Jewish
Baking bagels and rye bread from scratch, oh my!
First in a 2-part post on the cookbook, “Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World” by George Greenstein I’m on a toot. I get like this every once in a while. I read a book by an author that is new to me and I have to read everything …
Read moreChopped Liver
Makes 2 cups or enough to serve 6 Chopped liver is served during the Passover holiday with matzo. The basic ingredients are chicken livers (or a mixture of chicken and beef liver), onions, and hard-cooked eggs. At one time, the onions were cooked in schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), and mixed with boiled, broiled, or sauteed …
Read moreA side dish served with matzo and memories
‘I had hoped to be greeted by the taste of schmaltz,’’ announces one in the group, using the Yiddish word for rendered chicken fat. Her octogenarian husband arrives with his mother’s well-worn wooden bowl and single-blade chopper. When he was a boy, he says, “Every Sunday my job was to chop the liver. My father …
Read moreThe Wooden Bowls
I wrote this piece just after my nana, Beatrice Bloom, passed away on Valentine’s Day 2000. On this 11th anniversary of her death and the upcoming Passover holiday I wanted to share this personal reminiscence with you.
I was on my hands and knees, plucking pot after broken-handled pot from beneath my Nana’s cabinets cluttered with kitchenware accumulated after the death of each of her four sisters. “Who needs to spend money on new pots with all these?” I imagined her saying.
Love you a Latke
“Love you a latke” borders the blue and white plate given to me by my dear friend Margo one Hanukkah many years ago. This year I filled it with potato pancakes, a traditional food eaten during the eight days of the “Festival of Lights, made with a group of women from the Spouses and Partners …
Read moreKasha varnishkes
By Debra Samuels Boston Globe, December 17, 2008 Kasha varnishkes Serves 8 Eastern-European Jewish immigrants brought kasha varnishkes to this country at the turn of the 20th century. Kasha is roasted buckwheat groats; varnishkes means noodles in Yiddish (bow ties are now classic), and Wolff’s Kasha is the brand most cooks use. Mix eggs into …
Read moreFor dinner, too, eggs are a reliable comfort food
They’re baaaack! Eggs that is. Denigrated for being high in cholesterol, eggs seem to be regaining their Grade A status. Sunnyside up or down, there is no more throwing away the yolk and making that pale substitute: an egg-white omelet. Diets like Atkins and South Beach tout protein, protein, and more protein. We all know …
Read moreFlickr Images
Bento:Build a Better Lunch
Debra Samuels, bestselling author, food writer and cooking instructor, wants to give the American lunchbox a makeover. In the chapter on “bento,” the traditional Japanese lunch box, in her upcoming book, My Japanese Table, Debra encourages the use of color, texture and taste to create healthier and more visually appealing meals.
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