I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and infant son in 1993. We were glad to escape the winters in New York, and had many friends in the area. But leaving home can be hard in other ways.
Growing up in the Bronx and, later, lower Westchester, we were accustomed to delicacies unknown in other parts of the country. Knishes, street vendors roasting chestnuts in steel drums on the winter sidewalks. Bialys slathered with cream cheese and salty nova. Loaves of fresh-baked corn rye, barrels of pickels so sour that Lew, the pickleman, would dare you to eat one and not pucker up.
But the one thing we had, that we absolutely relied on, that formed the backbone of millions of meals throughout the City every day, was the bagel. I knew other places had bagels, but they didn’t have bagels. The real deal, the boiled-then-baked wonders of Jerome Avenue.
So it was with mixed feelings that we emigrated to this new, sunnier world. And although I haven’t had a decent bialy in years, I was wrong about the bagels, because here in the Bay Area we have Noah’s Bagels. As good a bagel as you can get many places in New York, right here in California, and all thanks to Noah Alper, the founder of the eponymous Noah’s.
Noah Goes From Bagels to a Book
Now Noah has written a book that’s part memoir, part business advice. It’s called Business Mensch, (Wolfeboro Press) and it just launched. I was lucky enough to be involved with the project, designing the interior and the typography for the cover. It’s a charming book that tells a real American story.
And bucking the conventional wisdom, he’s gotten good reviews from both Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal. So even though the odds may seem long, keep your hopes up and make sure your review packages, ARCs, and your timing are all lined up. Maybe you’ll get a pre-pub review too!
