Bill de Blasio’s answer to Jeb Bush

February 20, 2016 • 11:30 am

Remember this tw**t from Jeb Bush?

Well, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio fought back after having a luscious pastrami sandwich at the city’s Carnegie Deli, a mecca for deliphiles everywhere:

The New York Times reports, and I see that the Food Police get in a few licks at the end (why on earth did the Times get a comment from a health department spokesman?):

. . . after polishing off his gut-busting meal at Carnegie Deli, during an event celebrating the restaurant’s reopening after it was caught siphoning gas and shut down last spring, Mr. de Blasio and his staff bandied about ways to respond to Mr. Bush’s version of the country.

The mayor’s press team decided that the only way to engage with a message they found ridiculous was by way of ridicule.

“The mayor and I talked, and agreed that America could use more pastrami sandwiches and less firearms,” said Peter Kadushin, a spokesman for the mayor who came up with the idea for the tweet.

Mr. de Blasio’s effort at poking fun became the object of a little poking back. Should a mayor, who ran on battling income inequality, be endorsing a $20 sandwich? Was the mayor hinting at America’s struggles with obesity with a sandwich large enough for two European tourists?

A spokesman for the city health department offered some advice for anyone considering making the sandwich a breakfast staple.

“Pastrami is a proud New York City tradition, but it has excess sodium,” the spokesman, Christopher R. Miller, said. “As everything in life, it should be eaten in moderation.”

Oh, for crying out loud—NOBODY eats a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich every day! And on those rare occasions when I’m near Central Park and make my way, via the laws of physics, to the Carnegie Deli (try the half-sour pickles!), I get that sandwich and always save half for later. Yes, it’s $20, but it’s a rare treat and, with unlimited pickles and a can of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray tonic, it’s a very rare treat.

22 thoughts on “Bill de Blasio’s answer to Jeb Bush”

  3. I’ve eaten at Carnegie Deli several times, back when I went to APS meetings although I prefer corned beef. There used to be another deli, The Stage, which was on the same street a block or two away which has now closed, according to Google. Just to show the inflation over the last 40 years, that $20 sandwich was, I recall, $6 back then.

    1. $20 looks relatively like a pretty good deal.

      The first wiki historical inflation page puts the 40-year, 1976 to present, at 4.16. So that $6 would work out to almost exactly $25 right now.

  5. You sure that’s pastrami? Looks like corned beef to me. I remember fondly many mouth-watering corned-beef sandwiches at the Carnegie when I lived in the area of NYC or visited there. THAT is what I miss about the USA.

    1. To be honest, when I first saw the picture, what passed through my mind was “It’s a pile of baloney.”
      which reminds me to check out the local Polish shop and see if they have brawn available. I believe it’s known as “headcheese” in the US.

      1. Oh, I haven’t had brawn for years … decades even. I remember having it for Saturday tea (often while watching _Doctor Who_), at least into my teens. Also savoury ducks (aka faggots) and haslet.I remember them being offally good.

        /@

        1. Mmmmm, haslet. Still available, but rare.
          Faggots? I ate a pack of Brains just a handful of hours ago. But I’ve still never watched a zombie movie (unless you count the NZ zombie-sheep movie).

  6. I would eat the sandwich anytime and skip on a taste of the gun. Jeb just shows what kind of idiot he is considering a gun as American. How about a baseball game or apple pie…dah jeb.

    1. I would eat the sandwich anytime and skip on a taste of the gun.

      The Jam did a song about that.

  8. My mother, when she was alive, used to love Celray Soda. I haven’t thought about it in many many years.

    1. Possibly, but you’ll find a wider selection of assorted sausage-variants behind the counter of the Polish Shop. It being a fairly safe bet that there’s a Polish Shop somewhere in your town, and quite likely more of them than there are Sainsbury stores.

      1. There are at least two I can think of, and one which is generally eastern European (which does fabulous salamis and the like). But Sainsbury’s is half the distance. (It does have a Polish aisle … well part of an aisle.)

        Sainsbury’s online has their own brand as well as “Gilbert’s Wafer thin Pastrami”, so those should be available “in store”.

        /@

  11. Excuse me, how do you get to the Carnegie Deli? Practice eating, practice eating, practice eating … ?

    One look at that succulent pastrami sandwich and you know the rightwing will never be able to get on de Blasio about dietary measures the way it rode Bloomberg over banning the Big Gulp.

  12. “Oh, for crying out loud—NOBODY eats a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich every day!”
    Maybe a few people do, but that’s their choice. Have we really become a society that thinks it needs to point out the obvious on health at every opportunity? You’d think at this stage, the people who are doing so are living their life on their own terms.

    1. “Have we really become a society that thinks it needs to point out the obvious on health at every opportunity?”

      Sadly, yes! Even here!

  13. I liked the New York Daily News‘ response: Reproducing Bush’s tweeted picture of his semiautomatic pistol, with the headline “DOLT .45“. The Daily News may, like many newspapers, be dying, but they’re enjoying a renaissance in the art of headline writing, and seem determined to go down in top form.

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