by Rachel Harkham More than three thousand years ago, as the story goes, the Israelites received the Torah from God on top of Mt. Sinai. Shavuot, which begins tonight and lasts two days, celebrates the acceptance of that enduring tradition. At this time it is customary to eat a roster of rich dairy dishes for several reasons: the plentiful milk of late springtime, the lines in the Bible describing Israel as the land of “milk and honey” and the dairy dishes that followed the acceptance of the laws of kashrut before Jews could cook kosher meat. Fast-forward from the slopes of Mt. Sinai to New York in the late-aughties. I was trying to come up with an original dish to serve to my guests for Shavuot, finding myself completely uninspired by the usual suspects—sweet cheese blintzes and...

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