Consider the latke (Chanukah’s version of fast food). It is, in my opinion, the absolute best-est, most perfect, delicious use for the potatoes, better even, in some circumstances, than the French fry, potato chip or potato kugel. The latke has a dark golden crispy crunchy outside and soft tasty middle. I suggest that you use […]

Fruit ripens and then we eat it, right? Not always. The ripe olive is hard, bitter and inedible. The olives in the jar we bring home from the store have undergone weeks immersed in a brining solution, a process essential to bringing out the unique taste and texture of the particular variety of olive. Similarly, […]

One of the lesser know but no less important Chanukah traditions is to serve dairy products (think Shavuot with its long Cheesecake tradition) along with the over abundance of fried foods we like to gobble down. Legend has it that a woman named Judith saved her village from the occupying Syrians. Judith fed wine and cheese […]

Tally ho! It’s pie season and the hunt is on for the best and tastiest and most mouthwatering concoctions your brain (and taste buds) can imagine. I just gotta say it’s about having the right mix of a flaky crust, fresh berries or whatever other fruit you just can’t resist and just enough thickening to […]

How many of us have stood in the canned vegetable aisle of the grocery store and asked ourselves the question “is a sweet potato the same thing as a yam and, if so, which one do I want?” Not a question to keep you up at night or define the boundaries of which team should […]

It has been revered since Biblical times as a symbol of fertility, good health and immortality. Celebrated by King Solomon in the Song of Songs, this tangy, many-seeded fruit with its crimson-hued, leathery shell was abundant in the Garden of Eden and is even thought by some scholars to have been the real “apple” that […]

There’s an old joke in the Jewish community: The High Holidays are always either early or late; they’re never on time! Well, this year they’re late (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on September 29th). But aside from that, this year Shabbat begins one day after Yom Kippur ends (the evening on October 10th). Sukkot, of […]