On an unusually blustery day last week, redbankgreen hovered while photographer Michael Marmora worked on his first magazine assignment: shooting the rock band Bedlight for Blue Eyes for the upcoming debut issue of d. magazine, to be published by Red Bank photographer Danny Sanchez.
The shoot took place in the East Front Street breezeway next to Billys Barber Shop, and in a parking lot out back. Afterward, we put Marmora through the 10-question ‘Human Bites’ drill.
Marmora, of Holmdel, is 22, and graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology last spring.
This was your first magazine assignment. Were you anxious?
I was. I still am. I’m probably not going to be relieved until I see it in print. I’m always kind of nervous about first-crack attempts at things. But yeah, I mean, I’m excited.
Gary Sable in 2013. (redbankgreen photo. Click to enlarge.)
Ten quick questions for Gary Sable, owner and sole employee of That Hot Dog Place, 30 Monmouth Street (next to the Dublin House). Garys 54, married, lives in Hazlet and has two grown daughters.
Did you have another career before you started this business?
Yeah. Before this, I had bar & restaurant in Perth Amboy called The Triangle Café with my brother, Scott, for 23 years. It was a family business. My father bought it in 66, and then he started getting sick. I went in in73, and my brother came in two years later.
The bar business is good when youre young, but once you get past 35, you dont want to be in that business anymore. The hours will kill you. Absolutely kill you.
Most Saturdays of the year, 21-year-old Erin Ryan of Belmar stands outside LJs Total Man/Todays Woman clothing store on Broad Street, doing what she calls promotional modeling, talking up the merchandise to shoppers.
But when it gets cold enough to turn Erins exposed toes purple, she takes her act inside and does a mannequin act in the stores window.
Erin is a full-time humanities student at Ocean County College, waitresses at an Outback restaurant, cleans houses two days a week, practices photography, and isbig surprisealmost impossible to reach. But redbankgreen caught up with her at LJs last weekend for a quick interview.
Whats involved in being a human mannequin?
I normally do 20-minute poses, not breathing, not blinking, not anything. It gets difficult. After about three minutes, your feet go numb and your hands start trembling. And after 15, you dont even realize that youre standing still.
Ten quick questions for Eric Auerbach of Clearview Window Cleaners, Long Branch. He’s shown here at Bain’s Hardware, Sea Bright.
How long have you been a window-washer? About 13 years. I started off working for another company and then I went off on my own. I was doing all the work, and he was making all the money, so I just went off on my own.
Do you enjoy your work? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do enjoy it, for the most part. You do the same thing day in, day out for 13 years, you get a little tired of it. But for the most part, I feel I’m lucky to have what I have. There’s a lot of people who don’t have jobs, or go to a job that they hate. I like what I do. I make all the decisions. There’s no corporate bureaucracy to deal with. I’m the corporate bureaucracy.
Ten quick questions for Gail Mayr of Lenas Bagels and Deli, 441 Broad Street, Shrewsbury.
We understand youre quite well-traveled on the local bagel circuit. So where have you worked?
I started at the Bagel Station on Monmouth Street, where I worked for 11 years. Then I was at the Windward Deli, on Maple Avenue for four years. I went to Grandmas Bagels in Little Silver, but it changed hands, and it just wasnt for me. I worked there about eight months. Ive been at Lenas about four months now. Ive known Lena (Maddalena Caruso) for probably 30 years, and she kept asking me to come work with her, but I wasnt too sure about working for a friend. But then I figured, if Im gonna bust my butt, it might as well be for somebody I like.
Have you had other food-industry jobs?
Oh god, yeah! I worked at the Willow Deli in Little Silver; I was there for nine years. Then the owners started the Cherry Street Deli (in Tinton Falls) and they asked me to help start that up, so I was there for a little while. Then I got TMJ and couldnt work for a year, and after that, they were starting a Doms Deli in Fair Haven, and so I went there for a while. When that got a little slow, I went to the Bagel Station. Actually, it was the Bagel Deli part I worked in.
Why so many stops along the deli & bagel trail?
You know, its the funniest thing. I was at the Bagel Deli for 11 years, and Im really more of a deli personDominick Melicia and his wife, Joan, taught me everything I knowcatering, lunches, everything. But Ive baked bagelsI used to do it one day a week at the Bagel Station. I can do everything with bagels except hand-rolling. It looks easy, but it takes a knack. Anybody can do it, but the bagels have to be uniform in size, and thats hard to do.
Whats the most important step in making bagels?
The most important step is proofing the bagel. After they roll the bagels, the dough is at room temperature. You put a vinyl cover over the bagels and the heat from the dough makes it proof. If theyre not proofed theyre going to come out very small and almost hard.
What is it about bagels that people love so much?
Well, in the 80s, the bagels were very big. They just really caught on, because there was no sugar in themthey used malt. That went on for I betcha eight years. But now all of a sudden its wraps. People dont come in and buy dozens of bagels anymore. Really. People would come in, buy a dozen, two dozen, cream cheese, butter and take them to the office. People dont do that anymore.
So do customers follow you from one store to another?
Oh my god, yeah. OHMYGOD! I FOUND YOU! You know what it is? I was at the Bagel Station for so long, and people knew that I wouldnt sell them anything that I thought was bad. If I wouldnt eat it myself, I wouldnt sell it to you. Thats another thing that Dominck taught me. He said, If you want a thriving business, you never sell anything you wouldnt eat yourself. Plus, Im very friendly. I always remember peoples names, ask about their families. I must have that kind of face people confide in. Sometimes, you get a new customer whos just nasty, and I pour it on being nice, and the next time they come in, youd think I was their best friend in the world.
When you say ‘things I wouldn’t eat,’ you’re not talking about things that are just a matter of preference, I presume.
When I worked for (IDENTITY OF A FORMER EMPLOYER WITHHELD TO KEEP redbankgreen FROM GETTING SUED INTO OBLIVION), if he thought something was bad, hed tell you to just wash it off. Somebody would ask for egg salad, and if I knew it was sitting there for two days, Id say, No, you dont want that. So that was their clue.
Whats your favorite bagel?
My favorite bagel is the everything bagel, with butter. Im not a cream cheese person.
Whats your least favorite?
Cinnamon raisin. I just dont know what it isI dont like it.
Which is more important to human happiness, bagels or comfortable shoes?
Oh, jeez. Human happiness? Im going to have to say the shoes.
Ten quick questions for Marcos Machado, owner of Fernando’s Shoe Repair, 74 Monmouth Street, Red Bank.
What happened to Fernando? He retired and moved back to Portugal. I’ve had the shop since 1998.
You moved here in April from 4A West Front Street. Which location is better? It’s better here, because of ease of parking.
Did you go to school to learn your trade? No. My grandfather and father did shoe repair and shoemaking in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and I learned from them.
Are there occupational hazards, like swallowing hobnails? You get a cut here and there, but nothing serious.
Can you tell anything about someone’s personality from the way they treat their shoes? No.
What’s the most unusual request you’ve gotten? People sometimes bring in boots, they want me to cut off the calf or take it in. Some orthopedic work.
In an era when people throw away expensive items when they break down, what keeps the art of shoe repair alive? Because it’s cheaper to fix them, especially if you have good shoes that are comfortable.
Do you ever make shoes from scratch? Not any more. I did in Brazil, but there’s not enough demand for it here.
What’s the one thing you look for when you buy shoes for yourself? I never buy shoes here. I buy them when I go to Brazil. Brazil and Italy are the top shoemaking countries in the world.
Which is more important, sturdy shoes or quality food? Now you got me. Quality food.
Ten quick questions for Chef Kevin Lynch, executive chef and manager of the cheese, dairy and bakery departments at Sickles Market, Little Silver.
Are you a foodie? Yes.
Which is more important, quality food or comfortable shoes? Tough question. You gotta remember that chefs are on their feet a lot. But Im going with food.
Whats your earliest food memory? Having my grandfather come down from Jersey City and give me and my brother $100 to go to Leroys Fish Market on Route 36 in Middletown. He’d have us buy shrimp, crabs, lobster tails and a smoked eel. He liked smoked eelevery Christmas wed give him one with a bow on it. This was around 1970, when I was 10. A hundred dollars was a lot of money back then.
Who was the biggest influence on your life, foodwise? My mother. She would cook something different every weekshe always liked to look at recipes. Id always make the salad when I was a kid.
What was your first cookbook? I think it was Betty Crocker. My mother still has it.
Whats your favorite cooking show on TV? I liked the PBS series, The Great Chefs, because I thought that was very knowledgeableit got into the nuts and bolts of it. Currently, I watch Behind the Scenes and Best Of, but once in a while for laughs I’ll watch Emeril, or sometimes, Rachel Ray. Sara Moultons show I like too. Shes the executive chef for Gourmet magazine.
Whats one ingredient you couldnt live without? Garlic!
Have you had formal training? No. I went to school for computer science down at Stockton College, and became kitchen manager and then chef at the Smithville Inn.
Whats the one junk food you cant say no to? Pretzels.
Where do you go when you eat out? Indigo Moon in Atlantic Highlands. I know the chef there, and the owner, Janet, used to work with me at Readies Fine Foods in Red Bank.
