“Her reputation as a cook spread without her knowledge- for the soups she brought to the bakery in a lidded tin for her midday meal, for her stews, for the scraps of dough that she turned into what the Russians called pelmeni and the Jews kreplach, dumplings stuffed with chopped meat and onions. She prepared hot borscht with beef in winter, shchi or cold borscht in summer, chicken cooked with prunes or a tsimmes with sweet potatoes, carrots and prunes.” CookingJewish Food Book:Up from Orchard Street Source: Up from Orchard Street
“I loved the counter filled with lox, whitefish, sturgeon. Saperstein looked like a sturgeon, long, white, sharp-toothed. I marveled at the way he wielded his razor-sharp knife. Cutting a bit of translucent smoked sturgeon, you expected it to shred if you breathed on it. Manya achieved status as his sturgeon expert. She had grown up with sturgeon, a staple along the Black Sea, and she pronounced a sample too salty, too mealy from being packed in ice, too strong in flavor, or absolutely perfect. Saperstein, a purist, inevitably felt sad that his customers did not truly appreciate his top-of-the-line products. He communed with Bubby over a slice of sturgeon or belly lox as if having a religious moment. Even when bad weather kept customers away from our restaurant and we were low in cash, Bubby invested in a few slices of smoked sturgeon, not for her customers, but for our family. She could ignore lox, smoked whitefish, pickles or fresh herring, but she couldn't do without a weekly treat of sturgeon. To prove that he was a sporting man who approved of her taste, Saperstein created a cone from white paper and dropped in some caviar, which he kept in a tin secreted in a hole under the counter- God forbid during a robbery, the thieves would never discover his hiding place.” SeafoodFishCaviarJewish Food Book:Up from Orchard Street Source: Up from Orchard Street