I am fresh from my holiday challah baking class at Breads bakery with Chef uri Scheft and reading recipes. In North America, it is not even Labor Day Weekend, and national newspapers are printing their Jewish New Year’s recipes for readers (since the holiday is so early this year). Some of the standouts this year are:
Melissa Clark of The New York Times shares her Honey Cake with Red Wine and macerated plums with lemon thyme recipe. It includes a VIDEO of her preparing it. She never enjoyed her grandmother’s honey cake; she thought it was dry. She requires FRESH cardamon, and she uses olive oil instead of vegetable oil for an herbal, richer flavor and a full-bodied red wine instead of coffee. She says it provides good aromatherapy for Rosh Hashana.
For me, it is not Rosh Hashana unless I read a recipe from Joan Nathan, the queen of Jewish American cooking. She does not disappoint. For 2013, i nThe New York Times, she discusses her trip to northwest Morocco this Summer and the use of artisinal couscous. She follow-up on this with her visit to the hipster side of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and her meeting with Ron and Leetal Arazi at their NYShuk food stand. They trained at the Tel Aviv kitchen of Herbert Samuel, one of Israel’s top restaurants. They share their Rosh Hashana ideas for couscous. Joan also includes a VIDEO.
The Los Angeles Times disappoints. No recipes yet, but there is a profile of a popular Studio City deli owner who passed away, and a visit to Elegance in Meats a suburban meat store, to discuss briskets and the customers who come in to have their meat sliced. Last year at Rosh Hashana, they sold 1,500 briskets. At two briskets per cow, that’s 750 head of cattle, or 10,000 pounds of brisket. About 400 briskets came back for slicing.
In Columbus, Ohio, the Little Minyan went apple picking to prepare for the New Year. They can send some to Chicago, where Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune and their news service newspapers talks desserts. For a sweet new year, he recommends Mixed Berry and Apple-honey snow, as per Laura Frankel, the executive chef of Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago.
Bonnie Benwick of The Washington Post also includes a chat with DC area resident, Joan Nathan. The Washington Post holiday recipe slideshow, brought to us by Shell Oil, features Smoked Whitefish and Chopped Apples in Cream and Chives, Sephardic Leeks with Tomatoes, and Beef, Farro and Prune Overnight Stew. They share the spongecake recipe of District resident Susan Barocas. It is also a pan d’Espagne (bread of Spain), which was a a favorite of Iberian Jews long before the Inquisition. Tom Sietsema of The Washington Post celebrates the holidays with a review of of pastrami and chopped liver sandwich at the Potomac branch of venerable Attman’s deli. The Washington Post blog features an onion eggplant and heirloom tomato tart and date and honey zucchini bread as a way to use up all your harvested zucchinis.
Judy Zeidler, writing for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles has Pomegranate Ice, and a traditional honey-apple sponge cake made with coffee, and a Macaroon Apple Cake that tastes like it is from Sweden or Denmark. The Jewish Journal of LA also hasa chat with Ben Lasser, 85, and his five varieties of kosher mandelbread.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette publishes Jamie Geller’s (Joy of Kosher) recipe for Carrot Honey Cake; and Sarah Gaynes at The Boston Herald shares a cinnamon custard kugel from Marjorie Druker, executive chef and co-owner of the New England Soup Factory and the Modern Rotisserie in Newton and Brookline. Across town at The Boston Globe, Luke Pyenson says it is too early to use apples, so he will use late season Massachusetts area peaches. And further across town, at the Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak Gazette in Colorado, they share the Associated Press recipe for “quick” speedy round holiday challah spiral muffins. (Alison Ladman is actually in Concord NH, even though the recipe is published in Colorado).
The Montreal Gazette has three recipes – one is for a Jewish-Venezuelan style Apple Pie. What makes it Latin American? The apricot jam? Or the person who submitted it is a Polish Moroccan Jew from Venezuela. Rivka Friedman for The Jewish Daily Forward tells the story of the cumin rubbed lamb shoulder with dates (instead of beef brisket) that was inspired by the new location of San Francisco’s Mission Chinese restaurant on NYC’s Lower East Side. The Detroit Free Press highlights Baked Apples with walnuts and dates and mint leaves.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, home to the University of Michigan, the Food Floozie blogger spent a year trying to find the challah recipe of Wildflour Cooperative Community_Bakery which went out of business almost two decades ago. She never found the recipe. But she shares a whole wheat challah recipe here.
Broadway World, which caters to actors, producers, and audiences, shares a raisin spice coconut milk gluten free kugel from Elana Horwich and her MEAL AND A SPIEL, that is called the kugel That Won’t Kill You. Actress Mayim Bialik is recommending these vegan recipes from the nosh pit.
The Jewish News of Greater Phoenix celebrates renewal (aka – phoenix) and the holidays with honey recipes. A new cookbook – The Fresh Honey Cookbook – will be published between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the author, Laurey Masterton, is of Jewish heritage. Her Crispy Fish Fillets in Sweet and Sour Sauce use a quarter cup of honey. And The Wine Spectator shares two Italian style recipes from Eric Kleinman, chef and partner at New York’s ‘inoteca for the holidays, as well as a list of a dozen kosher Israeli wines for pairings. The recipes for citrus chicken and Fregola Sarda with Cavalo Nero, Dried Fruit and Pine Nuts. Speaking of wines, the San Diego Jewish Journal shares their recipe for Rosh Hashana Sangria (includes pomegranates and brandy)
Ellen Kanner, writing for The Miami Herald shares tips from food pros and a full meal. They also give a shout out to the upcoming exhibit on Growers, Grocers and Gefilte Fish: A Gastronomic Look at Florida Jews and Food, 1822-2013, at The Jewish Museum of Florida. The articles experets are Sarah Davidoff, a caterer; David and Artie Goodman, managers of the legendary Miami Beach deli Rascal House; and Zak H. “Zak the punk kid who became a Baker” Stern, a baker from Pinecrest. Miami chef Michelle Bernstein shares her Whole Roast Fish With Toasted Garlic, Oranges and Chiles. Marge Perry shares three recipes in Long Island’s Newsday. They don’t seem simple, but it includes POMEGRANATE-ORANGE CHICKEN THIGHS, and BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH PLUM-BALSAMIC SAUCE.
Members of the Ottolenghi cooking cult can find two holiday recipes on The Forward.
The Sun Sentinel in Florida describes a Rosh Hashanah seder that one family has in Boca Raton Rabbi Korkos and his wife Orli serve beets, sweet potato, beans, cabbage and dates. They share a recipe for Ma’amoul or Date Shortbread Cookies, and Moroccan Fish adapted from “Israeli Flavors” by Pascale Perez-Rubin.
Speaking of date shortbread cookies, I salute Lt. Cmdr. Neal (Naftali) Kreisler of U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (Marine Aircraft Group 11 command chaplain) who writes in Camp LeJeune’s “The Globe” that Rosh Hashanah is a time of reflection and compassionate judgement. Remind me to tell you about the time in Afghanistan when a piece of Sukkah went missing and the Navy Seabees Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 were asked to build a piece of the temporary dwelling. Lr. Cmdr. Rabbi Kreisler, an expert in Saadia Gaon’s Tafsir in Relation to Targum Onkelos, is an alum of Shehebar Sephardic Center on Rehov Misgav Ladakh in Jerusalem.
Joan Nathan makes a challah: The Video from Tablet Magazine
Thanks so much for including my whole wheat challah! I made a few different apple cakes, too – lots of baking this year!