The Weekly Dish
Petite Shell’s kosher rugelach. Photograph by Liz Arronson Rueven/KosherLikeMe.com.
…Manhattan’s Petite Shell, whose kosher rugelach have become a bona fide phenomenon among New York foodies, was named one of the city’s best coffee shops by Eater this week.
While Eater waxed rhapsodic about Petite Shell’s dulce de leche mini-croissants, the real draw here is what the Village Voice called “obsessively crafted” rugelach in mind-blowing flavors like Nutella, and feta with kalamata olives. Japanese cold brews and “draft” American coffees are made with beans roasted exclusively for Petite Shell by Ithaca, New York’s Forty Weight Coffee Roasters, as Yeah That’s Kosher has reported.
…Fretting over what to serve that dairy-averse, gluten-intolerant, organic-eating vegan at your seder? Whole Foods has got your back.
Partnering with kosher purveyor Kedem, the megachain is expanding its range of specialty-diet foods this year — including the first biodynamic kosher-for-Passover grape juice and “the first commercially available boxed Passover donut,” according to an announcement. The donuts are chocolate frosted, natch.
Among the other virtuous kosher-aisle debuts: gluten-free cookies and sweets from Rebecca and Rose Bakery in flavors like Brownie Brittle; hot-pepper-infused olive oil from Zeta; and Chef Jeff Creations gluten-free Cajun panko.
Whole Foods also offers seder recipes — and creative afterlives for leftover matzo — online.
…Coming soon from New York Observer restaurant critic and Eater scribe Joshua David Stein: a food-themed children’s book partly inspired by Maimonides. Via Eater, Publishers Weekly reports that “Can I Eat That?” will be published by Phaidon in spring 2016. The picture book will feature illustrations by the prolific Julia Rothman, whose work has appeared everywhere from The New York Times to Target.
“ ‘Can I Eat That?’ was inspired by my eldest son, Achilles, who is now three,” Stein told the Forward by e-mail. “Trying to get him to eat — he’s picky and also a contrarian — made me start thinking about food from a new childish (in the best way possible) way. The book is loosely also inspired by ‘Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed.’ ” The book, Stein said, unfolds as “a series of questions and answers about food. Some are logic-based and some aren’t. All examine in some way food dilemmas adults tend to take for granted. Though it is educational, I wanted to make a book that isn’t preachy or too cutesy. There are no hot dogs with faces and legs running around.”
Fat Pasha’s Anthony Rose. Photograph by Caroline Aksich/Toronto Life.
…Canada’s Globe and Mail is the latest to jump on the nouveau-Jewish-food bandwagon.
“Jewish food now feels alive, vibrant and even chic. My grandmother would be astonished — lowly potato latkes cost $16,” writes Bonny Reichert in the national daily. “Jewish food is having a moment or, more accurately, a series of moments that some are even calling a renaissance.”
Reichert crowns Anthony Rose of The Fat Pasha — which the Forward covered last year — as “the accidental poster boy for the resurgence of Jewish food in Canada.” The Fat Pasha has become one of Toronto’s hottest tables by mashing up Ashkenazi and Middle-Eastern food in unapologetically over-the-top presentations.
The latest wave of Jewish food, Reichert observes, “is strong-smelling and colorful and unapologetically ethnic; it’s a jumbled fusion of deli and European shtetl food, mixed with Sephardic dishes from North Africa and the Middle East.”
…Set your phone for the San Diego Jewish Food Festival, which returns to the city’s Temple Adat Shalom on April 19. “Visitors can experience homemade comfort foods such as potato latkes, kugel, blintzes, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, scrumptious rugalach and mandelbrot, and, of course, New York cheese cakes,” the festival’s web site enthuses.
Michael Kaminer is a frequent contributor to the Forward.
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