Potato Leek Soup

Passover will be unlike anything that most of us have ever experienced before.  This is what it looks like in my kitchen, so far.  I am cleaning, but not with my usual zeal. I have a fair amount of kosher L’Pesach products, but this year I will be forgiving, and will use substitutions, within reason.  […]

Ribollita

It is the fourth day of Chanukah and, for Los Angeles, it is cold, gray and dreary.  I decided that instead of latkes, I’ll make soup.  One of those hearty filling soups that only needs a good piece of bread to go with it,  and a glass of red wine. I first tasted this dish […]

Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup

Last month we went to Philadelphia for a family wedding.  It was not only great to be there for Beth and Zach, but it was also a reunion of the remaining first cousins of the Graf family.  There were six of us present (including myself and my sister) and after the wedding weekend, five of […]

Harira (vegetarian)

January 11, 2015 On our trip to Toronto last month we stayed in a hotel that we had chosen based on location and convenience.  The sad occasion for the trip, (my father-in-law had passed away), seemed to be echoed by the hotel.  Built in some era long ago, the front part of the property was […]

Curried Zucchini Soup

I often think of my mother, but as Chanukah approaches her memory burns bright.  She would stand at the kitchen counter with her box grater, and one by one grate the potatoes on the side with the finest holes.  Grated, not shredded.  No food processor in sight, just hard work that often resulted in raw […]

Schav Borscht (Sorrel Soup)

Mother’s Day may feel like a Hallmark holiday but it does force us to stop whatever we are doing for a minute, an hour, or a day, and think about our mothers or our role as mothers.  My mother was a petite, olive-skinned woman with medium brown hair and the deepest set blue-grey eyes I […]

Red Lentil Soup

We are weeks away from Passover and I am starting to feel the pressure. What is it about this holiday that brings out an obsession with cleanliness in a way that is totally and completely out of character?  I approach the task with a vengeance, a virtual attack on that lurking piece of hametz that might […]