Spring Barley Risotto with Asparagus and Lemon
On Tu BiSh'vat it is customary to eat foods from these seven species: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates.
This recipe is more nutritious than typical risotto and has that same risotto consistency, plus the natural starch in the barley grain adds creaminess to the dish. The use of saffron mimics the classic Risotto Milanese, which some connect to the Venetian Jewish community.
Summer Barley Salad
One summer I created this recipe combining herbs in my garden with store produce.
Czech Apple-Filled Yeast Cake (Ceske’ Buchty)
This cake combines Czech culture with Jewish tradition, placing the symbolic holiday apple inside the traditional Czech dough and making it into a ring to symbolize a year of never-ending good.
Hungarian Cabbage Strudel (Káposztás Rétes)
Cabbage was very popular in Ashkenzic communities during all the Jewish fall festivals.
Algerian Chicken with Quince
According to Clemence Barkate, an Algerian now living in France, the traditional Rosh HaShanah dish served in her home city of Constantine was chicken with eggplant, honey, and quince (a hard and crisp fruit resembling something between an apple and a Bartlett pear and has a perfume-like fragrance when cooked).
Algerian Vegetable Melange in Pastry Shells
This simple but elegant holiday dish is served at the Aferiat home. Yolande Aferiat, from Oran, taught her daughter-in-law, Kathy, how to make it. Kathy, in turn, described it to me. Kathy’s use of peas rather than fava beans is a sign of the Americanization of Yolande’s traditional dish.
Apple and Honey Cake Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce
I created this recipe from leftover honey cake.
Talkin 'Bout My Generation
Can you hear it? They’re talking about us again. They’re theorizing and pontificating on us 20s and 30s, jumping to conclusions about our Jewish identity. They’re pointing to declining numbers in affiliation with synagogues and other institutions, and they’re afraid. Terrified, even.