This erev Rosh haShana as every year I find myself in the kitchen listening to Selichot at the Kotel making my babushka’s Lekach (honey cake) thinking about her life hoping to become one day as good a cook as she was.My grandmother’s life was not easy at all. She had to run from pogroms from…
Category: Jewish Stories
A Bunch of Ottolenghi’s – Controversial Love
I have a few books in my collection where I am not in sync with the author at all. I guess it is an old question, and we’ve actually learned about this in the Talmud class this year – can you learn/teach Torah from a sage that has gone astray? Think about the arguably most…
More from Gil Marks z’l
Time is precious, but I decided to do my best and persevere in my writing about my favorite cookbooks at least through the summer. Would love to know which kosher cookbooks you are reading! This time I am bringing you another masterpiece from Gil Marks. – Olive Trees and Honey, a totally vegetarian book speaking,…
A New First – Cookbook Reviews
As usual, it’s been really a long time since I’ve written here. Life has been crazy. Crasily great that is! Thank Gd! For the first time in a very long time, I have been happy day after day! It is my sincere thanks that I address to HaShem, Gd Almighty for all the blessings He…
Miracle of Miracles
The older I become the more I think about the meaning of life. Not an original thought, I know. How do we treat life in the course of it? I know I am guilty of mistreating it. Long ago time meant forever, every day was long, many of those to be forgotten or remembered in…
Kasha Varnishkes & Joan Nathan
I just had to share this! Of course, the moment I saw the title of this article ” The Enduring Delights of Kasha Varnishkes”, I just had to say something. I am so happy tablet started this series with Joan Nathan. I love watching the short videos even if sometimes my version of the Jewish…
About Dates
In Judaism there is something that is called gematriah, translated as numerology. Numbers have significance, value apart from their natural one, a special meaning. This is what many people that learn Torah know. In the life of my family, numbers play some mystical role tying people and generations. Sometimes I am trying to figure out…
Thinking of You
According to the Jewish calendar, today is my father’s fifth yortzeit. Fittingly, the Parshah that we are going to read tomorrow is Acharei Mot – אַֽחֲרֵ֣י מ֔וֹת – After the Death. It is really strange to live by the two ways to count time. All of us have two birthdays, two ways to commemorate many…
Was that the Longest Year of Your Life?
Everyone seems to be talking, writing, praying, whining, crying and obsessing about COVID-19. As we say – by now only the lazy one didn’t say anything about it. I guess, I am that lazy one. It’s been over a month since Rosh haShana, and only now did I get the guts to address something that…
Jewish Places of the (Not-So-Distant) Past
Originally posted on Noshing Across the Nation:
כח אַל-תַּסֵּג, גְּבוּל עוֹלָם– אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ אֲבוֹתֶיךָ. 28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. Proverbs – מִשְׁלֵי I love to go to museums. Art, history, architecture, objets d’art, furniture, you name it. Certainly, I look at many things through the prism of the relations to…
Noshing Across the Nation 