Last January I interviewed my first cousin once-removed about his experience surviving the Holocaust as a child in a Siberian labor camp. At one point he mentioned a “sour leaf” that his family used to make a soup called schav. Soon after, while visiting the Culinary Institute of America in Sonoma, I surreptitiously pinched a…
I made mozzarella cheese last night. This is not a shechechiyanu moment – I’ve done it before, using this, highly recommended, cheese making kit. But every time I accomplish the feat of turning a gallon of milk into two fistfuls of salty, stretchy, kosher cheese, it feels rather profound. It also feels a little wasteful,…
Little known fact: I was actually on the Food Network once. The show was an Al Roker on the Road special about food clubs, and I was featured in a segment about a group called Girl Friday in Iowa City. Unfortunately, the episode aired on the first night of Pesach in 2004, so I’ve never…
I had one of the worst days of my life today (definitely top ten, possibly top five) but things didn’t get really bad until I was midway through throwing together a ratatouille. I think it’s a testament to my recipe that basically forgetting the dish on a stove on high heat for a good twenty…
When I have people over for Shabbat dinner during the winter I always make some kind of kugel as a side dish. But in the summer, nobody wants a warm kugel, so I have to come up with a nice rotation of cold salads that don’t bore me to death. This one I got from…
As a kid growing up in New York’s Hudson Valley, I learned a lot about the Iroquois, the group of Native American tribes indigenous to that area. I loved to hear about the stories, beliefs, language, and everyday practices that made up the traditional Iroquois way of life. But what fascinated me the most was,…
Every kid remembers a time when their parents urged them to “Eat your vegetables.” But what about “Eat your ice cream or you’re not leaving the table?” Vegetable ice cream. I know it’s a radical concept, but I proved recently to my dinner guests that this unexpected combination of fresh spring peas and sweet cream…
Can anyone hear fava beans and not think of Anthony Hopkins? “I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.” (The movie is Silence of the Lambs, in case you missed it, and the infamous line was said by Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.) But references to cannibalism aside, our Tuv Ha’Aretz has started…
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