While I grew up eating honey cooked carrots every Rosh Hashana, I never realized this was holy food until I read Rabbi Dovid Meisel’s account of the every day life of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the previous Satmar Rebbe. In case you’re unfamiliar with his story, the old Satmar Rebbe walked out of Bergen Belsen alive. … Continue reading
Until I learned about the simanim, the symbolic foods of the Rosh Hashana meal I had no idea that Jews ate black eyed peas. Like chitterlins and collard greens, I thought they belonged to the genre of African American cuisine known as soul food. Little did I know that this lovely legume feeds our neshomos too. … Continue reading
Now I understand why nobody makes Teiglach anymore. You know, Teiglach, that ancient Lithuanian Jewish Rosh Hashana delicacy assembled from hundreds of tiny balls of honey soaked dough. My eyes light up when a recipe is labeled “easy” and “quick.” Teiglach is clearly not this. Teiglach harkens back to a time when women rolled their … Continue reading
It feels like the summer has hardly begun but this Shabbat we usher in the month of Elul, the opening act to the High Holiday Season. Elul is a heavy time for Jews. Since Rosh Hashana is the Yom HaDin, the Judgment Day, Elul is the time to prepare for that judgment. The way to do this is … Continue reading
When I discovered that my formerly lovely red delicious apples were growing soft brown patches on their sides I knew it was time to perform cosmetic surgery. No I didn’t botox the fruit, I pared off the ugly patches, shredded the healthy flesh and gave my apples a new lease on life as apple muffins. My salvage operation … Continue reading
Lamed is for Lukshen When I was a kid I loved to peer longingly into the window of the now defunct Meal Mart kosher takeaway store on Broadway and 77th Street. There were all kinds of intriguing things: roasted chickens, potato kugels, chopped liver but what caught my eye was the savory salt and pepper … Continue reading
This job takes under five minutes to complete This will eventually morph into farfel! Forget the Siberian Tiger and the Mountain Gorilla! There’s something far important that may be vanishing from the planet—farfel.. The once ubiquitous gravel shaped noodle known as the Ba’al Shem Tov’s tzimmes is almost nearly extinct, replaced on our Shabbos and Yuntif … Continue reading
