S
ome of my
friends on the
left do not like
Israel at all. They
make glib proposals
for what Israel should
do. In theory, they
say, if Israel followed
those proposals, it
would become the
most morally scrupulous country
in the world — if any scrap of Israel
would continue to exist.
Of course, they imagine that as
Israel “just ends the occupation” and
“just opens the border with Gaza”
or even “welcomes the beginning of
a bi-national state,” the Jeffersonian
democrats of the Palestinian leader-
ship will peacefully come to power,
and all will be well.
In practice, those proposals seem
poised to result in the death of mil-
lions of people, which my friends
on the left try not to figure out. All
these scrupulous morals would leave
the entire land ruled by the saintly
Palestinian Authority or by Hamas.
Sometimes, these friends on the left
manage not to use the traditional
vocabulary of anti-Semitism because
these friends think they are anti-Zi-
onists, not anti-Semites. Sometimes
they do say anti-Semitic slogans, but
only because they have such high
moral standards, and the honest
March 21 • 2019 5
jn
T
his is a story
about Matt
Prentice and the
people he feeds. I’
m
one of those people,
as far as back as my
non-unique children’
s
menu orders at the Deli
Unique, as momentous
as the mashed potato
martini bar at my wedding, as recent as
last week.
For the past four years, Matt Prentice
has been serving 1,000 meals a day. His
patrons are not deli diners with exact-
ing specifications for their soup or sym-
phony subscribers or business travelers
taking in views from the 72nd floor of
the Renaissance Center.
Matt Prentice feeds the shelter resi-
dents, area homeless and food insecure
neighbors of Cass Community Social
Services.
This is not an Aaron Sorkin legal
drama. That would quote directly from
depositions, discovery and the 50-page
Oakland County Circuit Court judg-
ment against Matt Prentice for $2 mil-
lion in damages and enforcement of a
5-year non-compete clause that expired
late last year
.
This is not a parable of atonement,
altruism or asceticism. Like others,
Matt Prentice’
s work and world are
different than they were before the
recession. He flew too close to the sun
on wings of pastrami. After the
lawsuit, Prentice took his turn
among the siblings taking care
of their mom.
Then he went to Cass
Community Social Services
for the same reason others go
to Cass Community Social
Services — he needed a job
and a place to live. Now he
stays in an apartment above
Cass Community United
Methodist Church. There is
a communal bathroom that
out-of-town volunteer groups use when
they are staying at the church. He takes
the Q-Line to check out new restau-
rants. He alternates between cigarettes
and Altoids.
This is not a flashback episode. If it
were, it would cut back to Matt Prentice
working in a kitchen at 12 years old,
starting as a chef at 16, enrolling at
the Culinary Institute of America and
experiencing hunger over the weekend,
having relied entirely on his classes for
food. That story would include Danny
Raskin, without whom Prentice thinks
his first restaurant would have failed:
PROBABLY THE greatest change in
any restaurant almost anywhere is that
of Deli Unique (formerly Northgate)
at Greenfield and 10½ Mile … It’
s an
entirely all-new ballgame … and clean
as a whistle now.
Big reason is the new ownership …
youthful, ambitious, so-eager-to-please
Matt Prentice, whose 80-hours-a-week of
creativity is beginning to pay off.
It’
s now a gourmet delicatessen, if
there is such a thing … and Matt’
s
Culinary Institute of New York, Fox &
Hounds, Belanger House, etc., expertise
shows some very fine colors.
Nor is this an episode of Ice Road
Truckers. There were vans — or van,
after one of them broke down — arriv-
ing at Gleaners Community Food Bank
before the sun came up and anything
had disrupted the sheet of ice that
formed overnight and caused another
day of school closures.
I meet Matt there to pick up the gov-
ernment surplus food he had ordered
and to look through the pallets of
rescued food for ingredients: milk, pep-
pers, carrots, kumatos.
As the ice sheets break apart over the
course of the morning, the Windstar
jewfro
Matt’s Apprentice
views
Ben Falik
Contributing Writer
Louis
Finkelman
Contributing Writer
Matt Prentice
continued on page 8
continued on page 6
commentary
Dangers on Both Sides
My
Story
My
Story
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