berkx1Len Berk loves lox, the salt-cured salmon that goes so well with bagels.

Today, the 85-year-old New Yorker is a veteran salmon slicer at Zabar’s, a gourmet food shop in Manhattan. But it wasn’t always that way.

At StoryCorps, Len (pictured at left slicing lox at Zabar’s) tells his friend Joshua Gubitz (above left) about becoming a salmon slicer after forty years in accounting.

Originally aired June 5, 2015, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Photo courtesy of Cosima Amelang for StoryCorps