Passover, considered one of an important occasions in the Jewish calendar, begins on Friday. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, during which the ancient Israelites had been freed from slavery in Egypt. And it is also a very busy time at New York's Jewish delis. I think. Sherpa knows his way across the lox and different delicacies I'm hoping to purchase at Russ, New York's great, appetising store. But possibly I had higher explain. Sherpas in New York? Subsequently, his daughters took over. Then his grandson Mark Federman went to regulation college. But Mark heard the call of the lox, it is claimed, and returned to run the store till - in the last half-decade or so - Mark's daughter Nikki and her first cousin Josh have taken over the business. Lox is in the blood. In New York, an "appetising retailer" usually refers to a spot that sells those fishy delicacies sometimes outlined as "stuff that goes with bagels". Head into Russ on East Houston Street, where the pink and inexperienced neon signal and a couple of neon fish - salmon, I think - wink over the door. On one side are glass-fronted counters that contain golden-skinned, sweet-fleshed, smoked whitefish, smoked mackerel, smoked sable, smoked sturgeon. There may be home-made cream cheese and, behind the counter, the most effective bagels in town, also bialys and the onion rolls generally known as pletzel. In the back, there's the caviar, pickled herring, herring in cream sauce, herring salad. Before Jewish holidays, objects like gefilte fish, matzo-ball soup and latkes (potato pancakes) are available to crowds who jam the shop. But on the very heart of the place is the lox and the nova. In New York, nearly everybody refers to smoked salmon as lox. Lox in fact is the cheaper, saltier, brined stomach salmon. Its more aristocratic cousin, chilly-smoked salmon, usually comes from Nova Scotia but New Yorkers use the time period nova, to check with all smoked salmon, except lox. At Russ, displayed in all their glory, is smoked salmon from Ireland, Scotland and Norway. There is even pastrami salmon, salmon spiced with pastrami flavouring. And behind the counter are the slicers, princes of the church of lox. Among them is Sherpa. It's a great distance from the jap Himalayas to the peaks of fantastic slicing. And Sherpa did as soon as climb to within six hours of Everest's peak. Probably the most well-known among them, of course, was Sherpa Tenzing Norgay who went up with Sir Edmund Hillary. Sherpa Lox's full identify is Sherpa Chhapte Panasha, and he was born in Patle, a village with a population of 120 in jap Nepal. Restless and bold, he made his way to Zarzi where he worked with trekkers, made mates with foreigners, got himself into an English-language faculty in Kathmandu - his English is fairly good now - and then to the USA. A job at an uptown appetising store taught Sherpa to slice salmon. Then someone talked about Russ & Daughters. A store manager now, Sherpa has been at Russ for a decade, the place he works alongside Italians, Dominicans, Mexicans and Israelis. There are actually about 7,000 Nepalese in New York and roughly 2,000 Sherpas. In 1907, when Joel Russ arrived at Ellis Island, it was an extended journey, however he got here, like tens of millions of others, in quest of refuge and perhaps a little bit slice of paradise. When, way back, the Sherpa tribe migrated from Tibet to Nepal, it is said they journeyed, first, seeking a Shangri-la. You may think of Russ & Daughters as a primarily Jewish store, however this is New York - everyone comes here. I ask. Sherpa grins. BBC Radio 4: A 30-minute programme on Saturdays, 11:30 BST. Second 30-minute programme on Thursdays, 11:00 BST (some weeks only). Hear daily 10-minute editions Monday to Friday, repeated by means of the day, additionally accessible to pay attention online. Read extra or discover the archive, external at the programme web site, external. The BBC just isn't accountable for the content material of exterior sites.