There are two recipes I’d love to try. Knaidlach with a Neshoma and Esther Kremsel or Esther Kezl, Once upon a time these used to be Pesach staples-that means that people knew how to prepare them and remembered eating them,,, but alas….

The Knaidlach with a Neshoma-yes that is a real name…. , is a Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) delicacy which journeyed from the shtetl to South Africa where many Lithuanian Jews settled and held fast to their old recipes.

My friend Gail, a wonderful cook and former South African descibes it as a stuffed knaidl, it’s inside containing a yellow heart or “neshoma’ made of a combination of egg yolk, matzo meal, salt pepper and the slightest pinch of cinnamon.

Rabbi Beryl Wein whom I believe is a Litvak once commented on how archtyically Jewish it is to characterize the core of a stuffed dumpling as a soul.

I’ve never actually had the pleasure of sampling this dish and I’m now traveling from my Jerusalem home to the US-yes I know we say Next year in Jerusalem, but what can you do when your aged mother can no longer travel?I hope to have a try at making it once i get to NY.

The second dish is Esther Kremzel or Esther Kezl. Customs expert Rabbi Duvid Meisels describes it as a kugel or latke fashioned from leftover haroset.

Well that certainly solves the proverbial problem of what to do with the haroset after the Seder(s) is/are over.

I’m planning to give that a try to-by adding some egg and some potato starch to my standard haroset-apples, walnuts, cinnamon, a bit of dates and grape juice, and then frying it like a latke. You can’t go too wrong with fried food-tastewise, I’m not talking health.

Since a good deal of the Purim drama played out of Pesach and. Esther’s famous fast actually occured during the festival we remember her on the second day of Pesach by enjoying an extra long meal featuring Esther Kezl or Kremsel.

If anyone knows anything more about these dishes, please contact me.

Meanwhile dear readers, best wishes for a Happy and Kosher Pesach