Delicatessens

Friday

Josie Cox

My New York City survival guide

From our US edition

It’s September in New York City. Mercifully, the sweltering heat is abating. The putrid smell of trash is lifting ever so slightly and the kids are back at school after what feels like 100 years of overpriced summer camps with mortgage-worthy price tags. For me, it also means swapping my usual attire – best described as “I’m a freelance writer and can therefore wear whatever the hell I want” for the more publicly appropriate slacks and a nice shirt as I head back to the classroom to teach graduate students about the art and absurdities of communication. I’ve been co-teaching two of these classes every fall for the past five years and enjoy the structure they bring to my otherwise higgledy-piggledy week.

Thursday

James Panero

Zabar’s is still thriving

From our US edition

You might expect Zabar’s, the world-famous “appetizing” store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, to have become a shadow of its former self. This seems to be the case for most of New York’s other independent specialty shops. Fairway, Balducci’s, H&H Bagels, Dean & Deluca: the food purveyors of my youth have gone kaput. They were bought, leveraged, expanded, overextended and oversold. They expired past their sell-by dates. But somehow Zabar’s survived. For the Upper West Sider, Zabar’s is our Yale College and our Harvard. Like many I make my way down to 80th Street and Broadway most weekends for continuing education. I head to the appetizing counter and take a number.

zabar's