[ad_1]
(New York Jewish Week) — Close to the northern terminus of the 1 prepare, simply south of Van Cortlandt Park, an unassuming Bronx storefront has been producing hundreds of dense, delectable cheesecakes every day for greater than 60 years.
Adorned with a easy red-and-blue signal and occupying the identical storefront all through its historical past, S&S Cheesecake has grow to be the stuff of legend: Although different spots — say, Junior’s — might have higher title recognition, many in-the-know New Yorkers take into account S&S’s cheesecakes to be the very best within the metropolis. What’s extra, its cheesecake recipe hasn’t modified one bit since Holocaust survivor Fred Schuster, 98, first opened the kosher bakery in 1960.
Although Schuster stays a daily presence on the bakery, as of late S&S Cheesecake is operated by one in every of his daughters, Brenda Ben-Zaken, and her husband Yair. However aside from a couple of nods to modernity — an espresso machine and a small cafe for dine-in enjoyment; upgraded gear to extend output to 2,000 cheesecakes a day — little has modified prior to now six many years.
“The key is to bake with love and serve with satisfaction and fervour,” Yair Ben-Zaken informed the New York Jewish Week of the store’s success. Since its founding, S&S has provided cheesecakes to numerous eating places and retailers, from as distant as Alaska to as shut as the enduring Higher West Facet grocery Zabar’s. Their merchandise can be found for nationwide transport by way of their website online or Goldbelly as nicely.
Ben-Zaken and Schuster spoke to the New York Jewish Week on a sunny, temperate morning just some days forward of Shavuot — a vacation when Jews historically eat cheesecake and different dairy meals. (Shavuot begins this yr on Thursday night.) Ben-Zaken was busy packing up tons of of cheesecakes that he’s transport across the nation, in addition to a number of that S&S donates to the Riverdale Jewish Heart, the Orthodox synagogue the place he and Schuster are members.
“It will get busy with Shavuot, [but] there’s a lot to rejoice with summer season and graduations this time of yr as nicely,” Ben-Zaken mentioned. “We’re feeling [the busy season] now, however it’s not the identical as Christmas and Thanksgiving — these are the true cheesecake holidays for us.”
Earlier than he established his modest cheesecake empire, Fred Schuster was born in Germany in 1925 — solely eight years earlier than Hitler got here to energy. “That was the top of my childhood,” Schuster mentioned.
In an effort to maintain him secure, Schuster’s dad and mom first despatched him to a Jewish boarding faculty close to Frankfurt and, when it was compelled to shut down, he moved in along with his grandparents. In 1938, once they grew to become too previous to maintain him, Schuster mentioned goodbye to his household — with a dedication to see one another once more — and went to dwell in an orphanage in Frankfurt.
Simply earlier than his 14th birthday, Schuster and different kids at his orphanage had been despatched to Switzerland by way of the Kindertransport. On the prepare, he met a woman named Karola (center title Ruth), who went on to grow to be the well-known intercourse therapist and discuss present host Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
“I all the time say, of the group there, Dr. Ruth went into the intercourse enterprise and did very nicely. And I went into the cheesecake enterprise and didn’t do too badly myself,” Schuster joked.
In Switzerland, Schuster “developed a ardour for baking and labored in kitchens and bakeries there,” he mentioned. He arrived in New York in 1941, the place he reunited along with his dad and mom and sister. (His father had arrived in america by way of England round 1939, and his mom and sister by way of France, Spain and Portugal in 1940.)
“Thank God, my dad and mom and everyone made it right here,” he mentioned. “We’re very completely happy right here. The USA was excellent to us.”
Help the New York Jewish Week
Our nonprofit newsroom is determined by readers such as you. Make a donation now to help impartial Jewish journalism in New York.
And but, regardless that lots of his members of the family survived — and Schuster is blessed with 4 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren — Schuster nonetheless thinks about what the Holocaust took from him, particularly his personal grandparents. “I’ll always remember it,” he mentioned. “I’m very pleased with what I’ve constructed despite that.”
Within the Forties and 50s, Schuster lived in Washington Heights — dwelling to a large German Jewish group, together with Dr. Ruth, who continues to be a fixture within the neighborhood at 94 — and labored as a basic baker at numerous eating places, the place he realized to make all sorts of pastries. Nonetheless, “cheesecake was all the time on my thoughts,” he mentioned. “I mentioned to myself, ‘There isn’t a very good cheesecake right here. Let me see what I can do.”
Yair Ben-Zaken joined the group in 1986 and works daily apart from Shabbat. Pictured within the bakery in New York Metropolis, Could 22, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
The recipe he landed on — a mixture of eggs, vanilla, sugar, butter and heavy cream — is one thing Schuster calls “completely good.”
Although cheesecake could also be an historic meals, Jews took to cheesecake the best way a fish would possibly take to water, in accordance with The Nosher. Although its varieties are quite a few — from mild and fluffy to dense and candy — it was Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who got here to america within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who originated the ultra-rich dessert that’s generally known as New York-style (or Jewish-style) cheesecake.
That’s Schuster’s specialty, although when Schuster and his spouse Sidi opened S&S Cheesecake, he baked every kind of pastries and desserts. Shortly, nevertheless, he narrowed down the menu to solely cheesecakes, the bestsellers. As of late, S&S sells a chocolate mousse cheesecake, in addition to strawberry-, pineapple- and cherry-topped variations of the traditional unique, which is flavored with vanilla. The OG — which retails in-store for $40 for an 11-inch cake and $20 for a 7-inch one — is his favourite, Schuster mentioned, including that he all the time retains a cheesecake in his fridge for snacking.
As for Ben-Zaken, after serving within the Israeli Protection Forces as a fight soldier, then working at numerous meals labs in Israel, he started working on the bakery in 1986. Has he dared to alter the recipe? “God forbid,” mentioned Ben-Zaken. “As soon as you already know it’s achieved proper, that’s it.”
Schuster, whose spouse died in 2017, moved into the Ben-Zakens’ Riverdale dwelling round eight years in the past. As of late, the 2 males spend the vast majority of their time collectively, baking and speaking. “We’ve labored collectively for a lot of, a few years shoulder to shoulder,” mentioned Ben- Zaken, who affectionately calls Schuster “Opa,” which is German for grandfather. “However he’s nonetheless in cost, I nonetheless be taught from him.”
Throughout the course of the New York Jewish Week’s go to to the bakery, a handful of shoppers got here in to choose up the cheesecakes for Shavuot. “It’s all the time value a visit,” mentioned a person who declined to offer his title however mentioned he was selecting up half a dozen cheesecakes for his synagogue in Pelham Parkway. “It’d be well worth the journey even when I lived in Atlantic Metropolis.”
For Ben-Zaken, his favourite a part of the job is working alongside Schuster. Operating S&S Cheesecake has been life-changing, he mentioned, significantly following his restoration from post-traumatic stress dysfunction he suffered as an Israeli soldier.
“I believe if there’s anyone that I like greater than something on this planet, it’s this man. I owe him all the pieces,” Ben-Zaken mentioned. “However I don’t simply owe him, I additionally simply get pleasure from being with him on a regular basis. He’s nonetheless younger. In spirit, he’s youthful than all of us.”
[ad_2]
Source link
