A to Z Challenge: My theme this year is NYC before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ZABAR’S: This 86-year-old specialty grocery store, located at 80th St. and Broadway, is practically an institution on the Upper West Side. It’s like the Trader Joe’s before Trader Joe’s. It opened in 1934 by Louis and Lillian Zabar, and continues to be a family-run business. This landmark grocery store, known for their bagels, coffee (selling over 400,000-lbs/year), and delicatessen, has been featured in a gazillion movies and television shows.

But even Zabar’s can’t escape a little controversy. Back in 2011, a reporter from New Orleans discovered the store’s lobster salad contained zero lobster. The $16.95/lb sans lobster salad (that had been sold for 15 years) became national news. To be fair, lobster was never listed as an ingredient (it was mostly crawfish). After Lobstergate, Zabar’s renamed the product “Zabster Zalad.”

Anyway, Zabar’s is one of my favorite stores and always worth the trek from Brooklyn. Fortunately, they offer shipping, so I can still get my Zabar’s coffee and bagel fix without setting foot on the subway.

ZZZZs: I’m definitely catching more ZZZZs these dayzzz . . . (there are roughly 569 z-words, but after blogging 26 days this month, I’m a little zonked.) I think a lot of us can agree that this pandemic has forced the world to slow down a little bit, which isn’t a terrible thing. Slowing down forces us to take stock, and re-evaluate all kinds of things in our lives. Sometimes, what we need is to take advantage of more opportunities to sleep.

Without our conscious selves interfering, our body can heal during snooze hours, allowing cells to produce protein. This foundation of protein in our cells, creates healthy cells that work to repair damage from things like stress and UV rays. Because the brain spends this time on maintenance, good, quality sleep is said to be one of the best ways to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease. Aside from making you more alert, sleep improves memory, may reduce your risk of depression, and keeps your heart healthy. Need more convincing? Check out these links:

10 Benefits of a Good Night’s Sleep
7 Surprising Reasons to Get More Sleep
Benefits of Sleep (via the smart folks at Harvard)

Thanks, everyone who visited me during this A to Z Challenge! I appreciate all of you and hope to stay connected. Perhaps I’ll even blog a little more often . . . or not. We’ll see. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy! And get some ZZZZs!