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I just began reading a book about five immigrant families who lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side of New York at the turn of the century. 97 Orchard details the hardships that each group faced upon their arrival to the New World, and goes on to talk about the culinary influences that […]
It was in the early 1980s when Norm and I decided to build our first Sukkah. Neither of us had grown up with one, and so we had no family traditions to help guide us. We had to create our own, discover our own way, and find traditions that we were comfortable with. One year […]
We get together for so many communal holiday meals and still we plan one more. At the end of Yom Kippur, after a long and difficult day we have this desire to share another ritual with our friends, breaking the fast. One would think that people would want to go to their respective homes to […]
Growing up, all of my parents’ friends were Polish Jews. As immigrants, they wanted to surround themselves with people who had similar experiences and backgrounds, people who shared common customs, language, and food. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I met Jews who looked different, spoke Hebrew or Ladino (as opposed to Yiddish), […]
It’s the Sunday morning before Rosh Hashana and Norm and I have been busy in the kitchen all morning. Norm is baking bagels and baguettes, experimenting with new recipes. Schav borscht is cooking on the stove, just because there is still so much sorrel in the garden. I have dough rising for challot, and I […]
There was a flurry of activity that took place before every Rosh Hashana. The purchase of new clothing and shoes for the New Year. The smell of chicken soup cooking on the stove, and round Challas baking in the oven of my mother’s kitchen. My mother standing over mounds of dough that she rolled and […]
Bamitbach 