Katz's Deli

I've been making a serious effort to do Weight Watchers for the last few weeks.  I have failed at doing Weight Watchers at least once a day.  Which amounts to succeeding maybe 90% of the time.  But I prefer to see myself as a consistent daily failure.  Success breeds contentment.  Contentment breeds laziness.  Laziness breeds boredom.  Boredom freaks me out.

By the way, I am a little plump; most of my clothes are a smidge slimmer than I or a tad blousey.  I think that's the word I'm looking for.  Maybe "tent-like" would be more accurate.  So either I'm hiding in a big bag of clothes or I'm bursting from my clothing like I'm a well-stuffed sausage casing.  I would rather fit in my clothes.  Hence Weight Watchers.

But I really truly love food.  I love to cook.  I love to eat.  I love restaurants.  I love friends and a meal.  I love food blogs and food shows and food books and feeding people and food.  Really I do.  I have very good taste--I can taste things really well--I can tell what I'm tasting with great sophistication.  And I live about ten feet outside of Manhattan.  A few "blocks" to be exact, west of midtown Manhattan.  Across the Hudson.  So one of the great food meccas in the universe is within sight of my home, and my work, and my commute, and it's really hard to resist when I am meeting someone in a particular neighborhood in "The City" not to arrive a little early and meet them for a meal at my favorite place or their favorite place or the place that someone told us was their favorite place of a particular type.  I'm pretty discerning about restaurants in Manhattan.  I have a favorite burger joint, a favorite Chinese place, a favorite Tex-Mex place, a favorite authentic Mexican place, a favorite Ethiopian place, a favorite pub, a favorite Greek place, a favorite Greek pastry place, a favorite little Italian place, a favorite big Italian place, a favorite frozen yogurt place, a favorite Druze place, a favorite Indian vegetarian place, a favorite kosher Chinese place, a favorite ice cream place, a favorite Chinese ice cream place, a favorite chocolate place, a favorite Thai place, a favorite Brazilian rice and beans kind of place, a favorite Brazilian meat kind of place, a favorite coffee place, a favorite diner, a favorite Japanese place when I'm in a hurry, a favorite Japanese place when I have time, a favorite Japanese place when I'm with other foodies, a favorite Japanese place when I'm with tourists, a favorite place to take kids, a favorite place to get a smoothie, a favorite Cuban place, a favorite Spanish place, a favorite French place that isn't there anymore which is okay because I can't afford it anymore, and . . . a favorite Jewish deli.  Katz's.  I know Carnegie, Stage Door, whatever whatever.  I'm a Katz's girl.

So whenever I'm down on the Lower East Side like last night, for a music thing, like last night, or for any reason, I have to eat at Katz's.  I have to have corned beef.  I don't need it to be extra lean because it's already extra lean.  I have to have stuffed derma, or kishka, as some folks call it, with the gravy on the side. And if there are friends to share, I might go with an appetizer portion of chopped liver, always served with a side of divine rye bread.  And sometimes there's a knish.  ROUND.  Those square things are fakes.  There is the perfect half-sour pickle or three to start off (everyone who is my friend is allowed to be my friend because they don't like half-sours, leaving more for me); the pastrami is also divine, as is the salami; the mustard, perfectly flavored and textured, even though I generally don't like mustard all that much on a sandwich but here, at Katz's, we go with the old-school approach.

Here is an occasion when I will trade my beloved nectar of the gods, DDP, for a Dr. Brown's Diet Cream soda.  Or if I'm feeling really frisky, a chocolate egg cream.  Don't let anybody tell you that chocolate soda doesn't go with corned beef.  It's perfect.

So the pound or two up on my WW week was utterly totally one hundred per cent worthwhile.  When I eat at Katz's, I go for it.  I don't go every day or even every month.  But when I go, I go all the way.