From Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives to the recently renovated Eldridge Street Synagogue, there's plenty of documentation of Jewish life in the tenements of the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century. Thomas Holton, however, captures the tenements' present-day occupants in the series "The Lams of Ludlow Street" currently up at the Sasha Wolf Gallery. The photographs chronicle the lives of a Chinese couple who share a two room apartment with their three children, offering an intimate glimpse into the famous neighborhood's most recent history.

Last week: Chassidic Fashion Designer Levi Okunov

Related: At Least Two Old-School Jews Still Left on Lower East Side

Just like your best friend in junior high school who returned from summer vacation with boobs and a haircut, two New York Jewish landmarks are getting some extra attention due to recent makeovers. The Eldridge Street Synagogue, once home to pigeons and decay, has been refurbished to its 1907 glory, while the Kaufman Center has a new airy redesign thanks to Robert A.M. Stern. For more, check out this article in New York Magazine, or better yet, go catch a glimpse of these historic places in person.

The Lower East Side has gotten steadily more obnoxious since, oh, Rent debuted, but it’s managed to retain some vestiges of its old Jewish past, even if the old chevra kadisha (that’s morgue to you) is now a pizza place called Chickie Pigs. The new NYC Real Estate video blog Into the Box talks to Sammy Gluck, an Orthodox Jew who runs a menwear store in the neighborhood.
 

Don't be afraid to try a nouveau alternative: Duck Consomme with Matzah Balls

Yield: 8–10 Servings

Ingredients:
¾ pound chicken parts (backs, wings, and necks)
¾ pound beef marrow bones
2 ribs celery, including leafy tops, cut into 3-inch pieces
1 large onion, unpeeled
1 leek, cut lengthwise and cleaned well
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 medium parsnip, peeled
1 whole clove
1 bay leaf
1 whole 4–5 lb. chicken
2¼ teaspoons salt, plus 1 Tablespoon, plus additional to taste
½ pound flanken
2 large carrots, peeled
4 large eggs
1/3 cup schmaltz (chicken fat)
¼ teaspoon pepper, plus additional to taste
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/3 cups matzah meal
1 bunch dill, cleaned and tied with a string

Method:
Pour 12 cups of water into a large stockpot. Place the chicken parts, marrow bones, celery, onion, leek, garlic, parsnip, clove, and bay leaf into the pot and bring to a boil. While the water is heating, rub the inside of the chicken with 2 teaspoons of salt. Once the water reaches a roiling boil, add the chicken, flanken, and 1 carrot to the pot. Reduce the heat and simmer for approximately 1 hour, making sure the soup does not boil. Test the chicken with a fork to see if it is tender and fully cooked. Remove the chicken and the carrot from the pot and set aside to cool.

Continue to simmer the soup for an additional 1–1¼ hours. Remove the scum that forms at the surface.

When the chicken cools remove the skin and bones and cut the flesh into bite-sized pieces. (You can add it to the soup just before serving, or use it to make chicken salad.)

Remove the soup from heat; strain through a colander or sieve; and discard all the solids. Keep the soup hot, but not boiling, while you prepare the matzah balls.

To make the matzah balls, fill a large wide stockpot 3/4-full with water and 1 Tablespoon of salt. Bring to a rapid boil.

In a large bowl, crack the eggs and beat thoroughly. Then beat in the chicken schmaltz, ¼ teaspoon salt, pepper, and baking powder. Slowly fold in the matzah meal, mixing vigorously until completely incorporated.

With wet hands, fold the matzah mixture in your palms to shape perfect balls about 1¼ inches in diameter. (They will double in size when cooked.) Gently place the matzah balls in the boiling water, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for approximately 25 minutes. Carefully remove the matzah balls from the water with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate.

Drop the dill into the soup for 1–2 minutes before serving; remove and discard. Season the soup with additional salt and pepper, to taste. Slice the remaining carrot very thinly on a diagonal and drop it into the soup. Place matzah balls, and optional chicken pieces, into the soup upon reheating.

To serve, place 1 or 2 matzah balls in each serving bowl. Place several carrot slices and pieces of chicken in each bowl. Serve immediately.

Winner: The traditional Jewish method (chicken!) beats the fancy French one (duck!).

Although Chef Orfaly’s duck consommé was a mouth-watering display of culinary deftness, its preparation necessitated far too many hands for a home kitchen, especially with an amateur chef. If I lived in Boston, I would go to Pigalle or Marco and order it from the chef himself.

In fifty years, if rent inflation should force Mr. Orfaly out of his eateries (as it did Ms. Lebewohl), perhaps his will be the matzah ball–studded duck consommé Bostonians mourn. But unless mourners are trained chefs with two free days to spend making four bowls of soup, they won’t have the comfort of knowing that they can make it at home. Almost anyone can throw the Lebewohl ingredients in a pot and simmer. It won’t be exactly the same as the Second Avenue Deli’s, but most households will come pretty damn close.

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Chef Orfaly: Drummer, chef, football watcher.Old-fashioned in its own right, Chef Marc Orfaly’s duck consommé with matzah balls employs classical French preparation methods. Born into an Armenian-Syrian family, Chef Orfaly is no stranger to the inner workings of food-obsessed home cooks. Named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in 2004, and just nominated the third year in a row for a James Beard Best Chef: Northeast award, the Boston-based chef started cooking in high school to pay for drum sets. Mr. Orfaly is still a drummer, and his restaurants reflect that deceptive boyishness. The ideal companion to beer and Monday football, Marco and Pigalle are unpretentious at the outset, revealing their sophistication only upon closer inspection.

Mr. Orfaly’s contemporary matzah ball soup recipe necessitates two full days of cooking. Though the multiphase process allows for a fair amount of downtime between stages, I was never far enough away from my next charge to allow for a reasonable afternoon nap. And after all that, the recipe produces just four portions—less than half Ms. Lebewohl’s.

This recipe is not for an inexperienced home cook. The first few instructions include de-boning and butchering a whole duck. The consommé itself requires a trained eye for upwards of four hours simmering time, not to mention its unusual and messy flavorings, like chicken breast minced by a food processor. After seemingly endless stages—from roasting the bones to clarifying the liquid with an egg white–based raft, to finally straining it by the ladleful—you should have a clear, richly flavored broth.

But the most time-consuming element was the duck meat garnish. After legs and breasts marinate overnight, the legs roast for twelve hours, and the breasts pan-sear to crispy skinned delectability just before serving.

Duck is much fattier than chicken, and the brew accentuates the difference: The resulting cuisine is at once savory and sweet. The deep red-gold soup suggests—and delivers—rich, layered flavors, with accents of thyme. The thinly sliced breast and delicate leg meat, both showcasing well-crisped skin, boost the fatty richness even more.

Like Ms. Lebewohl’s traditional chicken soup, the matzah ball holds the power to make or break. Here, it breaks, resembling a dumpling more than a matzah ball, and noticeably lacking the Lebewohl levity. Its grainy texture recalls a chewy semolina or polenta, and after two days of hot stove labor, I’m left feeling dispirited.

Recipe: Duck Consomme with Matzah Balls

My bowl of duck and matzah balls: Two non-stop days yielded four of these.

Page 1, 2, 3, 4 > Next: The Chicken or the Duck? >

Late and Great: The famous New York deli after rent hikes forced its closure.Abe Lebewohl, Sharon’s father, opened the Second Avenue Deli in 1954 on the Lower East Side as a ten-seat establishment. It quickly became a New York institution and remained so until its untimely closing New Year’s Day of 2006, when its rent surpassed affordable. New Yorkers mourned many a comfort food lost, including this chicken soup with matzah balls.

The Lebewohl recipe was honed to perfection as it passed down through the generations. “Born with a soupspoon in her mouth,” Ms. Lebewohl says the secret to the legendary potage is in her bones. Literally. In addition to a whole chicken, including parts like the neck, Ms. Lebewohl uses highly gelatinous beef marrowbones and flanken, a cut from the short ribs of beef, to boost flavor and body.

The Lebewohl recipe doesn’t require any other intimidating ingredients and is fairly straightforward. Less than three hours after I started cooking, a delectable aroma filled my kitchen. Marveling at my own self-control, I managed to delay the taste test since, Sharon insists, the flavor improves the next day.

Simple comfort: My recreation of the Second Avenue Deli favorite.After the brew cools in the fridge overnight, you must skim and discard the fat that rises and congeals at the top (holiday food does not equal diet food). Pale yellow in color, the broth is rich and flavorful, and the last-minute addition of dill leaves an herby afternote. Bits of chicken are juicy and tender, but the true star in this nostalgic Jewish fare is the matzah ball. The traditional way to prepare matzah balls is with chicken fat, a.k.a. schmaltz. Though recipes found on boxed matzah balls often call for oil, Ms. Lebewohl’s proves there is no substitute for chicken fat, as scary and caloric as it may be. Yet, thanks to a touch of baking powder, the balls remain light and buoyant with a smooth texture and perfectly seasoned, pepper-accented flavor.

Ms. Lebewohl’s final product justifies its longevity.

Recipe: Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls

Page 1, 2, 3, 4 > Next: The Reinvention: Duck Consommé with Matzah Balls >

Those who have butchered a whole bird, razoring it into chunks of flesh, fat, bone, skin, and cartilage, know it is no pleasant task (especially without a sharp knife). But not long ago, I butchered both a chicken and a duck over the course of two days. With Passover looming, I was testing matzah ball soup recipes: first, an old-fashioned chicken version, and then its nouveau French counterpart, a duck consommé.

On holidays, a little extra effort on the culinary front comes standard, but we don’t usually exert it reinventing traditional dinnertime favorites, especially in Jewish kitchens. Jewish holidays aren’t like Thanksgiving, when it seems every other American beelines to the hardware store for a ten-gallon fryer to give this year’s turkey a deep-fat bath. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s snubbed these faddy Thanksgiving Fryer types, but what if their final product is more delicious than the traditional roasted fare?

With that thought in mind, I abandoned traditionalist skepticism to attempt Jewcy’s first Nosh Off. It’s like Jewcy’s version of Iron Chef, except the contest is between two recipes—one a traditional preparation and Fresh-faced: Before I demolished these ingredients with two days of non-stop cookingthe other a reinvented nouveau version of the same dish—prepared, taste-tested, and judged by us. After two days of de-boning, slow-roasting, fast-roasting, rendering, mixing, pan-searing, knife-wielding, and simmering—lots of simmering—in my mom’s kosher kitchen, I had two very different poultry-infused bowls: Chef Sharon Lebewohl’s chicken soup with matzah balls from New York’s famed, late Second Avenue Deli, and Boston Chef Marc Orfaly’s matzah balls in duck consommé.

Producing a truly tasty homemade stock or broth is no small feat. Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain smugly admitted in his behind-the-restaurant-scenes Kitchen Confidential that, while studying at the Culinary Institute of America, he’d cheated in stock-making by adding tasty soup-packet powder. His peers were bewildered at the flavor he extracted from mere bones and vegetables. Bouillon cubes offer a similar shortcut, but the real stuff requires the whole bird. Working with any whole animal in the kitchen, from fish to bird, may daunt the neophyte home cook, but the results are well worth it.

Page 1, 2, 3, 4 > Next: Old-School Comfort: Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls >

Smut aside, the American Apparel ads are so much more alluring and of higher quality than the clothes they sell. Having said that, I'm not sure this billboard ad (on the corner of Allen & Houston) isn't towing the fine line or propriety just a bit too closely, even for the Lower East Side, that is. There are Orthodox Jews still left there right?

Gothamist had a valid point though: "Must be hard for the people across the street to stare at a 40 ft beaver shot day in and day out." I might add that the dudes loitering on the corner at all hours (and in the above pic) won't be put out too much either.