson thanks for mentioning this great institution.
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When I say the article and picture, I was expecting and hoping for a recipe. So, editors, can you add that to the list? thx.
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I can get bialys everyday at Glick's Kosher Market or The Boys Market in Delray Beach, Fl. I bring them home, cut them and put them in the freezer to enjoy anytime.
@Barbara Rosenblum: while it won't kill you, and it might let some folks have a bialy far from the bakery....in fact, neither bagels nor bialys freeze well. They are a baked good that is very perishable, and only stays crisp and fresh for a few hours. Keep one overnight, and it's like chewing on a hockey puck. Freeze it, and the thawing process will take all the crisp texture away and it will be "bread-y".
Bialys need to be eaten fresh and "in the moment", so to enjoy them....you are dependent on having an expert Jewish-style bakery near home.
In my area, those bakeries used to open informally very early in the am -- like 3AM! -- as the bakers got to work, and if you were a young person headed home after partying -- or a night shift worker -- you could go and buy them right out of the oven -- heaven!
Oh....it's hard to express how happy I would be if I could get a bialy in my far-north-almost-to-Canada neck of the woods! And he's dead right about choices...more choices rarely mean better outcomes...just more anxiety and wasted time.
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@Ann Possis: well, then there are also TOO FEW CHOICES. You wouldn't want to live somewhere that your only choice was Wonderbread, either.
Today we are in some ways drowning in choices -- unicorn lattes? rainbow bagels with funfetti sprinkles? -- but they are often FALSE choices -- not true variety, like the old days with all the different ethnic bakeries -- but the same crap covered in heavy food coloring, frozen and reheated and microwaved.
Like the old Springsteen lyric: "250 channels and nothing on".
When bialys are extremely good yet extremely rare, the neurosis fades.
I drive a good distance to get to the best bagel shop in Georgia, in a tiny converted train car by the side of an entrance ramp to a highway, next to a dog training "academy" and embattled by kudzu. No matter: the bagels as good as any I've had in New York City. Bialys on weekends only. Real black and white cookies. How did it get there? I don't know. I like not knowing. It's an antidote to the Huysmanian exhaustion of foodie culture. It's fun to watch lumberjack-sized men eat bagels with their grits.
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@Tina Trent: oh please post back with a name and directions! in case I'm ever in Georgia again! I'd love to see someone eating bagels with grits. Plus many times the best bakeries are these little "hole in the wall" places that only the local know about!
OMG I love Bialys. I have Mimi Sheraton's book and would urge anyone w/ an interest, no to mention the craving, to find her book/recipe. This is a time consuming activity, but a great way to kill a snowy day. The result is well worth it.
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Oh, the bialy. I have not had anything remotely resembling a bialy since I left NY in 1968. Been all over the country and they just don't exist outside NY.
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@Ron Oh my dear. You clearly haven’t ALL over. Try NY bagel and bialy in Skokie or Lincolnwood Illinois! They make em exactly the same as in NYC. Ny friends we had for brunch were thunderstruck.
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We have them in Skokie IL at New York Bagel and Bialy!!! They are the real deal!
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@Ron Ron there are frozen packaged bialys sold at my Kroger here in Lexington, KY.
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A friend in Palo Alto phoned in an order of bialys for her parents at a local bagel shop. When she arrived to pick them up, she was entranced by the aroma and ordered one more for herself. She was told, “Sorry. We only made the ones you ordered. There are no more.”
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Bialys are a thousand times better than any bagel. Chewy, not sweet, onions and just the right size! Maybe my preference is in my DNA, my father’s family came from Bialystok!
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I just had a Kossar's bialy brought from N.Y. on the day it was baked. It was not the bialy that made Kossar's a N.Y. institution.
If you want authentic Kossar's bialy's get the recipe from "ARTISAN BAKING ACROSS AMERICA" by Maggie Glezer. If you follow her instructions you will make the bialy's that you remember.
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@Jdcolv I'm not (yet!) familiar with the Glezer recipe, but you are absolutely right about Kossar's. They changed hands a few years ago, and to say that they no longer make the bialy that made them a NY institution is the very nicest way you could have put it.
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Choices, choices and more choices, especially irrelevant ones, simply complicate an already complicated life full of somewhat important choices.
Standing on the Fairway sandwich line, overwhelmed by the 50 delicious sounding choices, when it comes my turn to order, I blurt out before I even realize what I’m saying, “Turkey, Swiss, lettuce, tomato with mayo on a roll.” I’m overcome by a feeling of relief and comfort in my choice, knowing exactly what I have reflexively done. Kept it simple.
Oh, and to the server who tells me to “sit anywhere,” please tell me where to sit. Thank you.
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Good points. Especially the presentation of too many choices everywhere. I used to enjoy going into McDonalds and only having to choose between a hamburger, cheeseburger, and fries. Now there has to be sixty eight things on the menu. I look, get confused and walk out. Meanwhile fine restaurants which used to have menus pages long now offer only a choice of 5 or 6 entrees. What has happened to this world?
Have we gone mad!?! The world has turned upside down!
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I'm afraid that Kaiser rolls and onion rolls that were common in my youth are fading away as well.
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What? No mention of The Bialy Eaters-The Story of a Bread and a Lost World By Mimi Sheraton? A good read...
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Here in Oceanside CA, we have I ❤️ Bagels, also known as Alan’s Bagels. He’s an east coast transplant and he boils before baking and he has a great bialy. He stopped selling them for awhile, probably because of low sales, but he brought the,pm back recently and they’re great.
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Jason
I suggest you try a well toasted bialy with melted Swiss cheese. From there you can go with ham and swiss, but the bialy must always be well toasted.
Enjoy.
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@Frank Izzo Ham? Sacrilege!
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@Raye with cheese too!
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A beautiful article. A bialy is one of the culinary gifts to the world. But the author doesn't acknowledge how impossibly difficult it is to find one today. Russ, Zabar's, maybe one or two more places. Unles you live nearby or are prepared to travel an hour, even living in Manhattan, it's nearly impossible to rely on finding one. Bring back the bialy!
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@tamaropler: I live in the Midwest, in an area with a sizable Jewish population and which USED TO HAVE many Jewish bakeries -- now down to 1 or 2 -- and bialys are nearly impossible find. I've only seen them rarely in the last 25 years, usually at a catered brunch where I imagine they were special ordered. You can no longer just walk in, on a Sunday morning, and expect to find bialys. Also, most people no longer know what they ARE, and you have to describe them! such a loss!
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There are two supermarkets that sell frozen bialys in Wilmington. The box reads What’s a Bialy? Imagine explaining to a North Carolinian what it is in order to find it in the store? I enjoyed one with lox and cream cheese while reading this article.
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Best bialy in New York is at Freds at Barneys for Sunday brunch and can also be ordered retail by the dozen.
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Thinking of the old adage about teaching a man to fish ... learn to make your own! Baking breads is a wonderful and mindful way to connect with your food and food memories. I have three different sourdough starters and a big jar of dry yeast in the fridge and for the last several years bake all our own breads, crackers and sweets. Commercial baked goods by comparison taste closer to what I imagine cardboard tastes like. (Our palate has been spoiled.)
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Bialys...sigh. My dad would buy them (along with bagels, of course) a lifetime ago on on Sunday morning on Utica Ave in Crown Heights. They were part of our Sunday breakfast. Everyone would have them with cream cheese and lox but me (I hate lox--hot smoked Pacific salmon is great but I didn't get introduced to it until I moved here decades ago--and I am allergic to milk products); I would eat it with pareve margarine.
I always thought bagels were at best (pumpernickel) OK or at worst (white) bland but bialys--they had flavor, texture, and sometimes the top had crunch.
Sadly, I have not had a decent bialy since moving here. They are close to unknown in the Salish Sea and the ones that occasionally show up are fair to poor...
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@vacciniumovatumI haven't found bialys in Seattle, either, but the Seattle Bagel Bakery bagels are pretty good. If you're downtown, you can get them at Uwajimaya.
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@vacciniumovatum: I'm pretty sure they make vegan cream cheese!
Well considered observations on how we are often paralyzed by too much choice. The bialy is a perfect metaphore for the satisfaction of stepping away from the chaos.
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I can usually find a bag of six bialys at Stop and Shop or Giunta's in Farmingdale in the case with the bagels. The label says they come from a bakery in Brooklyn. I freeze the bag then defrost and toast one at a time. They are better when they are crispy. Once in a while, with cream cheese, lox, tomato, onion, and some capers.
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don't know how you can write an article about Bialys without mentioning Bell's in Canarsie. Here in Denver NY Deli News imports them frozen and Rosenberg 's make an acceptable facsimile altough too expensive.
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The bialys at Stew Leonard’s here in CT are the closest in quality to the ones that I used to get growing up in Canarsie.
Yes, the simplicity of the Bialy. Nothing beats getting hot ones at Kossar's as they come right out of the oven. You know for sure exactly where and when they were baked and yes, exactly what you get each time. Butter it is! I walked into Fairway earlier today and had some of the same thoughts as this author. I was seeking a bag of pretzel nuggets. When I saw the WALL of Pretzels and all manor of chips, pretzels of every size, flavor and description, whole, pieces and just the shells, I kept walking. I was really disgusted too. It was too much for me to make a decision. I was overwhelmed. There were too many choices and so I could not. Simplicity is nice. And, the older I get the more I realize how much time is wasted.
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Easier to find a hen's tooth than a bialy where I live. Plenty of bad bagels too. Oh the horror!
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Altho here in Massachusetts, we have a size-able Jewish population, Jewish bakeries are not as common. Then Polish Jewish bakeries must be a rare occurrence, indeed. Since I’m areligious, if I want a Bialys, I’ll just have to make them myself. Probably a big set up for failure, but science was never really about brains, but about trials and many errors. On to my future errors!
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@Milque Toast I have occasionally found bialys at Stop&Shop. I buy the 6 pack and freeze, because as pointed out, they get stale fast.
I love bialy's more than bagels, but can't find them in Denver.
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Even though bagels. are available nationally, everyone I know always say the NYC bagel is the best. And of course the unavailable bialy. My stock reply that it is the locally bagel , made by preboiling the bagel in NYC water that gives the taste the essence . The delicious bagel does not have the inner consistency of a roll. When you are in the area rush to the bagel bakeries and many of them may also have bialys. But you can search the web and locate them and order them on line. They will retain their integrity even after being frozen. Good eating....
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@Samantha Hall I buy them in a package at my local supermarket. They're made by Bell Bialys: not as good as the fresh-made ones from Kossar's, but if you take them home and freeze them, then use them one at a time, they'll do. And they ship. See:
www.bialy.com
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@Samantha Hall
FYI:
Having moved awayI haven't been there recently, but I have gotten bialys at the Brooklyn Deli, on Main Street in Longmont. He sources everything from the News - York and Jersey.
Excellent pastrami and corned beef sandwiches.
Enjoy!
If you are in the Midwest, you can get a wonderful bialy at Manna in Madison WI. I also order one every time. Those warm carmalized onions are fabulous!
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