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November 09, 2010
Seltzer Poem in the New York Times
In this week's Metropolitan Diary in the New York Times, an Ilene Bauer published the following poem:
SELTZER BOTTLES
I often pass a window
Near the street where I reside,
And glancing at it, visions of my past
It does provide.
For it contains two seltzer bottles,
Spritzers facing in.
I wonder if my childhood home
Is one place they have been.
For growing up in Brooklyn,
Seltzer bottles we would get,
Delivered in a wooden box,
Along with one U-Bet.
To make a perfect egg cream,
You put U-Bet in a glass.
Your mom said, “Just a little!”
An amount you would surpass.
On top of all that syrup,
You’d add milk, but just a splash.
Then you’d squirt the seltzer in
And mix it in a flash.
Voilà! The bubbles burbled as
From bottom up they rose;
And as you sipped, you always got
A tickle on your nose.
The seltzer in the stores now
Doesn’t have that wicked squirt.
If you could taste the difference,
Why, I’m sure you would convert.
So when I see those bottles,
I begin to reminisce;
And seltzer joins the list of things
From childhood that I miss.
Posted by bjoseph at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2010
Bring Back the Egg Cream
Seth Front, the creator of the Jewish Zodiac, recently penned this so-called Egg Cream Manifesto. It's worth checking out.
Posted by bjoseph at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)
November 03, 2010
Do It Yourself Seltzer Drinks
Liz Alpern in the Forward's new food blog, The Jew and the Carrot, wrote a fun piece full of seltzer recipes: Candied Ginger Fizz, Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream Float, and, of course, Chocolate Egg Creams.
Check it out here.
She also gives me a lovely, if not ungrammatical, shout-out:
The recent buzz (or should I say fizz?) about seltzer comes as Barry Joseph’s much anticipated book on the history of seltzer “Give Me Seltzer— a Crisp, Refreshing History,” and places like the Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain are offering a taste of the classic lunch counter in a most contemporary and locally grown way.
Posted by bjoseph at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2010
What do Jedis and seltzer delivery men have in common?
What do Jedis and seltzer delivery men have in common? Find out in my latest piece, and VIDEO, for the Forward:
Seltzer delivery is a dying art. Once, hundreds of “seltzer men,” as they liked to be called, drove the city and walked the streets of New York, carting cases of pressured siphons through rain and snow. Now, less than a dozen remain and, like Jedis with their arcane knowledge and mystical allusions to better days since passed, they move amongst us, largely invisible to the untrained eye.Eli Miller is 78 years old, easily the oldest of the remaining seltzer men. In research for my upcoming book on seltzer, “Give Me Seltzer”, I contacted Eli for an interview. To my delight, he invited me to follow him along his route, if I could keep up. What follows is a brief collection of images and sounds from that day.
Posted by bjoseph at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
