The Tennessean, April 2, 2008
by Nicole Young

Haroset is a fruit and nut mixture. Brisket is a beef cut. And matzoh is unleavened bread, which is bread that has not risen or does not contain yeast.

All these foods can be found on a Jewish table during Passover, a holiday lasting eight days to represent the exodus of the Hebrew people from slavery in ancient Egypt.

This year, Passover begins April 19 at sundown.

During Passover, Jewish followers are not permitted to eat anything that rises, meaning nothing with yeast. But, the holiday is considered one of two big food holidays for Jewish followers.

"It's a wonderful holiday for children and men," said Patsy Wind, a Gordon Jewish Community Center (GJCC) member and West End resident. "The women have a lot of cooking to do. There's no telling how long we spend cooking. It's easy, but it's just time consuming."

Wind, along with about 35 other GJCC members and Nashville residents, signed up for a Nourish Your Mind class on cooking at the center last week featuring guest speaker Judy Bart Kancigor, author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family. Read the whole story

Happy Easter to our Christian friends!

What is your most indispensable ingredient, whether you’re preparing an elegant company repast or a humble weekday family dinner? The onion, of course!

“A good onion is always worth the tears,” said Linda Griffith, who with husband Fred wrote “Onions, Onions, Onions: Delicious Recipes for the World’s Favorite Secret Ingredient” (Chapters Publishing, $14.95).

This James Beard award-winning cookbook tells you everything you ever wanted to know and then some about onions in all its colors and forms – from Spanish to Pearl to Walla Walla – and its cousins in the allium family: leeks, ramps, scallions, chives, shallots and garlic. Try cooking without them – I dare you!

As much fun to read as to cook from, this passionate book is filled with onion lore from the tombs of Egyptian mummies – “[Onions] were placed in the thorax or pelvis, or in the ear or near the eyes, perhaps because they were believed to improve breathing” – to the use of onions in language – Yiddish curse: “ You should grow like an onion with your head in the dirt and your feet in the air!”

Mouth-watering recipes ensure that this cookbook will soon become splatter stained: Chive Crêpes with Smoked Salmon; Alsatian Onion Quiche; Chicken Liver Pâté with Applejack, Scallions and Chives; Crisp-Roasted Duck with Leek and Orange Stuffing.

For your Easter feast, try Potatoes and Onions, Alsatian-Style, a rich and creamy casserole that the Griffiths claim is “not for the faint of heart”!

“It gets its inspiration from a traditional potato and Muenster cheese combination that we first encountered in the dining room of a tiny inn high in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace,” they write. You can substitute Pont l’Évêque or Port Salut for the Alsatian Muenster or even Monterey Jack.

Pastor Paul Wirth of a Tampa area church made headlines last week – I swear I’m not making this up! – when he challenged married couples in his congregation to have sex for 30 days in a row as a reaction to the nation's 50-percent divorce rate. (Unmarried couples were encouraged to abstain.)

Note that this pronouncement came after Valentine’s Day and not before, causing me to ponder – why is only one day a year set aside for showing love? A new cookbook proves the old maxim: A couple that cooks together stays together. Okay, that’s not the maxim, but you get the idea.

Meredith Phillips, best known for her starring role in ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” has compiled her favorite couple-friendly recipes in “The Date Night Cookbook: Romantic Recipes for the Busy Couple” (Terrace Publishing, $29.95).

Lamb Vindaloo, Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne, Buffalo Chicken Satay, Rosemary-Orange Cream Brûlée. Think these dishes are only for “company”? Read on.

“Food is about nourishing people, but cooking together is about nourishing your relationship,” she writes. “People today seem so much busier than they were in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. It’s hard to make time to cook a meal at home.”

Phillips, a classically trained chef, met her live-in boyfriend Fritz in cooking school. Drawn together by their love of food and cooking, they make one day a week date night, but with a twist. On this night they stay home and cook together.

“When we’re cooking we have fun, which is so important in a relationship,” she says. “Our tastes and styles intermingle, especially on date night, because it’s done together and with love.”

Molly O'Neill brings the story of my grandmother's cholent to grandparents.com. Read the story.

It has all the elements of pulp fiction biblical style: the foolish king (Ahasuerus), the spurned wife (Vashti), the wicked first minister (Haman), the brave and beautiful maiden (Esther) and her honorable protector (Mordecai). Add to the mix an assassination plot foiled and a people saved...To celebrate our deliverance, sweets are the order of the day.

To read the complete story, see OU's Shabbat Shalom.

In December I whipped up some hummus and eggplant appetizer with host Henry Tenenbaum on KRON-4 TV - a little Jewish cooking on his Christmas show! So much fun! Click here to watch the segment on YouTube.

For the recipe click here.

Don your aprons, light those ovens and…go!

by Judy Bart Kancigor
OU's e-zine Shabbat Shalom

Thirty contestants in last month’s Second Annual Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off semi-finals chopped, seared and sautéed their way for the chance to compete in the finals, to be held in New York on February 27. The grand prizewinner will take home a $25,000 prize package, including a GE Profile kitchen, cash and READ MORE

Kosher cooking contest winners to compete in finals

by Judy Bart Kancigor
Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, Feb 21, 2008

“While the other kids were playing house, I was playing restaurant,” Evan Levy
of Danville, Calif., recalled. He was one of the semifinalists in the
Second Annual Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off western regional competition
held Dec. 20 at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco.

Lucky me – I was one of the judges!

“I started very young – I went to Mom’s cooking school,” Levy said. “My READ MORE

If you’re the type who thinks of the “main course” as dessert rather than the entrée, read on.

Alice Medrich knows a thing or two about dessert. Dubbed the “patron saint of chocoholics” by the San Francisco Chronicle, she is the founder of Cocolat, the legendary and innovative Bay Area pastry company that revolutionized chocolate making from the mid 1970’s to the early ‘90’s. Since then her books have won the coveted Cookbook of the Year and Book of the Year awards from the James Beard Foundation and The International Association of Culinary Professionals three times.

While we know and love Medrich for her life in chocolate, her latest cookbook “Pure Dessert” (Artisan, $35) focuses on our favorite course using flavorful, inspired ingredients, from fresh cheeses and yogurts to Tahitian vanilla, all prepared simply.

Sour Cream Ice Cream. Plum and Almond Tart. Chestnut Tuiles. Jasmine Panna Cotta. If overly sweetened, frilly, gooey desserts are your thing, look elsewhere. The emphasis here is simply flavor.

“The best chefs cook savory food simply, with the best ingredients,” she writes. “Why don’t we make more desserts that way?”

Each chapter offers recipes centered on natural ingredients: milk; grain, nuts and seeds; fruit; chocolate (of course!); honey and sugar; herbs and spices, flowers and leaves; wine, beer and spirits.

Whether she’s brewing jasmine tea for tuiles or caramelizing sugar for honey caramels, this master teacher encourages rather than intimidates with clear, precise instructions. Thirty-one introductory pages guide you through proper techniques, equipment and shopping for ingredients.

The most important tip for a beginner, she advises, is what the French call mise en place, setting out and preparing all the ingredients in advance.

Schalet, cholent, kugel, charlotte – any connection?

In my latest column on OU's website I find that one of these favorite dishes is the ancestor of the others. Can you guess what it is? Read the full story.

Watch the video as I prepare Stuffed Orange Sweet Potato Cups with the ebullient Shelley Goldberg, NY1’s Parenting Consultant, and kibbutz about holiday food traditions you can take part in with your children.

RECIPES FEATURED IN THIS SEGMENT

Stuffed Orange Sweet Potato Cups

Grandma Sera Fritkin's Russian Brisket

Potato Latkes

Cookin' for Love Malaysian Latkes with Minty Cucumber Yogurt Sauce