An apple-and-honey snacking cake, not lengthy out of the oven, sat on the stovetop in Jake Cohen’s Lengthy Island Metropolis condo. A couple of ft down the counter was a freshly baked challah blanketed with sesame seeds and flaky salt.
A customer was hungry however tentative. Mr. Cohen was apologetic however agency. The pastry and the bread have been accompanying him to “Good Morning America,” the place he could be discussing his new cookbook, “I May Nosh: Basic Jew-ish Recipes Revamped for Each Day,” the follow-up to his 2021 New York Occasions greatest vendor, “Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes From a Trendy Mensch.”
“However I all the time have baked items round,” mentioned Mr. Cohen, 29, opening the freezer to disclose the cookies and banana bread stowed for the advantage of friends, each anticipated and never. “Folks come by all the time.”
This explains why he and his husband, Alex Shapiro, a monetary marketing consultant, preserve the eating desk set for six. “It’s like Lucky Girl Syndrome,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. ‘You’re opening as much as the universe that one thing can occur.”
His mom and sister, who stay within the neighborhood, are given to popping by on the spur of the second. His shut buddy, the comic Alex Edelman, “will name and be like, ‘Ahhhhh,’” as a preface to his unplanned imminent arrival, mentioned Mr. Cohen, who’s extra pleasant than a golden retriever and who, you watched, believes there is no such thing as a state of affairs so dire that it might’t be set proper with a latke tartine or two.
Jake Cohen, 29
Occupation: Cookbook writer
Site visitors alert: “If I’m going someplace, I can simply look out our window and resolve if I need to take the bridge, the tunnel, my bike or the subway.”
Mr. Cohen grew up in Bayside, Queens, and on Lengthy Island. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, he moved into the Murray Hill studio condo that his mom, Elizabette, had purchased as an funding. He was finally joined there by Mr. Shapiro, whom he met on Hinge in 2015. They married in 2018.
After shopping for the condo from Ms. Cohen, the couple renovated and, in the end, outgrew the 400-square-foot house, promoting it in 2019. The plan was to purchase in Brooklyn Heights.
Proper across the identical time, Ms. Cohen, who’s divorced, bought the household residence on Lengthy Island. She was serious about returning to Forest Hills, the place she had grown up and the place her daughter, Jamie, lived. However Mr. Cohen had one other location in thoughts for Mother — one that may be helpful to her work as a contract veterinarian and was additionally the halfway level between her kids’s properties.
“I used to be like, ‘You need to transfer to Lengthy Island Metropolis. It’s this up-and-coming place. Look into it,’” he mentioned.
Ms. Cohen instantly took to the neighborhood, shopping for a condominium in a constructing not but underneath building and fortunately ready it out in a close-by luxurious high-rise rental, the place she was one of many first tenants. Her enthusiasm for this non permanent perch was contagious: Her daughter quickly determined to hire in the identical constructing.
And there have been Mr. Cohen and Mr. Shapiro, all set to make a proposal on an condo in Brooklyn. “Then we had this second of, ‘What the hell are we doing?’” Mr. Cohen recalled.
They pulled again, as a substitute renting a one-bedroom condo on the twenty second ground of the constructing that was residence to Mr. Cohen’s mom (forty fourth ground) and his sister (twelfth ground). “It was identical to probably the most unimaginable pandemic expertise,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “We confer with it because the city kibbutz.”
Final 12 months, his mom and sister moved into completely different buildings; they’re now each a block away from him. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Shapiro moved final 12 months, as nicely — to a two-bedroom condo down the corridor from their one-bedroom condo.
“It was throughout one of many Covid waves, so our movers canceled on us,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “I actually grabbed a dolly from the doorman and moved most of our furnishings myself. And it was like probably the most masculine factor I’ve ever performed in my life.”
And clearly nicely definitely worth the exertion. The west-facing floor-to-ceiling home windows provide a greater view than the couple had of their outdated condo — even when the sunshine is so ample it started turning their silver alpaca accent pillows inexperienced.
“Within the morning, we get up and take a look at the skyline, and we’re like, ‘Wow, New York is attractive,’” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “At night time, we’ll flip off the lights and sit on the sofa and at take a look at Manhattan simply watching us.”
And this condo has a pantry, an awesome comfort for Mr. Cohen, who now has a devoted spot for his varied flours and spices.
The condo is tidy and contemporary: chrome steel home equipment, gentle oak flooring, smooth off-white bouclé sectional. It’s the completely fashionable backdrop for objects whose worth lies of their age and provenance.
A marble-topped rack holds the fish-shaped silver-and-wood lox platter that was handed all the way down to Mr. Cohen from his maternal grandmother, in addition to his great-grandmother’s recipe field. Atop the bureau within the major bed room, subsequent to the braided challah menorah and Mr. Cohen’s assortment of glass and ceramic pomegranates from Israel, is the kiddush cup from his great-grandparents’ wedding ceremony.
Mr. Shapiro gave Mr. Cohen a pair of crystal candlesticks for his twenty fifth birthday. They sit within the middle of the eating desk. “None of my household’s candlesticks survived the Holocaust,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “However now we’ll have one thing to move down.”
And shortly his maternal grandmother can be transferring from the Caribbean to Florida, “the place she belongs,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “And she or he’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve these mother-of-pearl fruit knives that you just’re going to should take.”
He’ll put them to quick use. Hospitality is his foods and drinks. Mr. Edelman, the comic Judy Gold, the actor Shoshana Bean and the composer Benj Pasek are sometimes across the desk at Sabbath dinner. There are common recreation nights and at-home dinners with different {couples}.
When it comes time for an condo improve, Mr. Cohen would love one other 500 sq. ft — not for a much bigger kitchen, not for extra bedrooms (“Extra bedrooms imply extra friends, and we don’t need extra friends”), however to throw greater events.
He loves his condo, sure, however “I’d transfer in a second, and once you hire you’re not tied down,” he mentioned.
“You’ve bought to be able to go. You’ve bought to have your go-bag packed,” Mr. Cohen continued. “Your dream condo may go in the marketplace tomorrow.”
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