Fried chicken holds a special place in my heart. Growing up, it was the meal that I chose to celebrate my birthday and my first Shabbat dinner after returning from sleep-away camp. It was also the pièce de résistance served at my engagement party. Yup, my mother fried chicken for one hundred guests to bring joy to the heart of this once blushing bride. So, when I sampled the chicken…
“We aim to please” is the motto in my kitchen. When entertaining, I try to remember the tried-and-true favorites that family and friends enjoy, but at the same time, I like to nudge the dial a little bit and create new special memories. When my friend Menucha mentioned that she went the extra mile and drove to a bakery that wasn’t local, but baked the most scrumptious pretzel challah, the…
My father was a master gardener, growing juicy red tomatoes, crisp, green cucumbers, and super-sized zucchini, in abundance. The summer that I turned twelve years old, my father offered me a small patch in his garden to grow a crop of my own choosing. When I announced that I was going to cultivate strawberries, my father was all on board. I watered and weeded my plants faithfully, but nary a…
Carrots, arise and protest (why not, everybody else is doing it!). Saddled unfairly with a reputation for being bland and boring, this Moroccan carrot salad will make you think of that unjustly maligned root vegetable in an entirely new way. In this preparation, carrots that are just on the firm side of tender, are dressed in lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, and date honey, enlivened with the warmth of…
Once upon a time, strawberries, like pussy willows and daffodils, were a sure sign of spring. Now that they are in the market year-round, they are no longer the harbingers of warmer, brighter weather. But put some rhubarb alongside the strawberries, and you know it is not too soon to think about buds on trees and Passover.…
This week we celebrated Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet, and that means only one thing: Purim is fast approaching and Passover is not far behind. But there is no reason to panic. This easy broccoli slaw will guarantee you a seat of honor at whatever Purim seudah you are invited to, provided that you bring along enough salad for everyone to have at least two helpings. And the good news is…
I smiled as I stood at my front door and watched my neighbor Ilan skateboard down the middle of our street, while two members of his large brood scootered excitedly behind him. There were a couple of unusual things about this idyllic picture. This scene took place on a record-setting mild day this past January. And nobody enjoyed this unseasonably balmy weather more than Ilan. He’s my snow plow contractor.…
I glanced up at the cerulean, sunny sky and rejoiced in my last precious day in Israel. Then I bent down to pluck another kohlrabi from the ground, twisting, pulling, and removing the roots and leaves, before depositing it in the bucket at my feet. As part of our volunteer work mission in Israel, our group assignment on this cloudless day was to harvest two (very) long rows of kohlrabi…
My father was never happier than when he was stationed in front of a smoky barbecue carefully tending to chicken smoldering on the grill. I’m certainly my father’s daughter and I felt a very special joy last week as I attentively turned and repositioned hundreds of chicken wings and hotdogs on a sizzling grill that was big enough to feed an army. In fact, the Israeli army. Monday’s Grilled Chicken…
My mother had a well-defined repertoire of cake recipes and each one was a testimony to her attention to detail and precision. Marble cake was a regular player on her dessert roster. Egg whites were whipped into billowy, snowy peaks and folded ever so gently into the cake batter. A few tablespoons of cocoa were blended into a small portion of the batter, creating a swirled masterpiece of vanilla and…