Zabar's

A Family Story, with Recipes

By: Lori Zabar, Julia Moskin - introduction

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

The fascinating, mouthwatering story (with recipes!) of the immigrant familythat created a New York gastronomic legend: “The most rambunctious andchaotic of all delicatessens, with one foot in the Old World and the other inthe vanguard of every fast-breaking food move in the city.” —Nora Ephron

When Louis and Lilly Zabar rented a counter in a dairy store on 80th Street and Broadway in 1934 to sell smoked fish, they could not have imagined that their store would eventually occupy half a city block and become a beloved mecca for quality food of all kinds. A passion for perfection, a keen business sense, cutthroat competitive instincts, and devotion to their customers led four generations of Zabars to create the Upper West Side shrine to the cheese,fish, meat, produce, baked goods, and prepared products that heralded the twentieth-century revolution in food production and consumption.

Lori Zabar—Louis’s granddaughter—begins with her grandfather’s escape from Ukraine in 1921, following a pogrom in which several family members were killed. She describes Zabar’s gradual expansion, Louis’s untimely death in 1950, and the passing of the torch to Saul, Stanley, and partner Murray Klein, who raised competitive pricing to an art form and added top-tier houseware and appliances. She paints a delectable portrait of Zabar’s as it is today—the intoxicating aromas, the crowds, the devoted staff—and shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes of the long-time employees, family members, eccentric customers, and celebrity fans who have created a uniquely American institution that honors its immigrant roots, revels in its New York history, and is relentless in its devotion to the art and science of selling gourmet food.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of recipes from the book

OMG

The story is lovely and worth sharing, but you need a narrator who knows Jewish words and names. The mispronunciations were stunningly distracting!!! How this ever passed the editors hands is beyond me….

Great Book

My grandma and mom grew up on the upper west side. I grew up going to Zabars. This book gave me a better understanding of my roots and the neighborhood

Amazing story: Awful narrator

While the story is excellent and well written, it is an absolute crime to have a narrator who clearly does not know how to pronounce Jewish and Hebrew/ Yiddish words and also incorrectly pronounces food terms, And generally is just the wrong person to narrate this story. How can this be? This is a book about food! This MUST be re-recorded with a Jewish/upper west side of Manhattan narrator so that it rings true and makes sense. Not sure how this happened. Must be fixed.

AWFUL Yiddish/Hebrew pronunciation!!

Great story. The mispronunciation of Yiddish and Hebrew words made a delightful story and history of Zabar’s extremely painful to listen to. Very sad performance of great material.