When first married, we lived across the street from a supermarket. Sunday mornings, Dan would run across the street and buy a Sunday Boston Globe. We whiled away the day reading it, relaxing before going to dinner at his parents’ home.

We moved and the paper wasn’t as readily available. I always subscribed to Newsweek to get my news quota. As the years passed, we’d pick up the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times in the office. Once I was home with our children, we subscribed to home delivery of the Boston Globe, more than 30 years ago (we change the subscription from time to time, as deals come up that make it more cost-effective). We transfer it to our Vineyard home in the summer. We enjoy reading it daily.

We used to take the Sunday New York Times as well, but it would just stack up, unread, so we canceled that, though we do have a daily online subscription. A year and a half ago, I got a deal for an online subscription to the Washington Post. They update their site throughout the day and I enjoy many of the op-ed writers. I get a mid-day email from them with news highlights, “The Daily 202”.

But the Globe remains our “paper of record”. Dan would go straight for the sports. I read it cover to cover. With COVID, delivery has been erratic. They keep increasing the price. Dan now reads it only on his iPad and just skims it. Since the arrival of the Orange Monster, he can’t stand the news. He is lobbying me to dump the paper subscription and save the money. I am resisting. I dislike reading everything online. The glare off the screen is hard on my eyes. And I don’t like the form factor.

eGlobe on my computer with tabs open for NYT, WaPo and WSJ

A friend who had also been a long-time subscriber missed his delivery for several days. He asked his neighbor what was going on and learned that there was NO MORE home-delivery in his neighborhood, a fact The Globe never mentioned to him. He called, they offered him an e-subscription. In a fit of pique, he cancelled altogether (they also charge in advance). It is infuriating.

We went to London for a month in December. One can only put the paper on vacation hold for three weeks. Longer than that and you have to change the terms of your subscription to online, only at a different price point. So I did that for the time we were away. However, we discovered that it came with only one email log-in (after a frustrating morning, where Dan threatened to cancel our regular subscription and go to all online when we came home, he just logged in as me, as this happened the day before we flew. I had not been informed of this when I switched. Ah, the things they DON’T tell you).

Stacks in the lounge at Heathrow

The paper was supposed to resume the day we came home. It did not. I called in the failure a few days electronically, then finally spoke with a human, who apologized and said he would get on it. The next day, all the missing papers showed up, with a mysterious note about substitute carriers and where do we want the paper put (we live on a corner and I want it at my back door, but since returning from the Vineyard, the carrier hasn’t figured that out, so I have been content, so long as it really is on my doorstep, not on the side walk). It again did not show up on the Sunday after the snow fall – two days after the snow stopped. Sigh. E-reader for me. It may well be on the street, but I’m not going out in my bathrobe and slippers to search.

The Globe has been publishing for 150 years. These days, they seem to buy a lot of their news from the AP or the NYT. They can’t afford to keep as many journalists around the globe as they used to. They seem grateful for their subscribers, but they really need to do a better job of delivery if they want to continue with the print edition.

Letter received from Linda Pizzuti Henry (wife of Globe owner) thanking us for being faithful readers

I prefer reading my paper in paper format, though I know that is dying. Just yesterday, I clipped an article for my files. I like seeing everything laid out for me, not having to click through. But I am a dinosaur.

Pittsburgh Egg Cream

Egg creams are like mother’s milk for us New Yorkers and they’re on the beverage menu in every coffee shop and diner in the five boroughs.   Yet apparently in other parts of the country this ambrosial comfort drink is practically unknown!

After visiting friends in Pittsburgh years ago,   we were waiting for our flight home when we went into an airport coffee shop.   My husband Danny asked for a chocolate egg cream and the guy behind the counter looked puzzled.

“I can make malteds,  ice cream sodas and milkshakes, but I never heard of an egg cream.”   he said,  “What is it?”

“It’s a fountain drink made with three ingredients”,  Danny explained.  “but the key to making a good one is the order you mix them.  If you’ll willing to try I’ll tell you how to do it.”

He was willing,  and following Danny’s  instructions,  he took a tall glass,  poured in about two fingers of chocolate syrup,  mixed in about the same measure of milk,  and then poured in seltzer while stirring briskly,  leaving a few inches at the top to create a foamy head.

“But what about the egg?”   he asked.

And Danny explained,  “The term egg cream is really a misnomer.  It refers to the foam that LOOKS like beaten egg whites, and by the way that foam makes a white mustache on your upper lip when you drink it.”

Then Danny tasted his Pittsburgh egg cream and gave a thumps up.   The counter guy beamed.  “It’s on the house!”,   he said.

But what about the cream you may ask since the recipe calls only for milk.   Well,  not always it seems.   We’ve had the best egg creams at Silver’s in the Hamptons where we’ve spent many beachy summers.   (See The Great Hampton Babysitter Heist and Skinny Dipping)

In fact we once asked the soda jerk what makes Silver’s egg creams so rich and delicious.

“We use cream instead of milk,” he said,  “the heavier the cream,  the better.”

And it makes a better mustache too!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

The Cat and the Forshpeiz

As early as the turn of the 20th century,  East-European Jewish immigrants began traveling north from New York City to vacation and escape the summer heat in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York.

But it was after WWII in the 1940s and 50s that this influx reached its peak when over 500 hotels as well as bungalow colonies,  and less expensive lodgings with small kitchens called kuchalyeyns opened to welcome summer guests.

Among the larger and well-known hotels were the legendary Grossingers,   Browns,  Kutchers and the Neville,   all catering to Jewish clientele – who were not always welcome at resorts elsewhere.   In addition to kosher food,  some of these Catskill hotels held sabbath and holiday services for their guests,  and in their heyday the Catskills were known as the “Borscht Belt” or the “Jewish Alps”.   Many well-known musicians,  singers and comedians of the time got their start performing for the guests at these Catskill resorts.

Lesser known was my grandmother Esther’s small family inn in the town of Liberty,  NY.   But with Esther running the kitchen,  the meals there rivaled those at any of the grander hotels.   My grandmother and her staff turned out the most delicious Jewish comfort foods – stuffed cabbage,  gefilte fish,  brisket,  cholent (a stew that simmers for hours),  chicken fricassee,  kugel (a casserole made with noodles),  kasha varnishkes (another noodle dish,  my favorite),  wonderful soups (including of course cold borscht and chicken soup with matzoh balls),  latkes (potato pancakes),  matzoh brie (a version of French toast made with matzoh),  blintz (Jewish crepes),  fruit compotes,  strudels,  poppy seed cookies,  and other heavenly desserts.   And unforgettable was my grandmother’s chopped liver often served as a forshpeiz (appetizer).

As a child I spent summers at the hotel,  my mother ran the office,  and my father came up from the city on the weekends.   (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel,  My Game Mother,  The Troubadour and Playing with Fire)

We would bring our cat Smokey with us and  every summer she’d enjoy the fresh mountain air,  catch many unlucky country mice,  and once even delivered a litter of kittens in one rather irate hotel guest’s closet!  (See Hotel Kittens)

And actually Smokey was also once responsible for a near catastrophe in the dining room.

Food at the hotel was served family style,  and one evening the tables were each set with a platter of chopped liver in the middle.   Before every meal my grandmother would survey the dining room to see that the waiters had set up properly,  and then she would go out on the porch and ring a big brass bell to call the guests in to eat.

But that evening as she looked around the room she spotted Smokey jumping from table to table sampling the forshpeiz.   Always unflappable,  she shooed the cat away and walked around the dining room patting down the mound of chopped liver on every table.

Then my grandmother went out on the porch and rang the dinner bell.

– Dana Susan Lehrman