When my sister-in-law called me and asked if I had my mother’s recipe for Spanish rice, regrettably, I had to answer in the negative. Spanish rice holds very fond memories for our family. Consisting of long grain rice sautéed with onions, celery, and peppers and cooked with tomato sauce, this often requested side dish made regular appearances at Friday night dinners and other special occasion gatherings. I’m quite certain that…
One year during the lead-up to Passover, I came across my friend Renee carefully studying the boxes of Passover cake mixes in the grocery aisle of our local supermarket . Renee was a bit nervous. She had a new son-in-law who was joining them for the holidays for the first time. Her son-in-law followed the custom of not eating cakes baked with any matzoh products and Renee was anxious to…
My mother was way ahead of her time when it came to vegetables. Sitting on a chair in the kitchen, watching her clean and trim a head of cauliflower, I knew that if I waited patiently I would be offered a treat: a freshly sliced chunk of the core of the cauliflower, also known as the heart. Nutty and mildly sweet tasting with a satisfying crunch, the fact that it…
My mother diligently prepared hot porridge for our breakfast, day in and day out, until I was seven years old. At that point, I crossed my little arms in protest and told her that I wanted to eat cold cereal from a box just like everyone else I knew. Mom gave up the hot breakfast fight with nary a whimper. She was probably just as sick of making the cooked…
Have you noticed that the days are starting to get a little longer and the quality of light is just a little bit brighter? I’m feeling the imminent departure of winter, not that you’d know it from the temperature outside. This week I was very pleasantly surprised to find a kabocha squash, my favorite winter squash, at my local supermarket, despite the lateness of the season. I pounced on it…
Attending to the myriad of details that accompany a shalom zachar, the gathering celebrating the arrival of a Jewish baby boy on the first Friday night after his birth, is very exciting. Tables and chairs are dragged into the dining room from their hidden storage places, older siblings very generously offer to test the candy platters purchased for the event, and neighbors and friends drop by with plates of homemade…
With the clock ticking and the dinner hour approaching quickly, I pulled out a package of boneless chicken breasts to make grilled lemon chicken. Thankfully, the few simple ingredients called for were readily at hand in my pantry or refrigerator. As the grill pan heated up, I paused when I realized that the directions called for marinating the chicken for at least one hour. With apologies to Julie Albert and…
“I’m strong to the finish ’cause I eats me spinach.” With these immortal words, Popeye tears open a can of spinach, acquires superhuman strength, overcomes his nemesis Bluto and wins the undying devotion of his girlfriend Olive Oyl, that is, until the next cartoon. As a four-year-old fan of the plucky sailor, I asked my mother to buy a can of spinach but she demurred. “I don’t think you’ll like…
My jaw dropped when my sister Sheryl reported that on a trip to the cottage last fall, she and her grown sons Kyle and Michael went foraging for wild mushrooms. “Weren’t you worried about accidentally picking a poison mushroom and dying?” I asked casually. The image in The Story of Babar of the old King of the Elephants eating a toxic mushroom, turning a sickly shade of green, and perishing,…
The telephone rang shrilly. I picked it up and held the phone away from my ear. It was my mother and she wasn’t happy. Somehow, the mishloach manot (the food gift that we exchange on Purim) that my mother had lovingly presented to my family had accidentally been regifted to my Auntie Malka when we found ourselves short one package while out making our deliveries. My Auntie Malka visited my…