The Maplewoods Mirror, A Newsletter

Issue #14 (The Pastrami Issue)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD’S BEST PASTRAMI

 

I’ve always hated pastrami much in the same way that my stepdaughter, Ellen, age eight, now hates many foods including eggs, peas, and my favorite, artichokes with hollandaise.  When my wife, Ann, came home with sausages stuffed with mango, Ellen’s response: “No way.”

 

Thus when I was driving around Los Angeles recently and I saw yet another sign promising world famous pastrami, I had to ask myself why did I hate pastrami?

 

To me, pastrami has always been just cheap fatty meat injected with so much pepper and spices that its natural color has been leached to look like pink Play-Doh.  When I’ve eaten pastrami in the past, I’ve felt jittery from all the additives the way I do in eating cut-rate hot dogs or driving through the City of Industry on a smoggy day.  In fact, pastrami seems to me like vivisected slices of unexercised cow run through dry cleaning fluid—but that’s just me.  Clearly there are people who love pastrami.  Otherwise, why are there so many places promising the best?  Hey, it’s world famous.

 

So, with echoes of my telling Ellen, “Eat just two bites—you might like it,” I decided to find the best world’s-best pastrami in this city.  I’d try to keep an open mind.  On the Internet, I found much discussion of where the best pastrami here is, including a thread on www.chowhound.com.  With hundreds of opinions, three names kept popping up often enough: The Hat in Pasadena (and other locations), Johnnie’s Pastrami in Culver City, and Langer’s at Seventh and Alvarado downtown.  I decided one of them had to hold the Holy Grail of Pastrami.  Maybe I could come to like the best.

 

Before going, I needed to know exactly what pastrami was.  I’m a good researcher and learned pastrami was invented before refrigeration existed, when people had to cure meats.  The Mediterranean area during the Middle Ages became a region known for its cured meats and sausage making.  Muslim countries knew of salted meat and sausages, too, made of lamb or beef such as the dried beef of Turkey, pastirme—which is the root of our word pastrami. 

 

A Jewish butcher named Reb Sussman, working from a Romanian recipe, began selling “pastrami” in New York in 1887.  It’s likely the spelling was to sound similar to Italian salami.  Pastrami can be corned beef that is smoked and steamed, or it can be another cut of beef that is salted, herbed, smoked and, optionally, steamed. 

 

According to the Food Network, Los Angeles became part of pastrami history in the 1940s where, in an attempt to keep pastrami from drying out, people began to put the pastrami into a French roll and dip it in gravy. They called it a "Pastrami Dip."

 

The first stop for me was The Hat.  The first time I ate there was an afternoon after I hadn’t eaten for a day because I’d fasted for a blood test at Kaiser, kitty corner to The Hat.  With the blood test over, I saw the sign: World Famous Pastrami.  I was so hungry, I’d eat World Famous Fish Left Out in an Alley For a Day.  With several choices on the menu at The Hat, however, I’d opted for the steak sandwich, not pastrami, and it was truly the world’s greatest steak sandwich.  I went back a month later with my family, and the steak sandwich was just average, a little on the tough side.  Eating while famished changes the scale.  For this article, I’d try the pastrami not after fasting.  If there were choices to be made, I’d ask for the favorite.

 

The Hat's Pastrami Dip Sandwich 

 

For $6.49, The Hat’s pastrami comes as a pastrami dip on a French roll with mustard and slices of pickle inside.  Rye, wheat, or sourdough bread are optional.  I bought it and bit into the hugely generous mound of meat in a very soft roll, and, hey, it wasn’t as spicy as I remembered.  Still, part of me was saying, “Ugh.  Pastrami.”  After three bites, it wasn’t bad.  (Note to myself to Ellen: “Eat just three bites—you might like it.”)

 

Pepper was the most noticeable flavor.  It wasn’t greasy but had a buttery voice, and the pickle and mustard complemented the meat the way mayo can sing in a good turkey sandwich. I’d rather be eating my favorite sandwich, the BLT—a heavenly mixture of tastes—but this version of pastrami gave me a hint of what people liked about it.  I only dipped it once into the cup of “au jus” because it made the already-too-soft bun far too soggy, and I felt I was sucking on salt.

 

 

The next day for lunch, I drove twenty-one miles to Johnnie’s Pastrami in Culver City on Sepulveda, not far from Sony Studios.  The place shares a parking lot with Tito’s Tacos, one of the more famous places in Los Angeles for tacos, subject for another article.  For $9.75, I received Johnnie’s Famous Hot Pastrami on a French roll with mustard.  Rye is an option.  The sandwich, too, came with chunks of pickle in a chrome slaw bowl. 

 

The first thing I noticed about my sandwich was it was steaming, and I asked the waitress, “Is the meat boiled or steamed?”  She pondered a moment and said, “It’s cured.”  That made the man next to me laugh.  I saw him halfway through a pastrami sandwich on the optional rye bread, so I asked him if he’d been there before.

 

“No,” he said, “but I was driving by, saw the sign, and I was curious.”  He said he’d once had a Jewish girlfriend and came to like pastrami. 

 

A chef at Johnnie's prepares a pastrami sandwich from the steamer 

 

I bit into my sandwich and found it incredibly moist and tender.  The Hat’s was tender but slightly more oily and slightly more peppery.  This had a shade of difference.  I preferred the meat and the French roll here by a slight margin. 

 

One perhaps shouldn’t inspect pastrami like a surgeon as I was doing after several bites.  Like The Hat’s pastrami, I saw plenty of white areas—fat—and little white lines that stuck out that, when pulled, were elastic like bungee cords.  This was the part of pastrami perhaps one had to accept.  You’re not eating a New York strip.

 

When I noticed my neighbor on the stool next to mine was done, I asked him was it the best he ever had?

 

“No, but it’s good.  The best I ever had was at Carnegie’s Deli in New York.” 

 

In my research, I’d found that New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton in 1979 had gone out of her way to try hundreds of delis in Manhattan, looking for the best pastrami.  She selected the Carnegie Deli as having the best in midtown.  That review put Carnegie Deli on the map, creating lines to get in.  According to writer Nora Ephron, however, as I found in New York magazine, the best pastrami sandwich isn’t in New York, but at Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles, next to MacArthur Park.  That was my third stop.

 

Two days later, I parked on the street at 8^th near Alvarado.  Langer’s is on the corner of 7^th and Alvarado.  In my one block walk, I had to ask myself was this really the right address?  I passed a carniceria, the Clinica Medica Santa Maria, the Ebenezer Liberia Cristiana, and a number of little shops blaring Spanish music and specializing in such things as Huggies, hats, and shoes.  When Langer’s opened in 1947, it was a Jewish area and now it’s not.  Even so, as I discovered, Langer’s draws many lawyers and business people, mostly from downtown, for breakfast and lunch.  It closes at 4 p.m. each day and is not open Sundays—hence my delay by a day.

 

At $12.25, Langer’s most popular sandwich is pastrami on rye with cole slaw, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing.  When it arrived, I could see one big difference instantly.  The meat looked like rare slices of London broil, blackened on the edges.  The first bite took me to a new world.  This was tender, mild, moist, and perfect with the hard-crusted rye bread—no mamby pamby white roll here.  It was not peppery, salty, or, like the pastrami I tried in my youth, hot-dog tasting.  This was good beef, not what I’d call cured.  I can’t imagine it lasting unrefrigerated.

 

Langer's pastrami sandwich 

 

The cole slaw and dressing did not overwhelm the meat but added a swizzle of zing.  Imagine the difference between the prime rib you get at Lawry’s and the roast beef you get at Arby’s.  They’re both moist and come from the meat family, but they’re two different things.  The same is true between Langer’s pastrami and its other two competitors’.  If you want price, go to The Hat.  If you want a cute ambiance—the outdoor patios are great—go to Johnnie’s (which is also open to 2:30 a.m. every day). If you want quality, you have to go downtown.  The pastrami may be good enough to draw people from Temecula if not Tierra del Fuego.  And someday Ellen might like it.

 

 Al Langer, 94, left, owner of Langer's Deli, which celebrates 60 years this week

The Hat

Price: $ 6.49

Portion: Generous

Taste: Peppery and buttery

Hours:10 a.m to 10 p.m. daily

Established: 1951

Address: 491 N. Lake Avenue, just north of the 210 on Lake at Villa.

 

Johnnie’s Pastrami

Price: $9.75

Portion: Generous

Taste: Mild, light pepper

Hours: 10 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays)

Established: 1952

Adsress: 4017 S. Sepulveda, between Washington Place and Washington Blvd.

 

Langer’s

Price: $12.25

Portion: Generous

Taste: Steak-like

Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday – Saturday (closed Sundays)

Established: 1947

Address: 704 S. Alvarado St. by MacArthur Park

 

 

SHORT FICTION:  “NIGHT SCHOOL”

 

I happen to be putting the final touches on a new novel, presently titled, Falling Down Mt. Washington, about a young man, a graduate student in theatre, who is taken hostage from a Starbucks that is in the lobby of bank.  He’s witnessed a bank robbery gone awry.  It’s a mystery with humor and, I hope, Chandleresque observations..

 

I’m also putting together a new collection of short fiction, as yet untitled, which may premiere next year at the Beverly Hills Library in a special presentation with actors.  With the latter in mind, I’ve written a few new short stories.  The following is my newest and shortest short story.  Does it leave you as satisfied/unsatisfied as the ending to series The Sopranos?  I’m open to feedback.  See what you think.

 

 

Pierce listened patiently to the instructor in his new night class at the local college.  “Similes and metaphors are the hemoglobin in the blood of your writing,” said the instructor, a mustached man in black hit-man clothes.  “After our break, we’ll do an exercise where you’ll write three similes and three metaphors.  It’s all a matter of seeing—much like in a life drawing class where you have to look beyond the skin and nakedness to the bones, the muscles, the sinew.” 

Pierce groaned to himself.  The muse wasn’t with him that night.  It wasn’t with him any night—or any day.  That’s why he was there.  The catalog had said every person had at least one story locked inside, and the class would release it, he thought, like asparagus spiking through the soil.  If only he could “see.”  His wife of two decades left him for unknown reasons, as did of one decade his cat.

“You now have twenty minutes for coffee,” said the instructor.  “The campus coffee shop is just outside the front door to the west.  Look west.” 

Pierce worried about creating similes and metaphors.  What were they exactly?  Could he come up with either?  He went outside and strode west. 

He considered escaping to his car, avoiding forevermore his eleven classmates that included a dermatologist, five stay-at-home moms, and a dental hygienist. They looked too happy as if the class were about growing better bonsai, nothing too disturbing.  Pierce felt he might explode in their presence. 

The campus coffeehouse, the Java Nook, was swathed in light, a neon sign to his needs.  He entered, and the college students in the lobby seemed so young, reminding him of a show he saw as a kid where monkeys played people.  On the wall by the door was a large poster of breasts, two alabaster scoops in a lacy black bra. 

He moved closer.  Where the two breasts met like the Pacific Ocean greeting the Atlantic, small red letters read, come to spring break in hawaii—SpringBreakInHawaii.com.  He shook his head, feeling as if he’d been born at the wrong time.  Then it dawned on him: he might not have sex ever again.  Death was his next stop.

He stepped to the coffee bar.  “I’ll have a latte,” he told the young woman in the pumpkin t-shirt behind the counter.  She smiled at him with deference, the way kids had been doing for a few years now when they saw his gray hair and glasses.  He wanted to tell her he’d once sung in a garage band when he wore long hair and used words like, “Fuckin’ A.”  Now he seemed to be Marcus Welby, M.D.

     “You want a double or a single?” asked the woman.

     “A double please,” he said.  “I’m in the creative writing class.  I’m supposed to be creative.”

      “You look familiar,” she said flirtatiously.

     “I’m a mapmaker,” he said.  “I get people from Point A to B.”

     She nodded as if that made complete sense, turning her attention to the espresso machine.  Steam shot out too quickly into her creamer, and white liquid spattered out and landed on her t-shirt like dandelion fluff from a bloom.

“Great!” she muttered, and she dabbed at spots on her shirt, her nipples rising like Venus in the winter sky.  He felt bad for noticing and turned, thinking how he’d observed things about his wife, too.  Perhaps he should have said something about her drinking and her sleeping until noon.  He wished he had done something other than watch.  His last act with her was standing behind a curtain peering through the window as she left him, entering the taxi like a lotto ticket snatched by the wind.

“Your coffee,” said the girl.

He took it, and it tasted like burnt wicks.

 

 

Occidental College, where the above story was inspired

 

LIBRARY CHECK

 

Here’s a great link if you like to get your books from libraries: http://worldcat.org/.  You can type in an author’s name, a book title, or subject, and in micromoments, you get a list of libraries listed that carry the book in order of distance from your zip code. 

 

Also, if you’re an author, you can find out which libraries have your book.  Thus, I found that my now-obscure biography on Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I wrote on commission for a children’s book publisher in the early nineties, is still in 115 libraries in the world, the farthest, at 5500 miles, being Germany’s national library.

 

I also learned my collection of short fiction, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, is not only at CalArts, where I happily teach, but at fourteen other libraries where I do not teach, including the Pasadena and South Pasadena Public Libraries, the Pasadena City College Library, the Vancouver Public Library (thank you Gordon Roback for asking for it there), and Harvard’s library.  Hurray for Harvard.

 

Authors: do not eschew libraries.  They are places the public can get to know you.  In fact, if you haven’t read my books but want to, go to a library.  Better yet, please ask your local library to acquire one or more of my books.  Libraries are a market for sales.  Below is an article by Carolyn Howard-Johnson on marketing to libraries.

 

ABOUT THOSE LIBRARIES! A Gentle Rant About Passing Around the Falsehood that Libraries Work Against Writers – by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

Some authors have the misguided idea that when people take a book out of the library rather than buying one, that deprives an author of his or her royalty.  Some also think that libraries that ask for donations from their local authors are the big ogres of the publishing industry.  Don't you believe it.

In general this reasoning doesn't hold water.  Here is the truth:

·        People who borrow from libraries often can't afford (or don't think they can) to buy books and wouldn't buy a specific book in a bookstore in any case. They'd borrow, choose something else to read, or buy something for a dime at a garage sale.

 

·        The 10-15% royalty an author fears "losing" on any single borrowed book is more than made up for with opportunities offered authors by most libraries.

 

·        People who borrow from libraries may be the ones who talk the most to other readers. They do hang out at libraries with other readers, after all.

 

·        Many libraries are on stricter budgets than ever before. They're not just taking advantage of authors.

 

·        Because of changes in the publishing industry, some communities have more writers than they can keep up with in terms of acquisitions. Also, how many of those writers will support the library's efforts if they do buy copies? Many authors will do nothing to let their readers know copies are available at libraries because so many of us have the attitude that a single sale is better than a single person reading a book.

I guess I don't have much patience with authors who would prefer to get their 15% royalty (not huge, mind you! Often less than a dollar) rather than gain a new reader.  A new reader who likes your book might tell another reader and he or she still another.  Some will buy. Some will borrow.  Either way, it's exposure for your book.  So when a library asks for a donated copy, for heaven's sake, give them one.  Give them TWO. And a poster! And ask them to put one of them on display with that poster for a little while. Everyone wins including the borrowers.

I'm going to be tough here. This whole library attitude among authors is not only lousy reasoning, it's a great big whine. Did you ever notice that hardly anyone ever mentions that when this happens, it also denies publishers of their profit? That libraries have budget woes of their own? That sometimes an author's biggest fan may not be the one who buys books but one who borrows from a library because they just read so darn many books?

Here's the thing. Let's not pass around the bad news about libraries (nobody's perfect!). Let's, instead, partner with them. To paraphrase a president, ask not what your library can do for you, ask what you can do for your library. That is a partnership that will take you a long way. CHJ

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a poet (Tracings), novelist (This Is the Place), and author of the popular The Frugal Book Promoter.  Her new book, The Frugal Book Editor, arrives in October.

 

 

FICTION WRITING WITH RIGOR

 

My next class for UCLA Extension, “Fiction Writing With Rigor,” which I teach on the Occidental College campus in Eagle Rock, is filling up, but there are still spaces left if you’ve been considering an intermediate writing class to take.  It’s a six-week course, a continuation of my introductory, “Writer’s Workout” class, and it starts July 3.  For more information, go to www.uclaextension.edu/writers or call 310-206-1542.

 

Here is how the course is described in the catalog: “What do you need to become a writer? As Natalie Goldberg says about cracking open the writer's craft, ‘Read, especially in your genre, listen deeply, and write.’ This course does all three, and in the process, reinforces your habit of writing and your abilities to critique. We explore a series of highly regarded stories, study what a few masters say about the craft, and engage in exercises and assignments that lead you straight into writing stories, all with special attention given to the power of plot, how to add desire to character, and how to connect through metaphor. While the course focuses primarily on short fiction, its techniques work well for novelists and writers of narrative nonfiction.”