Pan-fried Buttermilk  Dandelion Blossom Fritters
14 Jul
Jewish World, Latest

Dandelions & Manna : Reflections on Jewish Foraging Before & After Sinai

We have counted “ba-Omer,” 49 days, the Week of Weeks between Passover and Shavuot, and now, even in quarantine, we find ourselves smack in the middle of another cause for liberation. As we learn in Exodus, liberation in ancient Egypt gave way to uncertainty as the Jews left the land of Egypt that they had known and their store of wheat dwindled to nothing. Their journey was rife with reluctance and ignorance as they became foragers for both food and identity. Now is a time of profound hunger and also of great promises, whether of Torah or of democracy. We are guided by what we know, and often (especially in quarantine) overwhelmed by what we cannot know. We are wanderers again and foragers. So comes the inspiration for today’s recipe, honoring the foraging of today and...

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Shavuot Tartines
08 May
Latest, Lighter fare

Counting the Omer, One Tartine at a Time

Today’s recipe is really a list: 49 different delicious, chometzdik, sustaining, take-it-along open sandwiches. Called tartines, they are an emanation of medieval peasant food in which a meal would be served atop a slice of bread so as to be eaten while on foot. I thought about making quail, the other culinary miracle performed for those desert wanderers, but then, not many of us have quail in the freezer. If you do, please send us a photo of those little delicacies, and my chef’s hat is off to you.

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Passover seder menu including recipes and food essays
03 Apr
Latest, Lighter fare

Suggested Menu for a Passover Feast, Quarantine b’Mitzrayim

With best Passover wishes from my kitchen and family to yours, here are some recipes and food essays to tempt your palate, expand your repertoire and help bring you into the delight and meaning of the holiday, this year of 2020/5781, as we revisit Mitzrayim (Biblical Egypt) from our own narrowed places. 

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Kugel and Bhajee
02 Apr
Latest, Lighter fare

Passover Potato Recipes: Kugelettes and Bhajee

Today’s offering,  Ashkenazi potato kuglettes and traditional Indian bhajee, has been inspired by Tania, a lawyer by trade, who cooks out of her kitchen in Pittsburgh, and with whom I share an interfaith (Jewish-Muslim) connection. Fortunately, potatoes are in most of our pantries, and what we do with them tells us a great deal about our ethnicities, religious traditions, customs, economic status and diets. Potatoes are nutritive, starchy, ubiquitous tubers that grow almost anywhere there is healthy soil. You can buy seed potatoes and grow them in deep containers on your terrace, plant plots this spring in your yard or buy them at the grocery store or farmer’s market. You can find them in any color—red, pink, purple, brown and, most commonly in the United States, yellow and white. They also come in palates of...

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27 Mar
Latest, Lighter fare

Recipes from a Quarantined Cook | Asparagus Frittata

Welcome to “A Momentary Kitchen”—a moment of something (Jewish and foody) to do with your loved ones in these uncertain times. Come in, grab a stool and some tea, kibitz and cook. Each recipe has been chosen for children 10 and over (under 10, please cook with a grownup!) and each will offer variations for dietary needs and palette. Every recipe will take less than 30 minutes to prepare and less than three hours to cook. Spring is here for some, and many of them are opening their windows to milder breezes. In my city of Ann Arbor, however, it snowed yesterday (two boys made snowmen standing six feet apart). In other cities, cherry blossoms are in bloom, and folks are thinking gardens and lawns. Cooks are dreaming about ramps and fiddleheads, morels, and soon enough, spears...

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24 Mar
Latest, Lighter fare

Recipes from a Quarantined Cook | Chicken Soup Two Ways

Welcome to “A Momentary Kitchen”—a moment of something (Jewish and foody) to do with your loved ones in these uncertain times. Come in, grab a stool and some tea, kibitz and cook. Each recipe has been chosen for children 10 and over (under 10, please cook with a grownup!) and each will offer variations for dietary needs and palette. Every recipe will take less than 30 minutes to prepare and less than three hours to cook. Chicken soup needs no introduction. When I was a girl in Hebrew School,  we were instructed to imagine what manna tasted like to the early Israelites. I fantasized about green pepper pizza and chicken soup with my Aunt Mildred’s matzoh balls. Thirty years later, Aunt Mildred confessed that she got her matzah-ball recipe from the side of a box, but her...

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