Archive for the 'Cookbooks' Category
Nutrition for the Jewish Community
Thanks to Chana Rubin, RD for this guest post. Chana is a registered dietitian who lives in Israel with her family. She’s the author of the new book Food for the Soul: Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating
I have lived in many different Jewish communities in the U.S. and in Israel and have seen the same patterns in most of them. Obesity and the sedentary lifestyle of our communities mimic that of the community at large, with added issues of kashrut, culture, Shabbat and holidays.
Preventative nutrition and nutrition education have always been my interest. It seems to me that it is easier and more cost effective to prevent illness before it happens rather than treat it after the fact. And there are many diseases – Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, osteoporosis, to name a few, that are certainly preventable.
Many books address general nutrition, but none of them address the Jewish community in particular. Food for the Soul – Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating does just that. The nutrition information is universal, but tailored to our specific needs and our own food culture.
More and a recipe for Surprise Cupcakes after the jump
No Comments »Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today (Win a Copy)
If America is the proverbial “melting pot,” then Israel is a close second - at least when it comes to Jewish food and Mediterranean cuisines. In her book The Foods of Israel Today
Today, in celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), we’re raffling off a copy of The Foods of Israel Today
More and a recipe below the jump.
When Horseradish Attacks
Thanks to Alyssa Finn for this guest post. Alyssa is getting her Masters degree in Clinical Nutrition at NYU and is a Hazon volunteer on the New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride Exec.
Yesterday, I came home after a long bike ride in the New York sunshine. On my plate for the evening was a pile of reading in preparation for my chemistry exam the next day. I stared at the pile of books and papers. I looked longingly at my kitchen, the primary source of my procrastination.
Then I remembered: horseradish!
Hip Kosher: Interview with Ronnie Fein (Win a Copy)
Is it just me, or is kosher cooking having itself a little bit of a renaissance? Over the last year, a slew of cookbooks have been published (like this one
Fein, who is the founder of the Ronnie Fein School of Creative Cooking in Stamford, CT spoke to The Jew & The Carrot about what hip kosher really means, Jewish food’s chameleon tendencies, and the many virtues of an ear of corn.
Read her interview below and, while you’re at it, WIN a copy of Hip Kosher! Answer the following question and be entered in a drawing to win: If you were a vegetable, what you’d be and why? (I promise this will make more sense when you read the interview.)
And congrats to Judi for being the randomly-selected winner in our last raffle for Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking.
Healthy, Delicious Passover Recipes, from celebrity chef and nutritionist Ellie Krieger
This past weekend, our synagogue hosted a “Pesach University”: A community-wide day of Passover workshops, on everything from the anthropological roots of the seder, to how to “green” your Pesach.
But the true highlight of the event was a live Passover cooking demonstration by none other than Ellie Krieger - an adjunct professor in the New York University Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, and star of the Food Network’s hit show, Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger. (She also happens to be the sister of one of our Tuv Ha’aretz CSA’s core group members, and a genuinely warm and funny person to boot.)
In honor of the occasion, Ellie chose to focus on two themes of the seder: dipping, and the tension between bitter and sweet in the story, and the food that accompanies it. Ellie made two delicious recipes, adapted from her new cookbook The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life
Jewish Home Cooking (Win a Copy)
Books, Contest, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food Writing, Holidays, Jewish Culture, Kosher, New York, Shabbos Meals
Arthur Schwartz likes to say: “If a kosher Martian landed in New York City today and observed what Jews were actually eating, he would think pizza and sushi were the most Jewish foods on earth.” I like to think that a copy of Schwartz’s new cookbook, Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited
Also called The Food Maven, Schwartz is known for being the man the New York Times Magazine dubbed “a walking Google of food knowledge.” His expertise extends far beyond
Far beyond a collection of Yiddish recipes - Jewish Home Cooking offers a vivid snapshot of a particular era of Jewish life - the slender seltzer bottles delivered to your doorstep, butchers who knew your name and order, frothy egg creams with Fox’s U-Bet syrup, and slow-simmered tzimmes - that has all but vanished from today’s New York. With recipes that honor tradition (but aren’t stifled by it), and historical photographs and anecdotes of New York’s long-gone Jewish culinary hot spots, Schwartz breathes new life into Jewish cuisine with humor and love - but without the sloppy side dish of kitsch that usually (and annoyingly) comes along with Yiddish retrospectives.
Win a FREE copy of Jewish Home Cooking! Tell us your favorite Passover dish or food tradition and be entered into a drawing to win. Only one comment per person will be entered into the drawing - comment before Thursday, April 17.
Below the jump, Schwartz’s Passover Apple Cake.
Pecan Matzoh Balls? What About Roasted Fennel?
First, a word from our sponsor: We interrupt Alix Wall’s posts about Vietnam (at least one more is still coming) to write about a more immediate concern: What is Alix going to cook for Passover?
My husband and I are hosting our family for Pesach. Maybe that isn’t a big deal for some of you, but for me, it is. I only had the seder at my house one other time, and I was so busy that I pretty much let all my family members do all the cooking. Not this year.
I am taking it very seriously this year; maybe because this is the first year that we are hosting, instead of just me. And maybe because I’m thinking of my mom now, and how flawlessly she could pull off a seder. Passover can be a difficult time of year for me; she died only a month after it. She was already very ill at her last seder, in 2002, but she managed to do a great deal of the cooking anyhow.
My uncle has let it be known that his expectations are high, now that I’m a professional chef. I don’t care about that so much. What’s dominating my thoughts these days is the memory of the pecan matzoh balls. Read more »
Last minute notice: Eating Liberally with Manhattan Boro President
Sorry for the last minute notice, RSVP at the Facebook page.
We’re proud to announce this week’s super special event: on Wednesday, 4/9 EATING LIBERALLY welcomes SCOTT STRINGER, the Manhattan Borough President, to discuss “Go Green East Harlem,” a grassroots guide to wholesome home cooking.
To improve public health in East Harlem, Stringer’s office has created a cookbook with recipes contributed by community groups & local restaurants that offer ideas for affordable, accessible, healthy eats.
This FREE event hosted by Eating Liberally will feature snacks, Q&A, guest speakers & a live–and lively–cooking demonstration featuring the Borough President himself.
Lynn Fredericks from Family Cook Productions.
& Author of Cooking Time Is Family Time
will join the conversation.
EATING LIBERALLY with SCOTT STRINGER
& “Go Green East Harlem”
Wed, April 9th - 6-8pm
The Tank @ C:U - 279 Church St
www.eatingliberally.org
Read it & Eat: Review of Cooking Jewish
Books, Cookbooks, Cooking, Family & Kids, Food Writing, Jewish Culture, Kosher, Meat, Photography, Recipes, Shabbos Meals, Women
I’ve only had my copy of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
As the title might suggest, this book is a family affair. Author Judy Bart Kancigor beautifully describes how the book came into existence, stemming from a desire to pass on her family’s food traditions. As a result, almost every recipe has a story, which can be a bit overwhelming at times, but ultimately brings the recipes to life. It’s not just a cookbook; you feel invited in, as though you’re taking part in the Rabinowitz family tradition by making this food. And the pictures are great – a time-capsule of American Jewish life opened to reveal many embarrassing hairstyles and equally embarrassing bar mitzvah pictures.
More and recipes for banana bread and sesame crusted chicken below the jump.
The Great Seitan??
Cookbooks, Cooking, Food Writing, Humor, Kosher, Meat, On The Web, Politics, Rant!, Recipes, Vegetarian
“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” - Anthony Bourdain, “Kitchen Confidential,” p. 70
Tell us how you really feel, Anthony!
Of course, vegetarians and vegan chefs were not about to take this crude, carnivorous cri de coeur lying down, and thus was born Hezbollah Tofu, a blog where vegan chefs are systematically veganizing chef Bourdain’s most celebrated recipes. They plan on selling the resulting compilation, and donating the proceeds to vegan causes (farm sanctuaries, public education, etc) in Bordain’s name. Take that, Anthony!
This topic brings up a whole host of questions for me, as a Jew and as a self-professed foodie who also strives to eat sustainably (although not regularly animal-product free):
Yid.Dish: Rice Gelato
I never fancied myself a desert person - for most of my life, I’ve chosen the extra bowl of pasta over the ice cream. But after receiving an ice cream maker as a gift, I felt compelled to buy David Lebovitz’ beautiful book on ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and other sugary treats, Perfect Scoop. Owning this book might just turn me over to the sweet side.
Lebovitz’ recipe for Rice Gelato especially caught my eye. It’s rich and creamy but has a substantive texture lacking from most ice creams - think rice pudding or risotto. And while it’s not exactly healthy, it is a perfectly decadent treat for celebrating Purim.
Recipe below the jump
Queen Esther the Vegetarian?
In this week’s Jerusalem Post, Dr. Richard Schwartz writes:
“Queen Esther, the heroine of the Purim story, was a vegetarian while she lived in the palace of King Achashverosh. She was thus able to avoid violating the kosher dietary laws while keeping her Jewish identity secret.”
Well, sort of. As a vegetarian and a woman, I find Dr. Schwartz’s line of logic tempting. Hooray! Queen Esther, the sassy savior of the Jewish people, loved tofu! But he has the midrash backwards.
There are actually conflicting opinions about what Esther chose to eat and refuse in the palace (one commentator suggests that she was actually served pork!). But the midrash that stuck is that she ate beans and legumes. If this was the case, then Queen Esther avoided meat so as to not violate the kosher laws in her non-Jewish surroundings. Her intention would not have been to eschew all flesh, as Dr. Schwartz suggests, just the non-kosher kind.
Even if she wasn’t a card-carrying PETA member, Queen Esther’s diaspora diet gives us a glimpse into the strength of her character. She maintained her sense of self, even within a palace that was undoubtedly filled with temptations. The lesson to take away is not that all Jews should be vegetarians (though many could benefit from eating less meat!), but that defending one’s core values is the deepest form of heroism.
In honor of Queen Esther, here’s a recipe for Persian Stuffed Peppers by Chef Gil Marks, author of a mind-bogglingly comprehensive book of vegetarian Jewish recipes, Olive Trees and Honey.
Yid.Dish: Savory Hamantaschen
Tradition, shmadition, I hate poppy seed hamantaschen. I find this old-world filling to be gritty and saccharine and really just a vile affront to the taste buds. So when a friend suggested bringing a can of the corn syrup-laden stuff to my recent hamantaschen-making party, I kindly (but firmly) let her know that my home is mohn-free.
I don’t think she missed it too much. My kitchen table was strewn with interesting pots of jam (cherry-apricot from the farmers’ market, and blueberry canned last summer by the Adamah fellows), a container of raw honey, another of Nutella, and even a jar of peanut butter brought by a friend who insisted it could be great (it was).
But the highlight of the evening, without a doubt, centered around our experiments with savory hamantaschen - pockets of dough filled with an earthy mixture of sauteed mushrooms, browned onions, and a garlic and basil-infused jack cheese by the Sugar River Cheese Co. Turns out, I’m not the first person (or even the second) to dream up a savory Purim cookie. Still, as we bit in to the warm, herb-flecked treats, it still felt like something of a Jewish food revolution. Poppy seeds, watch your back.
Photos and recipe below the jump…
Sophisticated Shalach Manot (Part 1)
Thanks to Chef Gil Marks for this wealth of resources and recipes that will brighten up your Shalach Manot basket. Chef Marks is the author of The James Beard Award-winning Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, and the upcoming Encyclopedia of Jewish Food - Keep your eye out for more of his Purim ideas and recipes!
Sophisticated Shalach Manot - Recipes
The Megillah declared “… they should make them days of feasting and gladness, of sending portions (mi’sholach manot) one to another and gifts to the poor.” The obligation of shalachmones entails sending gifts of at least two ready-to-eat foods to at least two people. The most common Purim foods are sweets, a symbolic way to wish for a “good lot” or, in other words, a sweet future. It is for good reason that Moslems refer to Purim as Id-al-Sukkar (The Sugar Holiday).
Shalachmones has become a bit commercial lately, many baskets containing the same assortment of bags of snack foods, chemically-laden cakes and cookies, and candy bars. While store-bought foods certainly fulfill the letter of the law, they lack something in the spirit. Homemade goodies show special care and thought and they generally taste better. Granted, many people are simply too busy to prepare their own shalachmones, and they should not feel guilty. If you have the time and desire, prepare any or all of the following impressive treats:
Hamantaschen, Pecan Tassies, Individual Baklava, Leaf Cookies, Fortune Cookies, Flower Spritzes, Almonds Horns, Lemon Halos, Spice Sandwiches, Sarah Bernhardts, Chocolate Bells
Recipes below the jump and Purchase Gil’s cookbook, Olive Trees and Honey here.
