The Deli Roll Duel

Illustrations by Lea Kron

Both my father and I love playing around in the kitchen, and we also both have a competitive streak. My mother has neither a fondness for us males playing in her kitchen nor a competitive personality. But what she does have is a dedication to her job, so when Family Table asked me to partake in this competition, she wouldn’t say no.

Deli roll sounded like a fun challenge, but living out of town, we don’t have the selection you get in the big kosher supermarkets, especially when it comes to meat. The good news was that we were going to New York for my cousin’s bar mitzvah (Mazel tov, Eli!), so we scheduled a stop at a supermarket to explore our options within the expansive deli section.

Honestly, standing in front of an entire wall of delis was a bit confusing because I wasn’t even sure what the difference was between many of them, but it was definitely fun to have the selection.

On the way to New York, we had each come up with a game plan. The whole family got in on the action, and some of my siblings decided to have a competition as well. In case I wasn’t clear enough earlier, my mother really doesn’t like when we mess around in her clean kitchen, but she agreed to let them compete on lemonade to go with the deli roll.