Rosh Hashanah

My story in this week's Orange County Register celebrates apples with recipes from "The Silver Palate Cookbook: 25th Anniversary Edition" by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, "A Passion for Baking" by Marcy Goldman and "The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook" by Amelia Saltsman.

You'll find recipes for Cinnamony Baked Apples, Rougemont Apple Pastry Cake, Ellen's Apple Tart, and Baked Applesauce.

From my family to yours, wishing you all a Happy New Year filled with sweet surprises.

The Orange County Register, Thursday, October 25, 2008
by Judy Bart Kancigor

Stroll through the farmers' market, and you feel fall approaching. As we say goodbye to summer's heat, those achingly sweet, soft, dribble-down-your-chin melons, peaches and plums give way to fall's bounty of apples: cool and crisp as an autumn's day. Read the whole story.

Orange County, CA caterer, Blueberry Hill

This week's recipe: BLUEBERRY HILL’S MANGO CHUTNEY BRISKET

I can tell Rosh Hashanah is approaching, because I’m already getting phone calls from my family and friends, my mother’s friends, even strangers!

“Can I make the brisket ahead and freeze it?” “Can I freeze the kugel?” “What should I do about my burnt honey cake?” (Yes and yes to the first two and “Um, do you have a dog?” to the third.)

Jewish cooks the world over are shopping and chopping, searing and sautéing – so many dishes, so little time.

In bygone days our foremothers, stay-at-home moms before that term ever became popular, had little distractions from the task at hand: putting a holiday feast on the table for their large extended families.

Today’s cooks squeeze the job in between work, carpools, meetings, etc. – all while trying to recreate those labor-intensive recipes their grandmothers slaved over. For what is a holiday if not the gathering of families connecting to their roots and traditions?

Now Orange County boasts its own kosher caterer, Blueberry Hill, that can provide a full dinner or even help out with a dish or two so you can enjoy your guests as you celebrate together.  

(“The perception always was that kosher food is awful,” said Beverly Scheftz, who with her son Trevor owns and operates Blueberry Hill, “but it doesn’t have to be that way, and it’s definitely not that way.”

When I was growing up, my large, boisterous family would gather in my grandparents’ tiny apartment inMom and me Belle Harbor, New York, for the festive Rosh Hashanah meal. Papa Harry, who had emigrated from Russia in 1906 as a carpenter, would extend the dining table with boards reaching practically to the walls. The arrival of the aunties with their foil-covered dishes signaled the beginning of the holiday feast, a menu that seldom varied:

For the forshpeis (appetizer) Aunt Estelle’s homemade, lovingly shaped gefilte fish served with Uncle Lou’s horseradish, hand-grated on the back porch to keep out the fumes;

Aunt Irene
Aunt Irene’s golden chicken soup and ethereal matzo balls, followed by Mama Hinda’s roast chicken and brisket with oven-browned potatoes and Aunt Sally’s tsimmes (sweet carrot stew).

The centerpiece of the table was Mama Hinda’s grand spiral challah, round for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a symbol of the endless cycle of life. Only for this holiday would she add raisins, a sweet embellishment to enjoy a sweet New Year.

Sweet notes echoed from the beginning of the meal, as all assembled dipped apples in honey, to the dessert platters wedged onto Mama’s groaning sideboard: Aunt Irene’s dark, dense honey cake, Aunt Estelle’s mile-high sponge cake, Aunt Hilda’s chocolate chip

Up to my eyeballs with Rosh Hashanah preparations – lamb shanks roasting, honey orange sponge cake cooling upside down over a soda bottle, chicken soup simmering, apples all over my counter waiting to be sliced – I hear the doorbell. Slightly annoyed at the interruption, I open the door to find the UPS man delivering my eagerly-awaited copy of “Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia” (Rizzoli International) by restaurateur Efisio Farris with Jim Eber.

A cookbook with honey taking center stage arrives erev Rosh Hashanah. How beshert (destined) is that?

Sardinians flavor not only their desserts, but also their savory dishes with many varieties of local honey: miele millefiori (thousand flower honey), eucalyptus, chestnut, and the afodelo, acacia, and cardo flowers.

But two are truly unique in flavor – abbamele, a honey and pollen reduction they drizzle over ice cream, cheese, fresh fruit...even salads, and miele amaro or bitter honey, made from the flowers of the strawberry trees – a staple in every Sardinian kitchen – whose flavor Farris describes as “a deep yet fleeting sweetness, followed by an appealingly bitter aftertaste.” (Bitter honey as well as

Nonni LizzieA Yom Kippur recipe story. Now, there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is a day of repentance, prayer, forgiveness…and fasting. So this would be a really short story if not for the fact that all good fasts must come to an end, and indeed they do in the lovely tradition called Break-the-Fast.

Dede and Ed Ginter have been hosting a Break-the-Fast at their Fullerton home for the past 35 years. “We have mostly the same people every year,” said Dede, “and we stagger the meal, because different temples get out at different hours."

“But we do have some turnover from year to year,” Ed pointed out. “Whenever we hear of somebody with no place to go, we invite them. Sometimes they are students, or my granddaughter will have a friend who likes to eat, so we say, ‘Bring her along!’”

After a day of praying and fasting, the meal, as in most homes, is dairy. “We have lots of fruit, lox and bagels, a kugel (noodle pudding), poached salmon, a variety of sweets, and my kids’ favorite, cheese blintz soufflé,” said Dede. ”It’s an old recipe and really nice, because you can prepare it before you go to temple. Then when you get home, you bring it to room temperature, and 40 minutes before your guests arrive, you just pop it in the oven, and it puffs up beautifully.”

Dede makes two kugels to please all. “My grandkids don’t like raisins, so I make one with and one

from "The Foods of Israel Today" by Joan Nathan
as seen in The Orange County Register, 9-14-01

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 large egg
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, cut into small pieces
1 cup sugar, divided use
Grated zest (colored peel) of 1 lemon
6 medium (about 3 pounds) Granny Smith or other flavorful apples, peeled and cored
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preliminaries: Fifteen minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees.

1. Put flour, baking powder, salt, egg, butter or margarine, 3/4 cup sugar and zest in food processor fitted with metal blade. Process until soft dough forms. Remove, roll in flour and wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, coarsely grate apples in food processor fitted with grating blade or use large holes on hand grater. Toss with remaining 1/4 cup sugar and set aside in colander to drain 30 minutes. Add cinnamon and toss.
3. Take 2/3 of dough and with floured fingertips, press it lightly into bottom and 2 inches up sides of 9-inch springform pan. Spoon apple mixture evenly into dough shell.
4. Roll out remaining dough on lightly floured surface into 9-inch circle about 1/8-inch thick. Place on top of apples, crimping edges of dough together to seal them. Make a few holes in top with tines of fork. Bake on middle rack of preheated oven 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 30 additional minutes or until golden brown.

Yield: 8-10 servings

from "The Foods of Israel Today" by Joan Nathan
as seen in The Orange County Register, 9-14-01

Salt to taste
1 tablespoon baharat, or to taste; see cook's notes
1 tablespoon ground ginger, or to taste
8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup orange liqueur
1 cup chicken broth
4 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
2 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 oranges, peeled and sectioned

Cook's notes: Joan Nathan says baharat is a spice mixture that varies from cook to cook, but often includes paprika, (ground) chili, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves and salt. "If you can't find the mixture at a Middle Eastern market, choose from you favorite of these spices instead, making sure you include pepper," Nathan writes.

If you prefer thicker sauce, after chicken has cooked, remove chicken from sauce and increase heat to high; boil until reduced to 3/4 to 1 cup. Return chicken to sauce and complete step 5.

from "The Foods of Israel Today" by Joan Nathan
as seen in The Orange County Register, 9-14-01

2 cloves garlic, peeled
8 sprigs (1/2 bunch) fresh parsley, stems removed
1 pound carrots, peeled, cut into 1- to 2-inch lengths
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
Several grinds of pepper

Cook's note: You can add orange slices and/or radish slices to garnish this salad. Add grated or julienne celery root with the carrots in winter.

1. Place garlic and parsley in food processor fitted with steel blade; process until chopped.
2. Add carrots, lemon juice, orange juice, oil, salt and pepper.
3. Pulse until carrots are well-chopped but not puréed.
4. Adjust seasonings and serve.

Yield: 6 servings

from The Orange County Register
September 14, 2001

by Judy Bart Kancigor

When Hana Lustigova Greenfield returned to her native Czechoslovakia in 1945 after liberation from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, she miraculously found her sister, then her rabbi, who was preparing the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). He had the sisters cut an apple and dip the slices in honey, telling them, "As bitter as was our past life, we should have a sweet future."

Just one of hundreds of stories in "The Foods of Israel Today" (Knopf $40), the latest book by Joan Nathan, the award-winning author of "Jewish Cooking in America" and host of the PBS TV series of the same name. More than a cookbook, it is an exhaustively researched and compellingly told saga of a vibrant land and its diverse people, from its rich ancient history through its beleaguered present.

Nathan is a tireless investigator and a good listener. She entered the kitchens of both ordinary Israelis and popular restaurants, gathering stories to accompany the 300 recipes from Jews, Christians and Moslems.