The smell of schmaltz-popped corn greeted the noisy crowd filing up the stairs of the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side last week. The draw? A Moth-like storytelling event, with food, called “Schmaltzy: 5 dishes. 5 stories. So Jewish.” The brainchild of Jewish Food Society founder Naama Shefi, the organization’s first public event…
My doorbell rang one recent Friday, and when I answered the door a smiling stranger handed me a paper gift bag. Inside, there was a small, fragrant challah from Zucker Bakery and a hand-written note: “Hi Liza,” it said. “You’ve been touched by the Friday Fairy! We hope you have a great weekend and enjoy…
On a recent morning, I met Naama Shefi for breakfast at Zucker Bakery, a petite Jewish café and bakery in New York’s East Village. Shefi is the founder of the Jewish Food Society, a new project dedicated to preserving and revitalizing Jewish food traditions. And Zucker, which is owned by an Israeli pastry chef and…
In the late 1800s a saloon owner named Kate Hester purportedly defied Pittsburgh’s new licensing laws by running a secret establishment where locals in the know could drink and enjoy the company of friends and strangers. When the evening’s festivities got too loud — as the story goes — Hester would hush the crowd by…
This year’s LABA fellowship is only tangentially about food, just as last year’s LABA fellowship was only tangentially about space and the previous year’s fellowship only tangentially about Eros. A program of Manhattan’s14th Street Y, LABA brings together artists, writers, dancers and — this food year — a baker, to study classical Jewish texts and…
Whether they’re influencing policy, curing pastrami or turning out beautiful plates of kosher fare, these food professionals give us a peek into the hot topics for 2013 — which is shaping up to be a tasty year, and perhaps even a healthy one. 1) Michael Solomonov Chef After turning Philadelphians on to Levantine flavors at…
The truth about brisket is that your bubbe’s is probably the best. It’s probably better than my bubbe’s, and better than your neighbor’s bubbe’s, and while no two brisket recipes are the same, we’re all right when we say our briskets are the best. Past that, there aren’t a whole lot of definitives — even…
When Naama Shafir takes the court for the University of Toledo, there’s an unquestionable sense of relief. It helps that her team is on a winning and that Shafir is averaging 10.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists per contest. And for Shafir, a native of Hoshaya, Israel, being back on the court at all…
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