Hanukkah Cholent Day 2: Misses

How it's going, how it went.

Here’s a little tribute to some places and ideas that never took off. Next time an exciting new restaurant comes around, please remind me not to get excited. (Gold Schnitzel, where you at?)

In first place:

I cringe at most of my writing, because I am a writer and writers are in a permanent state of self-cringe, I think. Alas, we carry on in spite of ourselves. This one is especially cringey because it shows our/my vulnerability to ideas that are too good to be true.

I’m talking about bagels, of couse.

Less than a year later:

I remember writing this story from this exact position last year: on vacation in front of a cozy fire, listening to my interview subjects rage on about how badly the enterprise had gone. It hurt worse than the common restaurant closure, because Seattle’s rate of kosher businesss closures is nearly 100%. Every time one turns off the lights, the shards skitter further out across the metaphysical universe, leaving us ever so distant from the presence of the Shechina and the completion of tikkun olam.

How hard can it be to get some freaking kosher bagels around here? If only the myths about Jews controlling the world were true. The first thing I’d ask for is a toasted sesame with a thick layer of plain cream cheese.

For a perusal of the wider bagel scene, do subscribe to It’s a Shanda.

Segue to another bummer…

You’d think a vegan deli on Capitol Hill would bear the mark of survival, but the cost of running a business here proved too much. The future of Jewish deli might be plant-based (though, despite everyone’s crowing about climate change and environmental destruction, few people seem inclined to give up the hard stuff). It just won’t be in Seattle, only in Portland and San Diego. Goodbye, Ben, goodbye, Esther. We hardly knew you.

Moving over to politics…

Of course when I wrote this headline I knew the answer. Democrats could torch an effigy of Golda Meir at the White House Hanukkah party and Jews would still vote them, because who else will safeguard reproductive freedom? (I’m kidding! Don’t unsubscribe!)

Still, I had the honor of meeting Nikki Haley on a short visit to Bellevue, and I was rooting for her to stay in the race even though she could never gather the momentum to topple the Trump machine. I am sure Haley will remain in politics for years to come, so maybe we’ll see her here again.

Hope you’re having a joyous Hanukkah. Shabbat shalom.

Cover photo: Tim Mossholder/Unsplash