Tag Archives: Saul’s Delicatessen
Klezmer and latkes and Christmas
One of the more joyous street gatherings on Christmas Day happens in front of Saul’s, the Jewish deli on Shattuck Avenue near Vine.
For the last three years, Klezmer musicians have gathered to play outside the deli, their lively, upbeat music serenading the long line of people waiting to go inside the restaurant or those just wanting to hear a tune.
People wait to buy latkes on Christmas Day. Photo: Emanuah Hauser
This year, the annual Christmas Day concert coincided with Hanukkah, and Saul’s owners’, Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman, sold their famous latkes from a food truck for the first time. Inside, dozens of people gathered around large tables to eat communally.
Mike Perlmutter, a biologist, and Emunah Hauser, a food publicist and host at Saul’s, came up with the idea of the Christmas Day music jam while talking outside the restaurant a few years ago, said Hauser. Since then, Perlmutter, who books klezmer and Jewish folk acts at the Subterranean Arthouse on Bancroft Way, has organized the musicians. (He plays the sax and clarinet.)
“Saul’s is slammed on Dec 25 with a captive audience enjoying the ubiquitous day off together, and it is always fun as a musician to give people the unexpected,” said Hauser. “The beauty of street performance is exposing people to an experience they didn’t plan on, who didn’t buy a ticket to the show – who don’t know they are going to get this raucous treat as they walked the desolate streets towards Saul’s, but are grateful and happy it is there. This is especially true of heritage and traditional music, I think – we forget to listen and recollect in our busy modern lives these shared histories.”
Ira Serkes made the video.
Musicians outside Saul's Deli. Photo: Emunah Hauser
Berkeley poet draws on life and locale for inspiration
For a period of about three years, Lindy Hough spent an inordinate amount of time at Saul’s Restaurant on Shattuck Avenue.
On many Thursdays, she arrived around 5 pm, shortly after her duties as the co-publisher of North Atlantic Books ended for the day. She sat at a table, eating and observing, until 7:30 pm, when Play Café, a group of professional playwrights, got together.
But the time Hough spent at the deli was not idle. It was a chance for her to examine those around her and wonder about their lives. The musings ended up as “Thursday Night at Saul’s,” one of the new poems in Wild Horses, Wild Dreams, which was released this spring as part of North Atlantic Books’ Io Poetry series.
Wild Horses, Wild Dreams is a retrospective of Hough’s 40 years as a poet and draws on works from her previous four poetry books as well as introducing 28 new poems. The book showcases Hough’s evolution from a young mother in her early 20s to an accomplished figure in the publishing industry, one who has contemplated rural life, the dynamics of a college town, dreams, dance, and religion in its many forms, including Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism.
“I view the collection as very memoir-like, moving from place to place, from Vermont to California, coming of age as a writer and a thinker,” Hough said recently from her summer home on a small island in Maine. “That’s what this book is about.” … Continue reading »
Saul’s to cook street food at Berkeley’s Off The Grid
Saul Deli‘s Executive Chef Peter Levitt will be rustling up some street eats at Berkeley’s second Off The Grid street food event in the Gourmet Ghetto.
Levitt will be using Off The Grid’s own truck which was created expressly to allow chefs and members of the general public to test out the experience of operating a food truck.
Saul’s street-food menu sticks to its Jewish, sustainable roots and will consist of Raspberry Lemonade; Saul’s Pickle Plate; Chicken Matzo Ball Soup; Fired Corn on the Cob with Spiced Gribenes; Potato Latke, Apricot Sauce, Crème Fraiche; Savory Potato Kugel with Crème Fraiche; Corned Beef On Challah Roll, Mustard; Sweet Peach and Brandied Prune Kugel with Whipped cream; and a Choco Halvatashen Cookie. Prices range from $2.00 to $4.00.
Off The Grid, which operates several regular street-food events in San Francisco and is planning further expansion, held a soft launch in Berkeley last Wednesday. Such was its popularity, with estimates of up to 2,000 people turning up, that several of the food trucks ran dry. … Continue reading »
Where can you follow the peloton?
Berkeleysider Jeff writes in to wonder where he can watch “everyone’s favorite sport: cycling”. He seems a bit miffed that plenty of places in Berkeley have been showing the World Cup, but there’s no noise about the Tour de France, which started on Sunday.
I thought I could point Jeff to a place for Le Tour, but it turns out the Meridian International Sports Cafe is closed for renovations until September. So let’s get the … Continue reading »
Kicking and screaming in Berkeley: World Cup fever
For most of the world, the 2010 World Cup which opens in Johannesburg’s Soccer City at 7 a.m. this morning Berkeley time is the biggest sporting event imaginable. It has caught on in the U.S. to the extent that ESPN and sister network ABC will broadcast all 62 games live. But the passion and intensity with which El Mundial is followed elsewhere is largely absent here.
There may well be pockets of Berkeley, however, where you’ll find something different. Continue reading »
Debating Saul’s pickle
Last night a capacity crowd gathered at the Jewish Community Center on Walnut Street to ruminate on a deli with a dilemma.
As reported here previously, Saul’s Deli is going through something of an identity crisis and its owners, Karen Edelman and Peter Levitt, decided to shine a spotlight on the issues they are tackling by holding a “referendum on the deli”.
Led by Los Angeles chef and radio host Evan Kleiman, a panel comprising Michael Pollan, … Continue reading »
Pastrami flap: Saul’s Deli is in a pickle
Walk in to Saul’s Delicatessen on Shattuck on any given lunchtime and it’s likely to be packed. You’ll probably see Michael Pollan at one table, tucking in to some Middle Eastern delicacies and, if he’s in town, Dave Winer enjoying a bowl of their superb borscht at another.
But there’s some kvetching going on. Owners Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman reckon about a fifth of their customers don’t approve of their sustainable menu which is … Continue reading »
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