Big bakery news and take our chicken wing poll
Hello friends,
My husband and I have worked across the hall from each other since March 2020, and for the most part, we've gotten very good at tuning each other out.
But as a lifelong Bills fan, my husband's ears perked up during an online meeting when we were brainstorming feature stories pertaining to the Bills (he also gave me a couple of good ideas to add to the mix).
Given that Buffalo has become synonymous with wings, and wings have become synonymous with watching football, I thought a story about chicken wings seemed obvious. When the D&C's data reporter, Sean Lahman, mentioned that we have a new tool that makes polling easier, we decided to conduct a poll of the best chicken wings.
Yes, this topic has been debated before, but our twist is to have multiple categories of wings — Buffalo style, Rochester style, Asian, barbecue and so on.
After the meeting, my husband expressed his doubts about the poll.
"People will debate about it," he said. "They'll say the wrong place won and say who should have one."
"Sure they will," I said. "But won't it be a nice break from debating face masks and vaccines?"
I have tried to strike that balance between "hard news" — like the chicken wing shortage and labor issues in the restaurant industry — and more lighthearted features. And I think that's become even more important with the pandemic weighing down our spirits. Emails I've received from readers have told me that they have appreciated the mix.
Will our poll be the final say on the best wings in Rochester? That's never going to happen. But it might give you a new place to try, and that's good enough for me.
And if you'd like to participate in our poll, click here. The poll closes Thursday.
Spirited fans
Speaking of the Bills, the folks at Iron Smoke Distillery in Fairport are big Bills fans, and for years, they invited the team for a visit during training camp.
After years of rejections, a group from the coaching staff finally took them up on their offer in 2016. Iron Smoke happened to be barreling that day, so they made a spur-of-the-moment decision to paint a Bills logo on two of the barrels and earmark those barrels to deliver to the Bills staff after a Super Bowl win.
The barrels are now six years old, and the folks that visited in 2016 are most likely long gone, but this would be a great year to put them in bottles.
Big bakery news
OK, so I get that some of you aren't Bills (or even football) fans. For you, here's some good news and bad news about local bakeries.
The good news is that Malek's Bakery, a popular kosher bakery in Brighton's Twelve Corners for the past 44 years, has been purchased by Hillel Community Day School. It is operating with limited hours during the transition, but it plans to be ready to roll in mid-February. And if you haven't had their hamantaschen — melt in your mouth, not too sweet, triangular cookies with a variety of fillings — you really must give them a try.
And the bad news: The Martusciello family, which has been baking fantastic Italian breads in the Rochester area since the late 1950s, is calling it quits — at least for now. This is pretty huge — their rolls are key ingredients for many restaurant sandwiches, as well as for people to purchase to use at home. I can't think of anything else quite like them — they are sturdier than regular hamburger rolls but softer than most other Italian rolls.
There's a possibility that the bakery will reopen, but the situation is serious enough that they are holding a garage sale this weekend (see photo above). I join the rest of the community in hoping they work something out.
Speaking of Martusciello's, I found out about that story because a reader emailed me when he went to buy a sandwich and found the business closed. If you see a business that seems to be closed or a new one that's in the works, please feel free to drop me an email. I'm always happy to look into these things.
Hope you have a delicious week!
Tracy Schuhmacher, food, drink and culture reporter
Until next week, here's where you can keep up with Rochester's food scene:
My Twitter: @rahchachow
My Instagram: @rahchachow
My Facebook page: facebook.com/RahChaChow
If you like this newsletter, please share it with a friend or family member. If you would like to receive the weekly ROCFlavors newsletter, sign up here.
Our work isn't possible without D&C subscribers. If you are one, thank you. If you're not, please consider subscribing.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: RocFlavors: Big bakery news and take our chicken wing poll
