Breaking: NY Knish Factory Fire Leads to Nationwide Shortage

[Renew Deal]

A fire at a factory billed as the world's biggest maker of knishes has created nationwide shock and oy for those who can't seem to find the Jewish treats anywhere.

Kvetching has been going on at delis, diners, food carts and groceries since the six-week-long shortage began, but lovers of the square fried doughy pillows of pureed potatoes may not have to go without much longer. The factory promises an end to the knish crunch by Thanksgiving, which coincides with the start of Hanukkah.

"Our customers ... are calling us saying they are literally searching supermarkets and stores and they're all asking when we'll be back," Stacey Ziskin Gabay, one of the owners of the 92-year-old Gabila's Knishes, which sells about 15 million knishes a year.

A fire Sept. 24 at the Gabila's plant in Copiague, Long Island, damaged the machinery that makes the company's biggest seller — "The Original Coney Island Square Knish," which also come filled with kasha or spinach.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ny-knish-factory-fire-leads-nationwide-shortage-20847619

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. I can live through a knisk shortage, but

what I would really miss if in short supply is kishke.

[MuseRider]

2. Shock and Oy?

Too funny.

[meow2u3]

8. More like schlock and oy!

[frazzled]

3. Knish recipe

Not that I'm planning to make any--I haven't had a knish in maybe 30 years. But if someone ASKED me to make these, I'd try. They're round. Is that anathema?*

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/03/potato-knish-two-ways/

*The smitten kitchen lady says Yonah Schimmel told the New York Times on the 100th anniversary of their knish shop: “I don’t mean to insult anyone else, but a knish is round, baked and made of potato or mixed with potato. It’s not square. It’s not fried.”

[2naSalit]

5. That's an awesome web site!

Thanks for offering it!

[leftynyc]

13. Yonah Schimmel

makes the best knishes PERIOD. She's right - they shouldn't be fried and don't have to be filled with potato (I prefer kasha). I haven't had homemade knishes since my uncle's mother died (that's a decade at least).

[2naSalit]

4. Oy!

God forbid there should be a shortage of knishes!

And thanks for the recipe, Jewish cuisine is not something easily found in the Rocky Mountains! I'm not Jewish but I like some of the food! (Had Jewish relatives and was quite familiar with some of the foods when I lived in the NE.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Have some tea with that kvetching

[tina tron]

7. Onion?

[Raine1967]

9. Any self respecting Knish has onion, so yes.

[MuseRider]

10. My husband is Jewish

and I still remember fondly all the Mothers and Aunts cooking these amazing meals with things I had never heard of. YIKES, the smell of rendering chicken fat in the kitchen is something I hope to never encounter again but the taste of that food, mmmmmmm. None of the daughters took up that cooking and of course, none of the men in that family would have ever considered even learning how to fill a glass with water so it is gone now and I miss it.

[KamaAina]

11. The name of that rendered chicken fat is

schmaltz. Now you know.

[MuseRider]

12. Oh God that is right!

How could I forget that? All the time when I was majoring in music performance/ education my teacher would tell me to play with more schmaltz. I NEVER put that together until now. Thank you. I learned a bit of Yiddish listening but not nearly enough. I love it. The words are so perfect. My all time favorite has to be shlep and maybe shtunk (a family joke) but there are many. I wish I had paid more attention but this well brought up Presbyterian young woman who felt so different just kept her mouth shut when in the presence of the family. Nobody would have ever heard me anyway so I just soaked as much as I could in.

Thanks (your name makes me want to say Mahalo) KamaAina!

[rdking647]

14. i have a jar of schmaltz in my fridger right now :)