Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward. Follow him on Instagram @foodaism and Twitter @foodaism or email eshman@forward.com.
Rob EshmanSenior Columnist
By Rob Eshman
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Food How I solved New York’s cream cheese shortage in 24 hours
I’ll get right to the point: the easiest and most delicious way to overcome the Great Cream Cheese Shortage of 2021 is to make it yourself. As the New York Times reported, a combination of skyrocketing demand, supply chain issues and even the odd cyberattack has led New York delis and supermarkets scrambling for non-existent…
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News Karen Bass on Ilhan Omar, L.A. Jewry, homelessness, and her daughter’s memory
It was just before Thanksgiving when I sat down with Rep. Karen Bass to talk about her campaign for mayor of Los Angeles. The Homegirl Cafe where we met downtown was doing a brisk business in whole pies and turkey-shaped bread. “The holiday times are the worst for me,” she said. “I just wish I…
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News Why Jews, yes, Jews, should join L.A.’s street vendors struggle
I was standing on the sidewalk waiting my turn at Tacos La Guera, a street vending stand that sets up each evening between a Whole Foods parking lot and the four lane cacophony that is Lincoln Boulevard. “How many tacos?” a young man named Rafael asked me, pressing a 12-inch chef’s knife against a massive…
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Food Here’s the cheesy, crispy dish that made me and Alice Waters swoon together
Here’s a name drop I don’t deserve: Many years ago I attended Slow Food’s Terra Madre food conference in Turin, Italy. I happened to be standing in line to get a slice of freshly-made focaccia di Recco, and next to me stood Alice Waters. We watched the bakers stretch impossibly thin sheets of rolled-out dough…
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Food Gorky’s hot Russian borscht will revive your faith…in borscht
I miss Gorky’s. If you hung out in pre-gentrification downtown L.A., circa 1980, you’ll know what I mean. Gorky’s was a warehouse-sized cafe, open 24/7, a glorious Socialist workers commissary crossed with a starving artist cafe. You went there hungover at 11 a.m. for bottomless coffee and a slice of poppy seed cake, or at…
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News I visited a tiny home village for the homeless. Why aren’t there more of them?
There are 115 tiny homes along the Arroyo Grande Freeway between Pasadena and Los Angeles that weren’t there a month ago. Each took 90 minutes to build, and together they will soon offer 230 unhoused people immediate shelter, food, and health and occupational services. Oh, and there’s an off-leash area and free veterinary care for…
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Food When life gives you etrogs, make etrog liqueur
When my wife first came home with an etrog, I was enchanted and aghast. This was before we were married, when we were just beginning to celebrate the cycle of Jewish holidays together. I knew that to observe the holiday of Sukkot, Jews traditionally constructed makeshifts huts, and performed a ritual waving tree fronds while…
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News Recall or not, Gavin Newsom needs to atone—and so do his critics
It’s a coincidence that the election to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom falls one day before the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement. But it may also be fortuitous. After a contest that has been alternately brutal and silly but always expensive, polls show that Newsom is likely to retain his seat. After…
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