BAGEL CELEBRATION
National Bagels and Lox Day a labor of love for Psychedelicatessen
TROY, N.Y. >> Laura Kerrone, the owner of Psychedelicatessen, a bagel and delicatessen business at 275 River St., had her kitchen prepare two extra types of lox in preparation for National Bagels and Lox Day, a fact that only added to the normal Saturday crowd.
By 9:30 a.m. the special Lenrimmad lox her kitchen had prepared especially for the day were half gone, a fact that couldn’t have pleased her more.
Kerrone seeks to use as many local, organic and minimally processed ingredients as possible in the food put out by her kitchen staff. She is so proud of the connections she’s made to get the highest possible quality ingredients, from local producers she has a wall map hanging in the dining area with ornate pins marking their locations.
“Our mission statement is to use as many local, organic and minimally process ingredients as possible and to make from scratch authentic New York City bagels, along with everything else,” she said.
The line to order bagels, breakfasts, or lunches moved fast Saturday but at times it was nearly out the door. So good was the food that departing customers would yell compliments to Kerrone as they left.
Dressed in the business’ uniform of tie dye shirt, Kerrone is a throwback to the mid- 60s, when the word, organic, first began to make its way into sub-
“There’s just something about bagels and lox. It may be genetic. The recipe I have for our bagels is a closely guarded third-generation recipe.” — Laura Kerrone, the owner of Psychedelicatessen
urban conversations if not their kitchens.
Her life experiences are nearly as extensive as the shop’s menu. She has been employed as a trained radiation monitoring technician as well as an instructor, Kerrone and has also has spent time in the U. S. Navy.
It was the experience in the nuclear industry that brought her to the area where she worked at the Knolls Atomic Power Lab in Niskayuna. She left that position in 2014 saying she no longer enjoyed the field and opened Psychedelicatessen shortly thereafter.
“I saw a market for bagels,” she said.
Kerrone is an active person, one who easily admits easily she is hands on. She is so focused on producing a good bagel that she can tell where one of her kitchen trainees has made a mistake in the process just by the finished bagel’s sight, touch, taste and feel.
“What sets a bagel apart from bread is its high gluten flour, cold proofing, and right before you bake it you boil it for a minute or two,” she said. “If you boil your bagels then I’m going to listen to what you have to say.”
She is equally intense on the ingredients used in all the food that comes out of the kitchen.
“We are a farm to fork business. We get 75 percent of our ingredients locally,” she said. “Each year $100,000 of my costs goes back to local farmers and producers.”
The only recipe for Lenrimmad lox that Kerrone could find was written in Dutch. She wanted to offer it to her customers so badly she used a computer translation program to give it to her in English.
“It’s a Nordic lox,” she said. “The first time I served them here people went out of their minds. There’s just something about bagels and lox. It may be genetic. The recipe I have for our bagels is a closely guarded thirdgeneration recipe.
“They just go well together.”
Michael Gardner is a regular customer. The RPI graduate and software startup company owner lives in an apartment above the shop. On Saturday he lined up with everyone else before ordering at the counter where some of the cooks spotted him and began chatting.
“I’m getting the Lenrimmad today,” Gardner said. “Usually I get the Foxy Loxy, a sandwich on an “everything” bagel with lox, capers, tomato, red onion, double onion and cream cheese.
“This is the place for real New York City bagels and I love lox. How could I not come here today?”