Aside from the Tavern Restaurant (let us
not forget their amazing victory cake...and cabinet pudding) and
the Weequahic Diner...(chicken in a pot, anyone?) accolades must
be paid to other establishments and so I tip my hat with hatpin
and silk roses to.....
The Dairy Queen on Chancellor Ave. for their frozen custard...
Dr. Israel Bernstein would take a group of us schoolgirls in his
shiny Jaguar on early summer nights..
He was a fine doctor at Beth Israel Hospital...
The Dairy Queen was right near the YMHA...
...and then, further up on chancellor avenue, was Dairyland!
...you could go in the little, tiny store and get chocolate marshmallow
ice cream beyond compare, on those hot august nights....
and eat it on the stoop, watching the fireflies come out...
and Dave Geller..washing his licorice-shiny Buick...
and talk to Betty Rubin next door)
(my mother had a white Bel-Air with red upholstery!)
........for special occasions, there was the Newarker Restaurant
at the airport...
with coconut snowballs for dessert, with sparklers...
the best prime rib end cuts....
and imagine this...broiled grapefruit with honey and avocado!!
pretty exotic for a goyl from Bergen street!!!!!!!!
Jo Rae's Pizza...when pizza was still exotic and called "pizza
pies"!!
and then...Sunday dinner with Aunt Bea and Uncle Max at Zigs in
Irvington...
Aunt Bea always had the lamb with mint jelly!!
I used to love to see the big soda bottle around there from the
Hoffman soda factory....
there was Townley's in Elizabeth for roast beef...
and my goodness...Tabatchnicks for taking home incredible, creamy
scallion cheese and the most golden whitefish staring back atcha!!
I still can smell those pickle barrels...
and see rosy-faced, wavy haired Jack Tabatchnicks....
in his grey sweater and white apron directing the show!!
that was the place to be on a Saturday night, with an early new
York times under your arm...
there was Ming's for Chinese food on Sunday night on Clinton Place...
and on Bergen Street was Sid Miller's butcher shop with funny slogans
all over the walls...
and another kosher butcher shop with sawdust on the floor and a
cold room....
and Keller's butcher shop...(my cousin)...downtown....
and the wonderful Good Humor truck on summer nights with white coconut
bars...
as we lit punks on the fourth of July...
on Sunday nights, my beautiful mom would make My T Fine chocolate
pudding with coconut sprinkled on the top...
and of course, a roasted chicken on Friday nights with cucumber
and onion salad...
and sometimes...
a chicken fricassee with meatballs and rice..
or wonderful pot roast with onions...
and for thanksgiving...
always a coconut cream pie and a victory cake from the tavern...
but how I long for the good old sloppy joes from Kartzmans...
no contenders here in California...
Russian dressing and meats on rye...high to the sky...
and hanging salamis on silver hooks....
and of course...
when going to see the autumn leaves and beautiful houses in the
suboybs...
we would go to Grunings...
but it was another world...
far away from my beloved shtetl, Newark.
I loved to look in the windows of those forties grills that were
on Broad and Market Street...
with the steamy windows and of course, red Jell-O at the Automat
Cafeteria...
with the little tiny glass jugs of cream with the paper tops and
orange strips....
and the milkman...
was it Sheffield or Alderney...
the memory falls into the well of time....
and there was a great soda fountain shop on Clinton Avenue with
amazing pistachio ice cream..
and great big, magnificent turkey legs from Eppes Essen....
and now I have emptied my bag of goodies on your table....
come have a fried potato pancake...
my grandmother is frying them in the kitchen...
on Clinton Place...I can see her now...
by our Westinghouse refrigerator...
sit and join us in the dining room for a feast of memories....
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