This entry is also posted on Dr. Sukol’s blog, Your Health is on Your Plate.

About a year ago, a friend of mine got interested in the raw food movement.  Raw foodists prefer their food, as advertised, raw.  Uncooked.  She said it changed her life.  OK, lots of people say stuff like that.  But I have to admit that I see the difference – she is more relaxed, and brimming with beauty and energy.  Four kids?  No problem!

So she had been wanting to introduce me to her new style of cooking, and we decided to get our families together for dinner.  No deal.  We couldn’t make it fit all our crazy schedules.  We resigned ourselves to the fact that we had to put the idea on hold until things settled down a bit.  My daughter was a little disappointed, having been introduced to the raw food movement as a college student in Toronto, but the boys were secretly relieved, skeptical as they were about the idea of eating “raw food.”  I decided to withhold judgment for the meanwhile. 

Then last night I had the good fortune to attend a picnic in the woods complete with tiny electric lights, an enormous bonfire, spectacular grilled salmon, great company, children of all ages, and a talented guitar player.  Something for everyone.  And a raw peach pie, courtesy of my friend, who was also in attendance.  It was fantastic.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.

This morning I called her for the recipe.  She measured one cup each of raw almonds and brazil nuts, and placed them in a water-filled jar to soak overnight.  The next day she drained the water, and placed the nuts in a food processor with 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and a scant 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.  She processed the contents until the consistency of meal, and then added 6-8 dates (Medjoul variety, the finest and sweetest) to make a dough.  She pressed the dough into a pan to form a crust, and then placed it in the freezer to firm up while she finished the recipe.

Next she cut 6-8 peaches into chunks, and mixed them with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional), and 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg.  I was surprised to learn that the less sweet the peaches, the more important it was to include the lemon juice.  Then she slid the peach mixture into the crust, and refrigerated it until it was time for dessert.

Now, here’s what I want to know, and I’m going to need your help, dear readers.  First, you have to make this recipe, or take it to the family cook in your kitchen, and help them make it.  Then, you’re going to take out your glucometer or borrow one from a friend or relative.  Now you’re going to check and record your sugar, eat a slice of raw peach pie, and recheck your sugar 1 hour later. 

How much did your blood sugar rise?  Send a comment and let me know.  If I’m right, this pie will not spike your blood sugar like a traditional one made with a flour crust.  So, depending on how insulin-resistant you are, you may be able to eat a slice of this pie without hesitation, without worry, and without spiking your blood sugar.  And even if you are diabetic, you may be able to eat a slice, knowing that the blood sugar spike will be modest instead of astronomical.   

And did I mention how good that pie was?  I went back for a second piece before I’d finished the first.  OK, yes, I’m hooked.

This is a wonderful Parve side dish that I’ve been making for the past five years. Ask anyone in my family and they’ll tell you it’s a favorite at home. (My dad especially loves it). This recipe is simple and delicious and can be made up to a day in advance.

When I make this dish I usually use whole wheat spaghetti instead of regular. My little brother will not eat anything made of whole wheat because of the color and my Dad does not like the taste. What’s great about this dish is that the sauce disguises the color and flavor of the pasta!

About ½ of a package of thin spaghetti (Cook a little al dente unless you are using whole wheat pasta)

1.5 tbsp of creamy peanut butter

3-4 tbsp of soy sauce (I usually use low sodium and it still tastes great)

3-4 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp ginger powder

A pinch of cayenne pepper (optional depending how big of a kick you want)

1-2 tbsp sesame seeds to mix into the sauce and it’s nice to have extra on hand for garnish

2 small thinly sliced scallions for garnish

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. Meanwhile, in a big bowl whisk together the soy sauce, sesame oil, and peanut butter until it forms a smooth, caramel colored sauce. It may take a minute or two before the peanut butter really mixes with the soy sauce and sesame oil to form the desired texture so don’t be discouraged! Next, mix in the ginger, cayenne, and the 1-2 tablespoons of sesame seeds.

When the spaghetti is ready, drain and let it cool for a minute. Once the pasta is cooled, pour it into your bowl with the sauce. Mix the spaghetti until it is completely covered with the sauce. If you see that the pasta is too dry, go ahead and add a dash more sesame oil or soy sauce or both.

Next, sprinkle your scallions and extra sesame seeds on top. Let the noodles cool in the fridge for around an hour or until you are ready to serve. It can be served at room temperature too, but trust me it tastes great cold.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family does!

B’tei Avon

Holiday accommodations span far wider than hotels and motels.

Whether a host, guest, family member, friend, neighbor, colleague, or otherwise, the holidays are a time when we are all brought together under many circumstances, and required to deal with each other in ways unlike most other days. It brings out the best and worst in everyone.  For me, it often feels like these decisions define me. I have always struggled in balancing truth with tact, and tend to be either far too blunt and direct or completely spineless. And of course I also struggle with wanting so very much to accommodate without compromising my principles or even identity.

An example from my own experience. One Passover, a couple showed up, stoned, and presented me with a cake. Not exactly the Elijah I was expecting. And this was a real, Italian bakery, flour and butter laden, gorgeous cake. I had no idea what to do. Part of me was humiliated, because they know I am observant. Part of me was terrified not to be a gracious host, or to spoil the otherwise wonderful occasion. Part of me (a really big part of me) wanted to slap them silly. So what did I do? I put it out on a non-Passover plate and kicked myself for the rest of the holiday. Not my greatest moment.

There are other dilemmas. What do you serve for Thanksgiving? Do you send holiday cards? Do you attend Christmas parties or invite non-Jews to your Chanukah gatherings? Is a cookie exchange acceptable? Do you nibble on the catering at the company holiday party? I feel like November and December are fraught with these kind of decisions. And while the actual choices are very important, often the process and conversation are equally if not more significant. If you refuse that holiday ham, can you do it in a way that does not offend? How do you not break bread without breaking faith? What can you offer to mitigate your refusal?

I’d like to hear more of your stories. How do you accommodate for the holidays?

I love cooking big dinners especially when they come with interesting dishes or new culinary challenges.  Thanksgiving has been a favorite of mine for a long time, since I have in part not been celebrating the Jewish food holidays for all that long.   Even when I was college I was whipping up elaborate meals despite limitations to space (one year it was a dormitory kitchen in the basement of the building) or even supplies (I forgot to buy aluminum foil so I improvised by covering my chicken, not a turkey, in applesauce, which by the way kept the meat moist and gave it a slightly sweet flavor).

Living in New York City poses its own set of advantages and challenges.  I mean in New York, you can get anything and usually get it delivered (at least in Manhattan).  I’ve found that mostly to be true – that was until I tried to serve venison for Thanksgiving.

A couple of years ago I decided that Thanksgiving was all about traditions.  Whether or not the legends of Pilgrims and Indians was anything like what we used to represent out of construction paper, glue and paper bags, my Thanksgiving table was going to be full of indigenous and local produce.  That was remarkably easy to procure in New York City.  I ordered my Heritage Turkey at The City Bakery and gathered my veggies at farmer’s markets.  But venison is hard to find in NYC and the clock is always ticking.

Perhaps here is where I should point out that I start planning for this holiday weeks in advance.  I am totally a list maker and once the menu is set, I plot and plan on where and when I will procure what is required.  I dash around the City often picking up specialty items from various locations.  My grocery list is set by date and location.  But even with the best of planning there are always obstacles.

I had previously found venison at the 125th Street Fairway market, but around Thanksgiving they don’t restock specialty meats (like game) in favor of more room for turkeys.  This year, I played phone tag with “Raymond” the Meat Department manager for a week until he rudely told me no, they didn’t carry venison and would not special order for me despite previously telling me that he would do so if I would only call back later.  Apparently this is a stressful time of the year for Meat Department managers.

Not having much luck with any other grocery store I called, I made my case to the next obvious choice – Facebook.  “Mia Rut still needs venison. Fairway has been giving me the run around for a week only to hang up on me now. Very annoyed,” said my status update.  Remarkably there were some good suggestions including my uncle, who as a hunter apparently has a bunch of venison tucked away in his freezer.  Too bad he doesn’t live any closer.

So the search continues.  Time is running short, my money is running out and I think that our menu may have to be adjusted.  However, despite the lack of deer meat on our table, we have a slight variation to our theme this year.  We typically host a Thanksgiving Shabbat dinner, foregoing a big meal on Thursday in favor of a more communal Friday night (friends often share Thanksgiving with family, but will come over for Shabbat dinner the next night).

This year we are shaking things up by using traditional Thanksgiving ingredients placed into a traditional Ashkenazi Shabbat dinner – traditional flavors presented in surprising ways.  So instead of matzo ball soup and gefilte fish we are starting out with fish consume.  I even started testing out the more experimental dishes, and thus far they have had rave reviews.  Everything is homemade, even the cranberry pasta for the kugel (use cranberry juice concentrate instead of water) which was another feat of scouring the city for a pasta machine (that didn’t cost an arm and a leg). But feel free to weigh in how this menu sounds:

Corn Bread Challah
Fish Consume
Cornish Hens Roasted in Acorn Squash
Butternut Squash Gravy
Seared Venison Sashimi
Cranberry Sauce Kugel
Chestnut and Sage Stuffing in Baked Apples
Roasted Pumpkin in Soy and Crushed Sesame
Green Bean Gelee
Mashed Japanese Sweet Potatoes with Kimchi
Tzimmis Sorbet
Shoo-Fly Pie
Chocolate Cake

When Job reflected upon the wisdom of God’s creation “Truly the ear tests words as the palate tastes food” (12:11), could he have been alluding to the remarkable evolutionary development of the bones in our middle ear?  According to Natalie Angier in her article in the Science Times section of the New York Times today,

“Imagine what a dinner conversation would be like if you had decent table manners, but the ears of a lizard.  Not only would you have to stop eating whenever you wanted to speak, but, because parts of your ears are now attached to your jaw, you’d have to stop eating whenever you wanted to hear anybody else….Sometimes its the little things in life that make all the difference – in this case, the three littlest bones in the human body.  Tucked in our auditory canal, just on the inner side of the eardrum, are the musically named malleus, incus, and stapes, each minibone, each ossicle, about the size of a small freshwater pearl  and jointly the basis of one of evolution’s greatest inventions, the mammalian middle ear.  The middle ear gives us our sound bite, our capacity to masticate without being forced to turn a momentary deaf ear to the world, as most vertebrates are.   Who can say whether we humans would have become so voraciously verbal if not for the practice our ancestors had of jawboning around the wildebeest spit.”

Without this development, we’d have no Passover or Tu Bishvat seders, no motzi or kiddush, no singing or word games with friends over dessert in the sukkah.  The convivial conversations that turn mere eating into the pleasures of dining, the “words of torah over the table” (m.Avot 3:3) that make Jewish meals Jewish meals would be impossible.  In this fall season, surrounded by the beauty of the changing leaves, the bounty of the harvest on our tables, and the words to describe them and share with good company, I feel such gratitude.  “Blessed are you God, ruler of the world, oseh ma’aseh bereshit -who crafts the work of creation.”

I love to host the holidays. Nothing gives me more pleasure than planning, marketing, preparing, and entertaining for these special times, and I have established a tradition of going a little over the top for the occasion.

I also loved the books Julie and Julia as well as My Life in France. Both inspired me to swipe my mom’s old copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and happily start practicing. That was 2 or 3 years ago, and my appetite was rewet when I heard the film was coming out this summer. It inspired me to begin planning Le Marais, or an all Julia Child tribute to Rosh Hashanah.

In many ways the planning was consistent with other themes in my life. For example, we live in a very small place, so much so that for every item we bring in, another needs to move out. It’s a real house of cards and sometimes frustrates me to no end. But there is a wonderful economy that comes from living like this. We are bound by our limitations, and so when we go furniture shopping, we have to look high and low for something sized within reach. I can’t just purchase that cute little serving dish that caught my eye because there is no where to put it and I am not ready to sacrifice what I already have. It seems that having fewer options leads to better choices, as well as less wasted time spent searching. The entire Le Marais exercise echoed this bit of wisdom.

So now that you know I like to be challenged by boundaries, here were my self imposed rules:

1. We don’t keep kosher Per Se, but we do try to keep a Jewish home. I do not mix milk with meat, nor do I cook seafood or pork in my home.
2. The main dish would be meat and needed to have apples listed in the ingredients.
3. There had to be enough food for at least 6 – 8 people, with room for an additional 2 if necessary.
4. There had to be a kid friendly option on the table.
5. At least one baked desert was required, because I am a masochist mental case.
6. All food had to be based on Julia Child’s recipes.

Now, all of those rules are daunting to even the most fearless cook, but by far the most challenging was number one. JC is all about dairy. To wit, I usually make challah bread once a week using a stand by recipe that has worked for years. Like most challah recipes, it has only parve (not dairy, not meat) ingredients like eggs, oil, and flour. Julia Child has a lovely challah recipe from in Baking with Julia, but it calls for unsalted butter, more unsalted butter, whole milk, and cream. ‘Can’t she just call it a brioche and a ^&$&% day’, I muttered under my breath as I tried to reconcile with my rules. I reread the recipe, and while I could not use it verbatim, I was able to glean from her Method and improve the challah, especially by double egg washing the loaves while baking. And so I learned how to make a better bread, as well as manage the rules of the game.

After the bread planning, I decided to start by searching for a main dish recipe that met my requirements, knowing I would pair everything else accordingly. Rule 1 eliminated more than 90% of the recipes in Mastering The Art of French Cooking (MtAoFC) volumes I and II. Rule 2 left me with a single wonderful option from MtAoFC vol I (p 275), Caneton Roti a l’Alsacienne or Roast Duck with sausage and apple stuffing. I had made the master recipe before with great success, but the apple and sausage stuffing were just over the top. I used a chicken and apple sausage that beautifully complimented the apples, sage, cognac, and port. Two ducks took under two hours, made a wonderful main dish, and my house smell like heaven on earth.

Once I had nailed down the main event, I tackled the next challenge…stuffed cabbage. Now stuffed cabbage is a Rosh Hashanah tradition that goes back to my grand-mother Esther Steinberg-Levy, who handed me her recipe when I was in high school and went to her grave trying to help me get it right. She made it sweet and sour with apples and lemons, and it is a family favorite. Julia Child has an eight page recipe for Chou Farci in MtAoFC vol II (p 379), complete with sausage and ham for the stuffing and several methods. The gist of the primary approach is to dismember an entire cabbage, reconstruct it in a pan with layers of stuffing, and present it ‘whole’ for family and friends. Unfortunately, this requires the dish to be served as soon as it is cooked, eliminating the convenience of cooking the cabbage in advance. I get crazy right an hour or two before the guests arrive; the last thing I needed is some last minute cabbage debacle to unhinge me completely. Therefore I stuck to Nana’s recipe, but used Julia’s alternative method. First of all, I am always getting a savoy cabbage from now on..what a difference. Never again will I boil a whole head of domestic cabbage and burn my first three layers of skin while peeling it. Also, her wrapping technique which is beautifully illustrated, made for a much tighter roll. Maybe next year I will try the mold.

To satisfy rule four, there was apple and honey on the table, as well as her Risotto/Pilaf/Pilau recipe (MtAoFC vol I, p 532). Substituting oil for butter did not detract from the wonderful taste, and to boot I molded it into a rice ring per her suggestion. To serve, I placed the stuffing from the duck on the center and garnished with parsley – fabulous, and my daughter ate it with gusto.

Petites Oignons Aigre-Doux/Sweet and Sour Onions Braised with Raisins from MtAoFC vol II (p 410) paired beautifully with the duck and met my unspoken rule of making little pearl onions that my husband loves so much. The flavor of the vegetable is enhanced by dry mustard, white wine vinegar, tomato, thyme, and bay leaf. And I knocked out rule 5 with a gem from MtAoFC vol I (p 671), Gateau a l’Orange/Orange Sponge Cake. A very simple dessert that has NO DAIRY whatsoever – no substitutions required. I topped it with JC’s apricot glaze, and then rounded it out with almond bits on the side. I could have put it in a box and sold it at Carlo’s Bakery for twenty bucks.

It was a wonderful dinner, with great food and company. Everyone, including me, was impressed with the fare. At one point though, one of my guests remarked about how time consuming it was to cook JC’s recipes, how complicated they were. Hilda is my sister in law’s grand-mother, a shrewd woman with a terrific sense of humor. We love having her in the family, and she always brings something to the table. When she heard about the menu she told us a story about her JC experience.

“I remember it took all day to make those recipes.” she told us in her thick Germanic accent, “When it was done, it was delicious. And I thought ‘Never again’! ”

This is one of the few times where Hilda and I will disagree; while it was time consuming, I cooked 5 recipes in a single day and everything came out wonderfully. This is in part attributable to my wonderful husband, a quiet hero who who took charge of cleaning and watching the kids while I focussed on the food. But help aside, I was able to do a lot in a limited period of time, and for that I thank the author. I love the simplicity of Julia Child, especially compared to her more contemporary peers. There are no excessive ingredients or mysterious techniques; everything is laid out in a way so that the cook feels confident, like Julia is rooting for you. I understand why Julie Powell was so taken by her, and how the entire world loved her so very much. My guests should expect more events like this, and I suspect that they will happily come back for more. Next time I will wear my pearls.

Note:  This piece was originally posted on my blog at cheznoonie.blogspot.com

If my summer were a cookbook, it would be called What to Expect When You’re Expecting— Expecting Company, That Is, and It’s a Heat Wave.

Yes, welcome to life in the global warming oven.  We are on at least heat wave #3 of the summer here in usually temperate Portland, and I’ve had a potluck to attend or guests to host for all of them.  And while the hot weather makes me want to eat ice cream three meals a day, I know I really shouldn’t.

Especially not when “eating” means “bringing to a potluck where it will sit out in the sun.”

So what has been on the menu?  Lots, and I figured I’d share it in case you can’t stand the heat but still need to be in the kitchen.

Before we get too far along, remember, I am not generally somebody who follows recipes, so that means my offerings are going to be rather slapdash.

Occasion #1:  potluck 4th of July block party

Recipe #1: Watermelon Soup

Chop a seedless organic watermelon into chunks, removing the rind.  Puree in a blender with organic fat-free yogurt, plus juice (I used a cranberry blend that’s 100% juice and happened to be lurking in the back of our fridge), plus ground cinnamon and ground ginger.  Pour into a large bowl (it may take several blenders full to puree it all).  Mix in seedless grapes that have been quartered.  Chill.  Forget to garnish with mint before serving and enjoying.  Later, enjoy re-refrigerated leftovers with a shot of liqueur and think “I am a culinary genius!  When is Meryl Streep playing me????”

Occasion #2:  dinner party to which I promised to bring dessert

Recipe#2: Tofu chocolate mousse*

*adapted from The Complete Soy Cookbook by Paulette Mitchell (adapted means she has a great recipe but I am a chocolate fiend, so I up the cocoa powder and triple the recipe because seriously, has anyone ever made too much chocolate mousse?)

Combine 3 packages of firm shelf stable tofu (i.e., not the stuff that’s packed in water and refrigerated), 1 cup maple syrup, 1.25 cups cocoa powder, 1 Tablespoon vanilla and cinnamon to taste in a food processor.  Whir like mad.  Refrigerator before you eat it all yourself.

Occasion #3:  clients over for drinks in the backyard when it is 104 degrees

Recipes #3-#4: Cold soup

The laziest way to impress someone with cold soup:  pour several containers of shelf stable tomato soup into a large pot or bowl and chill. As you ladle each serving into a cup or bowl, garnish with tzatziki, which being lazy you bought in the deli section of the same market where you bought the soup 30 minutes before the guests arrived.

A slightly less lazy and more healthy way:  eyeball organic produce languishing in your fridge, google “raw food broccoli” and find this recipe.  Use way more garlic than it calls for, and also that shallot that, like your broccoli, has been languishing.

Occasion #4:  weekend at a friend’s house on the river

Recipes#5-#6: Herring Spread and Cabbage Salad

What kind of person always has a couple cans of herring in the cupboard?  The kind who can make this dish, so long as she picks up a couple of containers of cream cheese to go with.  Put ingredients in that trusty food processor.  Don’t add cocoa though, that would be gross.  A bissel horseradish, however, couldn’t hurt.  Or dill, if you’ll be with WASPs.  Refrigerate before departing the sweltering city, and keep on ice in the cooler as you drive to the slightly less sweltering country.

Upon arrival, shred 1.5 heads of cabbage (i.e. all that will fit in the host’s largest bowl, and if you have 1 green and 1 purple head, it looks great).  Mix in wasabi mayonnaise (available at Trader Joe’s and transported unopened so it wouldn’t go bad), raisins, and caraway seeds.  Don’t bother refrigerating; it’s so good you’ll just eat it now.

The weather’s supposed to break tomorrow, but just in case it doesn’t . . . what have you been serving on the sultriest days of summer?

It’s one of those things I thought I had sworn never to do again: prepare food for an event. But when a young couple on the kibbutz decided to get married and wanted a “kibbutz wedding,” I somehow found myself in charge of the hors d’oeuvres, (along with my sister, who “volunteered” me.)  

In the old days, a wedding meant that half the kibbutz spent the day in preparation. Our young couple was wedding in a different era: They had to pay for everything themselves; most members work in jobs outside the kibbutz (where taking a day off to work on a wedding is, for some reason, not a given); and there’s no central kitchen with all the necessary equipment, permanent staff and person in charge of procurement.

Though my sister and I had cooked for many events before, we found ourselves in uncharted territory in planning the menu, figuring out quantities, ordering and buying, scheduling the cooking, etc. In other words, we had no idea whether we could really pull off catering appetizers for close to 300 wedding guests.

The groom’s family had requested that one of the five starters be mushroom strudel. Apparently I had made this dish years ago for his older brother’s bar mitzvah, and they still remembered it. (It just goes to show to what extent food is woven into our memories of special occasions.)  Other than that, we decided, in light of the warmth of August evenings, the couple’s limited budget and the fact that the main course was carb-heavy bagels, to keep things light: Two kinds of cold soup, bought stuffed grape leaves, cold eggplant rolls stuffed with pesto and goat cheese, watermelon cubes with Bulgarian cheese and vegetable skewers grilled on-site.

Here’s how it went:

7:19 am, the day before: My sister has made an early-morning trip to the shuk, and brings me 5 kilos of mushrooms packaged in 20 little plastic-wrapped boxes, along with several kilos of fresh basil, dill and parsley. Fortunately, it’s toward the end of the week, and we manage to fit everything in the fridge before I go off to work.

5:30 pm, the same day: Since I can only get into the kitchen we are going to use for the main preparations the next day at 1:00 pm, I have to start cooking in my tiny kibbutz kitchen. My first task: making the mushroom filling for the strudel. The mushrooms are nice and firm, and fairly clean, so I decide they should just be wiped with a paper towel. Two hours later, I’m still cleaning, trimming and chopping (fortunately, the last in the food processor). It’s after 10:00 pm by the time I’ve finally finished cooking batches and batches of mushrooms, whipping up a large container of thick pesto for the eggplant rolls and cooking garlic for the gazpacho.

6:00 am, the day of the wedding:  When I get up to go to the bathroom, there’s no water in the pipes. Ready for complete disaster, I put on my bathrobe and go outside. The mud on the sidewalk tells the story: There’s a leak in front of the neighbor’s house opposite, and someone has turned off all the valves outside their house. Sliding through the mud in my flip-flops, I turn the valve to our house back on. Thankfully, no geyser springs up, and I leave the water on and go home to shower.

7:30: My sister and the groom’s mother have gone to the shuk for the vegetables. While they’re out, I slice radishes for garnish, chop parsley and dill, and imagine all the things that could go wrong with our plan.

9:00: The vegetables arrive. They unload bags, and more bags, and more bags. This seems to be way more than we talked about, but maybe I’ve underestimated. We pile everything on the kitchen table and turn on the air conditioner to keep it all cool. As soon as they’ve gone, I start pureeing peppers and tomatoes for the gazpacho in my food processor, while my sister makes runs to the kibbutz store for onions and cucumbers. On a piece of paper, we figured around 15 liters of each soup, and we have been provided with 18 liter plastic buckets with lids, compliments of the bride. (The sticker on them says “bathroom.” They’re new, but I wash mine well, just to be sure.)

11:30: The gazpacho bucket is finally full, and I’ve had to take a shelf and some of the food out of my fridge to fit it in, sans the top. My sister comes over and asks to borrow my Magimix. She’s making the melon-coconut soup, and her little food processor is too small to handle it. I hesitate, as the motor’s still warm half an hour after it’s stopped, but I give it to her anyway.

 12:45: Phone calls back and forth about how to get everything from our houses and the kibbutz store to the children’s house where we’ll continue preparing the food. In the meantime, the motor has burnt out on my Magimix right on the last batch of melon. My sister doesn’t tell me this though. I load up a cart in the kibbutz store with the final things we’ve ordered. At the last minute, I remember we need something to brush on the grilled veggies and grab a bottle of teriyaki sauce and another of lemon juice.

1:00 pm:  At last, we can start working in a kitchen equipped for quantity cooking. I get the rundown from the children’s cook: Apparently everything — from the oven to the locks on the doors – is old and temperamental. The oven’s thermostat is inaccurate, and it only starts every other time the button is pressed. Still, it holds five large trays, and there’s plenty of work space in the kitchen. The first helper has already arrived, and I set tables up in a row and get her started slicing eggplants.

 Over the course of the next hour, more women arrive to help: the groom’s aunt and grandmother, women who have taken time off or managed to arrange their work schedules to be free on this Thursday afternoon, a dear friend who is in the country for her own son’s wedding.  Soon, they’re all at work chopping, precooking and skewering corn, peppers, squash and onions. This is sisterhood with both a big and a small S. I’m baking the eggplant, overseeing and “running.” Every time I turn around, someone else is washing dishes or taking vegetable trimmings to the compost heap, and I never have to ask. There are complaints about the stifling heat, but they’re good-natured.

3:00 (more or less): I’ve lost track of time, but once we’ve got an assembly line set up for the skewers, I start on the strudel. The filo has only been out of the freezer overnight and out of the fridge for less than half an hour, but it’s already starting to tear, even covered with a damp towel.  None of my helpers has ever worked with filo and now is not the time to learn, so I set myself up in a corner and begin the delicate job of rolling up filling in the thin sheets of dough.

5:15: Mountains of veggies are skewered, the strudel has baked to perfection despite the tricky oven, baked eggplant slices have been rolled around cheese and pesto filling and stuck with tiny wooden forks, and watermelon and Bulgarian cheese have been cubed. We go home for an hour’s break. That’s when my husband chooses to tell me about my Magimix; but he also reminds me it’s got a 12-year warrantee. At this point, all I can think is: “At least she got the melon soup done, first.”

6:30: The party is an hour away. The next crew arrives and begins setting up the watermelon trays: cubes of watermelon topped with Bulgarian cheese and mint leaves. They’re really quite colorful and inviting, and soon we’re snacking on the ones that aren’t so nice. I carefully slice the mushroom strudel and we start arranging trays for the servers, who will have to carry them from the children’s house to the party. I throw the teriyaki sauce, lemon juice, and the left-over olive oil from the eggplants into a jar and send it with a brush to the grillers. Soon, we start to wonder why the grillers haven’t come for the skewers. It becomes apparent that they haven’t started the fires yet, and we’re thinking the grilled vegetables might not make it as starters.

7:20: My sister still has not arrived with the first soup (We had to leave them in our home fridges, as there was not enough room in the ones brought to the children’s house for us.) It turns out she stopped to help clean the grills, which still have not been lit. She is getting steamed about the grills, and I am getting antsy about the soup.

7:30: It’s party time, but no one is there yet. The first servers show up at about 7:35, and we send them off with the trays of soup and watermelon. They come back to say that there are only a few people, and no one is eating. I’m imaging what we’ll do if no one comes to eat these piles of food.

8:00: Things are finally moving. My sister and I have sent the helpers off to enjoy themselves, and we stay behind to refill trays as they come in. The grills are hot by now, and the skewers are moving quickly. The strudel is going  as fast as we can get it out, the watermelon-Bulgarian cheese-mint appetizers are a surprise hit, and someone actually walks down from the party just to tell me how much he likes the eggplant-pesto rolls. It’s already becoming clear, however, that we made way too much soup.

9:00: We were meant to finish serving the appetizers at 8:30, but the first part of the evening seems to still be in full swing. We’re nearly out of the strudel and eggplant rolls, and my sister is desperately trying to send more soup. We’re running a fake competition to see whose soup is more popular and getting the servers involved. We’re starting to ask the servers if there are any signs whatsoever that the huppah is going to begin.  

9:15: The wedding ceremony is finally underway.  As we’re cleaning up, we hear the cheer that means the glass is broken and the couple married. The two teenage girls who have promised to help clean up come right on time and, in a welcome surprise, they throw us out so they can finish the cleaning by themselves.  There is still a fair amount of soup left, as well as vegetable skewers, but everything else is finished.

9:25: I still need to make an appearance at the wedding. Showered and changed, I get there in the middle of dinner. On my way to the table, everyone tells me how great the appetizers were, and which was their favorite. I know it’s gone OK when a friend says “I really want to know what was in the basting sauce for the grilled vegetables!” Once I’ve sat down, I make my husband and friends get up to get me food and soda water. Soon, it will be the turn of the people in charge of the baked goods to get up and work.

10:00 pm: Speeches. Everyone thanks everyone, but mostly, they thank the newlyweds for asking us all to help out. It turns out we’ve rediscovered something about our kibbutz –when we all work together, we can make something great happen.

Photo: Judy Shidlowsky

I know we are in the season of fasts for many Jews but here is a simple (yet a bit time consuming) recipe that tastes great!  We have been getting quite a bit of zucchini in our CSA box.  I even made a healthier version of this (the one without the pineapple) zucchini bread using this recipe.  If you’d like the modified version please post in the comments section and I will get back to you.

Now, I do like zucchini but when it is cooked and mushy it grosses me out a little bit (I have some food texture issues which involve a real dislike of baked/mushy fruits and vegetables).  So, in this reciped I added the veggies at almost the very end of cooking.  If you’d like them cooked a bit more you can add them earlier.

As I mentioned in a previous post, risotto has been a long-time family meal and holds a special place in my heart.  One of the reasons I love risotto is that it is so versatile.  I know many people are intimidated by risotto but this is totally unfounded.  The trick to good risotto is making sure there is always enough liquid in the pan.  You never want the risotto to be so dry that it sticks to the bottom of the pan.  So really the trick might just be attentiveness.

Like my previous risotto post, this recipe isn’t Kosher the way I made it.  However, it is very easy to make it Kosher.  You can use vegetable broth or some sort of chicken-flavored boullion for the depth of flavor that chicken broth gives you.  I would not eliminate the dairy in this recipe.  You just can’t have good risotto without parmesan cheese.  I hope you enjoy this summer risotto!

2 Tbsp good quality olive oil

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

About 6 cups homemade chicken stock (or your pareve substitute)

Corn from 1-2 fresh cobs (depending on the veggie to rice ratio you’d like)

1 large or two medium zucchinis cubed

3/4 cup parmesan cheese plus more for table

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Sautee garlic in olive oil in large sautee pan until soft but not brown.  Add arborio rice and sautee for a minute, stirring so rice doesn’t stick to pan.  Add white wine and stir to combine.  Now comes the fun/attentive/repetitive part…

When the rice has absorbed all of the wine add 1/2 cup chicken stock (or substitute).  Stir to combine.  When the rice has absorbed that liquid, add another 1/2 cup.  Repeat until rice is cooked al dente.  This could take a while!

When rice is just about cooked add corn and zucchini.  Stir to combine.  Cook a few minutes to heat the veggies.  Add parmesan cheese.  Stir to combine.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Don’t fret if you have left overs – day old (or two day old) risotto is great!  I recommend adding a bit of water when reheating.

In the winter, there’s nothing I like more than huddling around a table in a warm kitchen with good friends, sharing a Shabbat meal. Matzah ball soup, cholent, kugels, roasted vegetables, and a nice hefty cake–they’re all perfect dishes for December, or year-round if you happen to live in Siberia.

But I live in New York City, and we’re quickly approaching the time of year when I try to divide my time evenly between sitting outside drinking in the sunshine, and lying motionless on my bed, basking in the glory of my ceiling fan and trying not to melt. This means I don’t want to spend tons of time in the kitchen, and I definitely, definitely don’t want to make cholent. In fact, what I really want is to eat my Shabbat meals outside on a picnic bench or a plaid blanket. But what kind of dishes lend themselves to my July requirements? Here’s a roundup of possibilities you can whip up on a Friday afternoon, and relish in the park the next day.

Soup/Appetizers
There are only two soups I will even consider on hot summer days, and luckily they both basically require a food processor and a spoon–not a minute with the oven on.
Gazpacho (delicious, and the most guilt-free food ever. Yum!)
Cucumber Soup (try our recipes, or Emeril’s–they’re all refreshing, creamy, and smooth with a fantastic kick.)
Or skip the soups (sometimes difficult to mess with bowls at a picnic) and try some finger foods and dips instead. Try our awesome recipes for hummus, (we have a variation with walnuts for the nut lovers), muhammara, pickled cauliflower, stuffed grape leaves, or crunchy and delicious Radish, Chive, and Cream Cheese Tartines.

For a main course, you have a number of options:
Schnitzel travels well and cooks quickly, so you can make it before Shabbat and bring it to the park in a Tupperware without much fuss.
Cold pizza and savory tarts are also great picnic foods. Try our Jewish Italian recipe or these other options:
Three-onion tart with Taleggio
Pizza with caramelized onions, gorgonzola and pecans
Spinach and White Bean Pizza
Lemony Zucchini and Goat Cheese Pizza
Fish can be another good possibility. My standard fish recipe is to take the fish, pour a bottle of salsa on it, close the fish in a pocket of aluminum foil, and cook (time depends on thickness of fish, but typically about 25 minutes). This can be served warm or cold, and is easy to transport in portion sized pieces.

The key to a great picnic is lots of refreshing side dishes and salads. Here are some of my favorites:
Tabbouleh
Black Eyed Pea Salad
Bulgur With Spinach and Dates
Whiskey and Wheat Berry Salad
Macedonian Eggplant
Asparagus, Tofu and Cold Noodle Salad
Chickpea Salad with Roasted Red Peppers
Lentil Salad with Tomato and Dill

Finally, dessert. Sometimes it’s best (and easiest) to just buy some fresh fruit and leave it at that. Cherries, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupe–they’re all delicious this time of year, and relatively easy to bring and serve at picnics. Fruit salad grosses me out, but if you like it, it’s perfect for a picnic. And if you want to be a tad fancier may I suggest this Bourbon Banana Bread that absolutely blew me away when I made it last week. It might be the best dessert I’ve ever made. Other possibilities:
Rhubarb bars
Blueberry Oat Bars (Vegan)
Date Pecan Pie
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Monster Cookies
Winning Hearts and Minds Cake

Wow, is anyone else hungry?

Don’t forget to bring a big blanket, challah, wine, plates, silverware, serving spoons, napkins, cups, beverages, a bag for trash, and benchers (if you wish). I highly suggest resisting the urge to use all paper products and instead going with either biodegradable/recyclable products, or bringing your regular-use stuff outside. Try getting recyclable plastic plates, because they won’t break and aren’t heavy, but you can use your regular silverware, cloth napkins, and non-disposable plastic cups (you can find them at the dollar store and keep them in the closet for big parties and picnics). If you do it right, you can leave your picnic having thrown almost nothing out. Hooray for limiting waste!

Now grab your blanket and get outside!

(Cross-posted at Mixed Multitudes)