Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Listen, do you have more zucchini from the garden that you know what to do with? Do you have tomatoes coming out of your ears? New York Times food reporter and recipe columnist Melissa Clark joins us tomorrow with tips on what to make with your abundant produce. We want you to call in and share your ideas and questions. That's in the future, but now let's get this hour started.

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Alison Stewart: Over a thousand of you have signed up for our summer reading challenge where we challenge you to read five books from five categories. One of those categories is to read a book about or set in New York. Author Mark Kurlansky's latest novel would make a fine choice because it is about as New York as it gets. It involves cheesecake, a Greek diner, and Upper West Side real estate. Kurlansky writes about one Greek family's immigrating to New York in the 1970s. They settle in Queens but decide to open a diner on the Upper West Side because they hear it's a neighborhood that's in transition.

We also get a history lesson about one particular cheesecake, one of the oldest recorded recipes written by Cato, a Roman senator. The novel is called Cheesecake, and it is out today. James Beard Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky is my guest now. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mark Kurlansky: Oh, thank you.

Alison Stewart: We are so excited to have you here, but I want to get into this cheesecake recipe from Cato. Please remind us who Cato is, and how did you find out about the cheesecake?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, Cato was a right-wing Roman politician, a senator. He wrote this recipe about 160 BC, making it the earliest published recipe that we know of. I always thought it was very odd that the first recipe would be for cheesecake,-

[laughter]

Mark Kurlansky: - but it gets odder when you try to read the recipe. I mean, it's really incomprehensible, and if you try to strictly follow the recipe as written, you will get something that's completely inedible. I always thought, wouldn't it be fun to have a fiction piece where a lot of people were trying to do this recipe and everybody did it completely differently? The whole truth about recipes is that recipes are not what make the dish. What makes the dish is the cook who's trying to follow the recipe.

Then, this idea somehow meshed with another old idea I'd had. I live in the Upper West Side, and I wanted to write a novel about the changes in the community and really kind of the destruction of the neighborhood culture. I wrote a novel about West 86th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam. [laughs] The entire book is on that block. A Greek diner wants to go upscale, and they decide to introduce this Cato recipe. The New York Times says it's great, and then everybody else wants to do the recipe, but they're all doing it differently.

There's this idea that the modernist writers had like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, that the best way to really understand a community was to show a party. In this book, there are a number of parties, four parties, in which the main feature is Cato's cheesecake. Completely different. A completely different dish in each party. The book is really about the conflicts of trying to survive in the neighborhood.

Alison Stewart: This family, they want to come to New York City. A Greek family. What draws them to the city?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, they come from the Cyclades, and they've known other people who came and all said they did quite well and told them that the way you do well is you get a Greek diner. That's how you do it.

[laughter]

Mark Kurlansky: I mean, that was their plan, and they quickly saw, or one of them, who's very entrepreneurish, the other two weren't, really, saw that real estate was where it was at, and buying real estate. The interesting thing about talking about cheesecake in this neighborhood is this is a neighborhood that was famous for cheesecake, famous for bakeries. They all went out of business because of high rent, which most of the neighbors saw as a tragedy. This Greek guy saw it as the way things should go. They can't pay enough rent, get rid of them, get somebody else. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: They decide to call themselves The Katz Brothers. That's not their name.

Mark Kurlansky: No, their name is Katsikas. They were told that there were Jews in the neighborhood, and Jews are very good business, so they called themselves Katz.

Alison Stewart: How would you describe the diner that they made?

Mark Kurlansky: The original diner or what it became?

Alison Stewart: The original.

Mark Kurlansky: The original diner was-- it had a linoleum floor and Formica counters and chrome lining and chairs upholstered with plastic. They served cheeseburgers and fries. A lot of their things were very good, though, their cheeseburgers and anything with cheese, because they actually made their own goat cheese.

Alison Stewart: They had a goat.

Mark Kurlansky: They had a goat in Queens. They lived in Queens, and they had a goat, which is completely illegal. They supplied the restaurant with their own goat cheese. The island they came from in Greece was a goat-cheese-producing island.

Alison Stewart: The two people in the book, the two brothers in this book, Art and Nikki, and you write that they're opposites. How so?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, Nikki is one of those occasional Greeks who looks like out of mythology, just incredibly beautiful and not a lot of drive, not a great intellect, but charms everybody, and he's just wonderful to talk to. Every restaurant should have one of these guys. [chuckles] Art, on the other hand, who's balding and doesn't have Nikki's looks at all or his charm, but has a lot of business smarts and is very ambitious.

Alison Stewart: Why can something like cheesecake be used as a good literary inspiration for the story that you want to tell about the Upper West Side?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, to begin with, it's my whole feeling about food. I think food tells you a lot about people and a society and you can learn everything. I'm frustrated often that writers, even the great writers, don't tell us enough about what people are eating. Tolstoy was very good about that. I mean, Anna Karenina, you know exactly what they're eating, and it tells you a lot. If you don't know what people are eating, you got to take a much longer route to them. Food really tells us a lot.

Alison Stewart: We are talking to Mark Kurlansky. His new novel is Cheesecake. It is out today. We're going to ask listeners to call in. We want your input. What's the best cheesecake you've ever had in New York City? Where do you go? Give us a call or text us, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Maybe it's cheesecake from the Upper West Side or maybe someplace that you just think deserves recognition. Our number, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. While our listeners are calling in, I'm going to ask you to read a section from your book for us. Please set it up and tell us what we're going to hear.

Mark Kurlansky: Well, this is about Art and Nikki. Art could change tactics as easily as he could change nationalities. As gently as he could, he pointed out to Adara and Nikki that if the restaurant was going to profit from the transition, they had to learn to modernize. He declared that the diner was now to be called Mykonos. Their new restaurant was to offer what Art called a modern international cuisine. Art hired a new chef, Mario di Capri, no more from Capri than the Milanos were from Milan, who was said to be a three-star Italian chef, though they did not know who had given him those three stars.

Adara would still supply the goat cheese. Nikki would still be the greeter, only now he would be called the maitre D. Before even opening, the label modern international cuisine had been scrapped. Art was now calling it modern classical cuisine. To sell food, he reasoned a new label had to be invented for it. A new century was coming and a new 86th Street. Grossinger's landlord quadrupled their rent and the bakery was no more. Most everyone thought this was a sad moment, but Art thought the closing showed him that he had been right in not getting involved with the bakery.

He was impressed with the landlord. If a man owned a property and rented it with short-term leases, he had the right to quadruple the rent. If the original tenant left, he could find someone else. If he could find someone to pay the higher rent, he had the right to raise it.

Alison Stewart: That was Mark Kurlansky reading from his book Cheesecake. You mentioned 86th, the street that you spend so much time on. What did the specific block of this neighborhood mean to you, and why does it make sense for the story?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, I mean, to begin with, I've lived there 28 years, something like that. Raised my daughter there. It's a block, it's a neighborhood. I walk down the street and I've got 15, 20 people to say hello to. Their dogs, I know the names of all their dogs. In fact, there's a lot of people where I know the names of the dogs but don't really know the name of the owner. [chuckles] I'm not sure how that comes abou. It was, in my mind, a very distinct place.

Alison Stewart: Distinct how?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, it just had its own neighborhood culture, which was to some extent Jewish, but not entirely Jewish. There were Haitians there. There used to be a lot of Haitians there, and then Haitians disappeared. In my book, there were about three left. It was just a mixed neighborhood with a lot of different kinds of people who were all struggling to survive on West 86th Street.

Alison Stewart: What's changed the most about West 86th Street?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, the people. The people who come in now are much wealthier. They're often not New Yorkers, which is okay, I'm not a native New Yorker myself, I'm from New England. I mean, these are people who have just come to town, they make a lot of money, they stay in an apartment for a year and then go off and buy something somewhere else. It's become a neighborhood of transitory buildings, and so it's really not at all the culture I once knew there.

Characters talking about the disappearance of the land site, which is a Yiddish word which originally meant the old Jewish community, but they use it to mean just the old neighborhood. There were Haitians in the land site, and then when he says this, Art, he frantically Googles to try to figure out what the word means.

Alison Stewart: Well, Art sort of-- he becomes driven by real estate.

Mark Kurlansky: Yes, absolutely. It's the American promise he dreamed of.

Alison Stewart: Is that what it means to him?

Mark Kurlansky: Yes, absolutely. It's you can go to America and buy real estate and become rich.

Alison Stewart: How does it affect the other characters in the book?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, they're much less assimilated. They speak Greek, they raise goats. He wants them to modernize. He gives them Walkmans and they just play old Greek music on the Walkmans. He says, no, no, that's not it. They are much less on this program, but they listen to him and he's making them money. They all live out in Queens. Queens, to the people on 86th street, it's just that place you go through to get to the airport.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: One other person's story I want to talk about before we break is Violetta. She was born Veronica. She lies about her age in the book. First of all, why does she change her name?

Mark Kurlansky: She wants to be more interesting. She comes from this place-- Actually, to be honest, it's modeled after my hometown. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Really?

Mark Kurlansky: Yes. It's an industrial suburb of Hartford famous for manufacturing ball bearings. It's the kind of town that you dream of leaving as early as you can. She left quite early. She got to New York. She's beautiful, and she became an artist model. One of the paintings she posed for became an iconic painting of contemporary art, and so she became a famous model with the name Violetta. Meanwhile, all she wanted to do was go to the Greek diner back when it was a diner and have root beer floats. She just wants to find a place where she can get root beer floats. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Art takes an interest in her.

Mark Kurlansky: To say the least. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: To say the least. We'll leave it there. What does she see in him? Without giving too much away.

Mark Kurlansky: I'm sorry.

Alison Stewart: No. What does she see in him?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, I think she sees him pretty clearly as this driven entrepreneur who wants to make money. She's in the art world, and it's different. She's not in the real estate world. She thinks he's sort of an interesting guy, but not her world. That's one of the interesting things in the book, is the book is one-block long and yet there's all these completely different worlds within this block.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Mark Kurlansky. We're talking about his novel Cheesecake. After the break, we'll talk about the appendix, cheesecake recipes, a history. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Mark Kurlansky. We're talking about his novel Cheesecake, which has a pretty hefty appendix, which says cheesecake recipes, a history. First, we've got calls ready and lined up about their favorite cheesecake, but tell us a little bit about the appendix.

Mark Kurlansky: Well, I can't help myself. I love recipes. I love historic recipes. I thought I would go back through the whole history of cheesecake from ancient times to modern times and show the evolution of it and at what point it became a New York dish, which was completely different, and give a lot of recipes, including for some of the Upper West Side places that aren't around anymore.

Alison Stewart: You say, New York Cheesecake, according to New York legend, was invented in 1929 by Arnold Reuben.

Mark Kurlansky: Yes, Arnold Reuben had a sandwich shop. He actually named sandwiches after celebrities, but the Reuben sandwich wasn't his. He wasn't vain enough to name a sandwich after himself, but he invented this cheesecake. It was the first time they used cream cheese in a cheesecake and the first time they used a graham cracker crust. Now, a graham cracker crust was unheard of in New York, but it was a big trendy thing in LA for something called the chiffon pie, which I think tells you everything about the difference between LA and New York, the chiffon pie versus the cheesecake.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a couple of calls about Cheesecake. Lynn from Hartsdale, New York. Hi, Lynn. Thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Lynn: Well, hi, how are you?

Mark Kurlansky: Hi.

Lynn: My first time calling a radio station, so this is exciting. The book sounds fabulous, but my wonderful recollection is the iconic Lindy's cheesecake. My husband and I used to go down there with my in-laws, and we ate our meal fast because we could not wait to dig into that delicious strawberry or cherry cheesecake. Now, of course, it's gone. I make cheesecake, and I have a friend that makes fabulous cheesecake. I'm going to read your book. I'm going to enjoy it. Just give me-- the name of the book is Cheesecake?

Alison Stewart: Cheesecake, and there's a lot of good recipes in the back, I have to tell you.

Mark Kurlansky: For the record, I grew up going to Lindy's. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Cecile from Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Cecile. Thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Cecile: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I am so into ube, which is a new flavor that has become popular. There's an amazing ube cheesecake in Naks, N-A-K-S, restaurant, which is on 1st Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan. I suggest you guys try it. It's really good.

Alison Stewart: What does Naks mean?

Cecile: The restaurant is a Filipino fusion, and it's comfort Filipino foods. Naks means wow. That's good in the language.

Mark Kurlansky: It just shows you, Herb Grosinger, who was one of the old-time cheesecake makers on the Upper West Side, said to me, "You know, you can add anything to a cheesecake."

Alison Stewart: There you go. I love that Naks means wow. Deborah is also calling from Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Deborah. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Deborah: Thank you. This is my first time getting through, so I'm very excited. I used to live on the Upper West Side, and my husband and I every Friday after work would go to Famous Dairy, buy two slices of cheesecake, have one half. We'd each have a half on Friday and a half on Saturday, and it was the best. We, in fact, for our wedding had a cheesecake.

Alison Stewart: Love that story. Thank you for calling. This text says, "I love cheesecake. It's one I make from scratch with Martha Stewart's recipe. I recently had delicious cheesecake, and it was in fact from a Greek diner, the Pompton Queen Diner, Route 23, Pompton Plains, New Jersey." It's really interesting to hear about cheesecake. People have such a love for it.

Mark Kurlansky: Yes, yes. People are absolutely passionate about it, and different kinds of cheesecakes for different kinds of people.

Alison Stewart: Kevin from old Brookville, New York. Hi, Kevin. What kind of cheesecake do you like?

Kevin: Oh my gosh. Thanks for taking my call. I would say Miss Grimble's cheesecake hands down is the best cheesecake on earth.

Mark Kurlansky: Ah, well, that's one of the old neighborhood places that was forced out of business.

Alison Stewart: I have to ask you, out of all the recipes in the back around cheesecake, which one is your favorite, Mark?

Mark Kurlansky: Oh, I'll tell you what my favorite cheesecake recipe is, and I wrote about this for SAVEUR magazine. It was my grandmother's. My grandmother, born in Lithuania, grew up on the Lower East Side, and she made a cheesecake. It had no cream cheese in it. It was all farmer's cheese and lemon and eggs and a little sour cream and a regular pie crust. I have the fondest memories of this cheesecake.

Alison Stewart: Before we let you go, you were kind enough to pick out a couple of books that people might want to consider for our summer reading challenge. What are your suggestions?

Mark Kurlansky: Well, for a New York book, I suggest The Assistant, Bernard Malamud, which is-- both things I'm suggesting are kind of food-related.

Alison Stewart: All right.

Mark Kurlansky: It's a story of a struggling Jewish grocery store in Brooklyn. The other thing I suggest is The Belly of Paris, which, in full disclosure, I translated from French. It's a novel by Émile Zola, which I translated because it is the greatest food novel ever written. It's the story of a political refugee who escapes from French Guiana, makes it back to Paris, and hides out in his brother's charcuterie in Les Halles market.

Alison Stewart: Our engineer is agreeing with you. Very good, she says. [laughs] My guest has been Mark Kurlansky. The name of his book is Cheesecake. It is out today. Thank you for sharing today with us, your pub day.

Mark Kurlansky: My pleasure. Oh, and if anybody's around tonight at Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side, seven o' clock, I'm doing a talk.

Alison Stewart: You should go see Mark Kurlansky tonight at Barnes & Noble. Thanks for letting us know.