Ellenville

In the once-bustling town of Ellenville, New York, Cohen's Bakery puts most big-city bakeries to shame.

Raisin pumpernickels, giant chocolate covered almond cookies, braided challahs, sour dough ryes. Rugelach that make you remember what rugelach are supposed to taste like.

The raisin pumpernickel that Belly is holding below was maybe half of a loaf and had to weigh three or four pounds.

 Ellenville itself saw its last better days decades ago, but a few businesses are still hanging on. The Catskills are far deader than dead -- the mix of Hasids buying businesses and property but not paying any taxes, plus the dying off of the older generation of Jews who supported the great Catskills Mountain resorts, plus jet travel, plus the internet -- you drive past mile after mile of abandoned hotels, glass broken out of windows, basketball courts with sagging and broken rims, concrete cracked, rusting cars.

Not so in Ellenville, or so it seems. And the bungalow colony where the Brooklyn Plotniks rent a cottage for the summer seems homey and comfortable, even with the power turned off until Spring.

Meanwhile, Des is learning how to grab on, and to sit comfortably in the arms of The Great Dance-Nik.