Getting bagels

I basically grew up at the Deli Den in Hollywood, Florida. I don't think a weekend went by without breakfast at Deli Den, more often than not the Deluxe Extra Thick Challah French Toast. We'd complain - "Not Deli Den again!" And then, when we were old enough to ride our bikes ourselves, where did we go? Yeah, that's right.

Then there was dinner at Deli Den, too. A basket of rolls, metal containers of pickles and creamy cole slaw. Chicken in a pot (yes, another covered metal container), which was half soup, half chicken dinner, or the tenderloin steak, or southern fried chicken (Jewish-deli style). And potato pancakes. All on tan-colored melamine resin plates, with drinks in brown plastic glasses.

Of course, we couldn't leave without take-out from the bakery and deli counters. A dozen bagels (the favorites were the egg bagels and the real pumpernickel, not the fake rye so-called pumpernickel that the new places try to pass-off on you), along with the obligatory lox, carp (no head, please!), and some sliced deli meats for dad, wrapped in the white butcher paper pulled off the giant paper roll. Checking out up front, talking to Carmine at the register.

Deli Den has a new owner, I hear, and the location moved to Stirling Road on the other side of Emerald Hills, the neighborhood where I grew up, after a fire burned the original location on Sheridan Street. You no longer get a bucket of pickles and cole slaw at your table - the health code makes them serve it in single servings these days. And the new location lacks the grimy, cramped, comfortable charm of the original. Moreover, when I was last there a few years back, the French toast was squared off. But still, it's the Deli Den, and sadly among the last of a dying breed (with the losses of Wolfies, Pumpernicks and the Rascal House).

And the point of all of all of this, other than making me hungry despite the fact that I would no longer eat most of those things (since they are not terribly vegetarian), is that earlier today, Barack Obama stopped in at the Deli Den for lunch.

According to reports, Senator Obama had a bagel with cream cheese and lox, whitefish salad, and potato pancakes. Apparently, nobody told him about the chocolate log cake, which is, when served cold, the greatest desert in the universe. Really.

Just saying.

Here's some lousy helicopter video shot through the trees.

We're headed down to South Florida on Thursday to see Bruce perform at the University of Miami. I think we may need to make time to stop by the Deli Den.