By Roz Antoun

Remember how chicken soup was served at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills back in the 60s? A waiter balancing a tray with three or more soup plates on it brought that first course. Each soup plate contained two matzah balls and a metal mug filled with soup that was set down in front of each guest. The waiter picked up the hot soup mug by the handle from the plate and poured the piping hot soup over the matzah balls. A delectable aroma arose that tickled the senses and whet each person’s appetite for the food to come. 
You probably know that smells can trigger powerful and vivid memories. I can attest to that as I had that experience recently when I was walking along 33rd Street off Third Avenue in Manhattan and the smell of hot corned beef filled the air. I said to my friend, “Where is that delicious smell coming from?” My friend pointed to the store we were just passing. I glanced up at the store’s awning and there in what looked like Hebrew letters, but was actually English, were the words “2nd Avenue Kosher Deli.” I had not thought of kosher food like that in eons because Binghamton is devoid of such places. But at that moment, I was transported back to my youth in Queens and salivating for a taste of kosher deli. 
“Oh, wow,” I said to my friend. Here we are scouting out restaurants, looking for good international fare and right here under our noses was this treasure. “Do you want to go in and look at the menu?” We smiled at each other and went right in. 
Forgetting the menus for a moment, we just let our eyes scan the glass cases filled with foods to delight the senses of my Jewish upbringing. Chopped liver, noodle kugel, sliced corn beef, pastrami and turkey to mention just a few delicacies. But wait, how about kasha varnishkes, Nova lox and stuffed derma? And on the back shelf, fresh loaves of rye bread and challah, along with chocolate babka and assorted cookies to raise my blood sugar. 
“Let’s just sit down and look the menus over,” my friend said. Actually, I wasn’t very hungry since I had just eaten a late breakfast, but so what? My mouth was watering and I wanted a half corned beef, half turkey sandwich on rye with Russian dressing and coleslaw, although my stomach was too full from breakfast to eat that. So, I ordered a bowl of mushroom barley soup and my friend ordered a vegetable omelette that turned out to be at least two inches high and falling over the edge of the plate. 
Thinking those choices would not be too heavy and that we would come back later in the day for dinner, we realized when we saw our plates that perhaps we were wrong. In addition, I had forgotten that in a kosher deli, without ordering it separately, the waiter would bring a large dish piled high with coleslaw, dill pickles and half sour pickles, rye bread and challah. No butter, of course, not in a kosher deli, but their in-house mustard did the trick. 
As we ate, a group of seven sat down adjacent to us, with four kids and three adults. They ordered chicken soup and matzah balls and a smorgasbord of sides, that included a ginormous potato pancake, two kinds of knishes, two hot dogs and French fries, a hot brisket sandwich and a roast beef sandwich. When their cole slaw and pickle plate and bread arrived, forks went a-flying. The kids were amazing to watch, wolfing in the specialties put in front of them. I expect that they were experienced kosher food eaters. Their excitement filled the air and added to my own joy of being in that space. 
As I told you earlier, my memory of a waiter bringing the soup at the Concord was enhanced by watching the waiter serve this neighboring table. I’ll call his technique the “two-fisted pour” as he filled two of the bowls simultaneously, letting the hot chicken soup cascade over the tennis ball sized matzah balls. And when the brisket and roast beef sandwiches arrived, I watched the guys engulf them like the great white shark in “Jaws.” I didn’t want to stare, but couldn’t help myself. It was all such fun. 
As we paid the bill at the register, we giggled at our obsession with this food and decided that just in case we got hungry during the day, we purchased a take-out package of a 1/4 lb. of chopped liver, a 1/4 lb. of egg salad and a huge potato knish to tide us over till our evening meal. Turns out, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We did nibble on the things we carried back to our place and then realized we were still filled to the brim at dinner time. So we agreed that we couldn’t eat another thing. Our bellies said, “No way. Not tonight.” In fact, we didn’t even eat dinner that night, but enjoyed just reminiscing about the 2nd Avenue Deli. 
We returned home with the promise to return ASAP. So, as soon as we got home, we booked another Manhattan stay for this summer. When we do go back, we’ll be wiser knowing to go hungry to the 2nd Avenue Deli where that corned beef sandwich is waiting for me.