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Breaking good: recipes for the High Holy Days

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By the time break fast comes along, I’m broken.

I’ve spent 25 hours without food or water. Much of that time I’ve been in synagogue. In the morning, I’m sure I’ll never make it, especially because God seems to wait precisely until Yom Kippur to deliver the hottest day of the year to Los Angeles.

There’s a rhythm to the fast. The first challenge is going without coffee. Make it through that affliction, and it just gets easier. Sitting in the midst of Nashuva’s services in Koreatown, there’s the music; there’s my wife, Rabbi Naomi Levy, on the bimah; family and friends surround me. I can go hours without thinking of food — a record for the year.

The dip comes when services let out for an afternoon break, from 2 to 5. That’s when I usually notice: There are a lot of places to eat in Koreatown. A lot. How much can Koreans eat, anyway?

By Neilah, the closing service, the hourslong Yom Kippur liturgy has forced me to look back over the year — over the decades — and pay special attention to where I’ve fallen short. At the same time, the ecstatic singing, my wife’s sermon — those send my emotions in the opposite direction. I am emptied out and filled up. I am exhausted and invigorated.

And by the time three stars appear in the night sky, and the fast is over — I’m not hungry. Fasting plays tricks on your appetite. You think you can’t live without food, then you realize you can, then you think somehow you have reached a spiritual place beyond hunger, beyond need — and then you almost faint.

But what to eat? That’s always been the trouble with break fasts. After going foodless for so long, I want something good — but simple. I’m also not looking to start cooking, so the food should be prepared before Yom Kippur and ready to eat right when it’s over.

That’s why the go-to break fast meal is light: smoked fish, sweets, vegetables. You want to slowly awaken your senses, not put a blow horn next to their ear.

Here you can go one of two ways. Order a lox platter or make one yourself. My favorite lox these days comes from Wexler’s Deli in downtown L.A. Like everything Micah Wexler prepares there, it’s made in-house, smoked low and slow over applewood, and sliced so thin you can read a machzor through it. Wexler’s (which is not certified kosher) has smoked fish platters that are expensive, but, hey, you’ve just saved a day’s worth of food bills.

Alternatively, smoke your own. My single best food-related purchase of the year has been a Traeger barbecue, which uses pure hardwood pellets. It doesn’t maintain a low enough temperature to make lox, which needs to be cold-smoked at around 70 degrees, but it does hot-smoke cured salmon into something more deeply flavored and substantial. Serve with an Israeli salad with yogurt and za’atar dressing and some late-summer ratatouille, and you will feel the hunger dissolve, the weight of atonement lift, and the promise and joy of a new year to come.

HOT-SMOKED SALMON

  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika

  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

  • 2 pounds wild or naturally farmed salmon filet (preferably center cut)

 

Combine brown sugar, salt, paprika and pepper; rub mixture liberally onto both sides of salmon filet. Let rest on wire rack for 1 hour or more so some liquid drains. 

Heat barbecue smoker on lowest setting. Place salmon skin-side down on rack and close lid. Smoke until cooked through, about two hours. If needed, increase temperature to finish cooking. 

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

LOS ANGELES ISRAELI SALAD WITH YOGURT ZA’ATAR DRESSING

  • 2 cucumbers, peeled and diced

  • 3 tomatoes, diced

  • 3 radishes, chopped

  • 1 avocado, peeled and diced

  • 1/2 cup plain yogurt

  • 2 teaspoons za’atar

  • 2 tablespoons good-quality olive oil

  • Salt and pepper

  • 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste

 

In a large bowl, gently fold together all ingredients. Adjust seasonings to taste. Refrigerate until serving.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

See more recipes at jewishjournal.com/foodaism.  Follow on Instagram and Twitter.

Recipe: How to make harira

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When you learn to make traditional Moroccan harira from Meme Suissa, you're not learning to make harira from Meme Suissa. You're learning to make harira from her mother, from her grandmother, and so on. You're learning a recipe that goes back centuries.

But of course Meme uses no recipe. Her daughter Kathy Shapiro stood by and wrote down the amounts for ingredients that have never before been quantified. Meanwhile, I stood across from Meme and watched her cook — watched her measure onions in the palm of her hand and spices between her three fingers. Many times, she didn't even look at what she was picking up; she just knew the feel and the weight by the experience of her 84 years.

Harira is a traditional Moroccan soup. In the Suissa home in Casablanca, and then in Montreal, it was served at festive meals as well as everyday dinners. What makes the soup special is the slurry of flour and water added for thickening, followed by fresh-squeezed lemon juice beaten with egg. The jolt of acid brightens the flavors of the vegetables and chicken and puts the soup squarely into the tradition of Greek avgolemono and Persian stews and soups that rely on sour limes, sumac and other such flavorings. Make it correctly, and every bite will reveal new flavors.

It's a one-dish meal, complete with garbanzo beans, lentils, noodles, egg, many vegetables and, if you like, chicken. You could eat a salad with it, but you won't have room for much more.

Harira, gentle and nourishing, belongs to both Muslim and Jews in Morocco. The Jews eat it to break the Yom Kippur fast (well, that and a shot of fig liquor). The Muslims serve it during Ramadan. 

More after video.

When I first asked Meme to show me how she makes the harira, it was the dead of winter — and I can't imagine a better soup to have on a cold day. But made with the first vegetables of spring or the ripe tomatoes of summer, the soup is adaptable to any season.

As for spicing, Meme told me people in Morocco like the soup with fresh or dried chili. But her family, she lamented, never likes it spicy.

Making the harira couldn't be easier. Meme sautéed carrots, onions and celery, added her spices, her stock and tomatoes and let it simmer. Then she mixed together and added flour and water to thicken, then the egg and lemon juice, along with some noodles. She boiled it for a short while longer, and it was ready.

While it was cooking, we sat down — and maybe it was the smell of the soup suffusing a kitchen near Pico Boulevard that sparked her memory  — but Meme began to reminisce about life in Casablanca.  

Everyone lived together, joined by private courtyards, shaded by lemon and orange trees. The men returned from work for long lunches, the children played together, the women had help.

“We had a very good life,” she said.

After the Six-Day War caused a backlash against Jews in Arab countries, the Suissa family left for Montreal, and Meme’s life changed drastically. She and her husband worked long hours, scrimping to raise children without help, the extended family dispersed across a cold, snowy city.  

The one constant was the food, brought from Morocco, unchanged. In her son David’s kitchen, Meme conjured up the memory of Casablanca again, hot and (gently) spiced, in a bowl.

Meme Suissa's Moroccan Harira Soup

This is Meme Suissa’s recipe as written down by her daughter, Kathy Shapiro. For a vegetarian version, you may substitute vegetable broth and omit the chicken.  That’s our suggestion, not Meme’s.

  • 2 cups diced onions

  • 2 cups diced celery

  • 1 cup chopped parsley

  • 1 cup chopped cilantro

  • 1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil

  • 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

  • 1/2 teaspoon dried red chili (optional)

  • 1-2 teaspoon salt

  • 1 teaspoon pepper

  • 1 cup green lentils, rinsed

  • 1 can (15 ounce) garbanzo beans, peeled

  • 1 can (15 ounce) crushed tomatoes or 4 medium chopped fresh tomatoes

  • 2 quarts or more good chicken broth*

  • 1 egg

  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

  • 1/4 cup flour

  • 4 cups cold water

  • 3/4 cup extra fine egg noodles

  • Half of a cooked chicken, cubed or shredded, white and dark meat (from chicken used to make broth)

  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

 

Whisk together flour and water, set aside.

Beat egg and lemon juice, set aside.

Heat oil and add onion, celery, cilantro, parsley, turmeric, chili (if desired) and 1 teaspoon salt.

Sauté over medium/high heat until well-cooked and blended, about 10 minutes.

Add 1 quart of the stock, lentils, garbanzos and tomatoes, bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender but not too mushy, about 20-25 minutes.

Add remaining stock, chicken, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper and continue to simmer another 5 minutes.

While stirring slowly, stream in egg/lemon mixture, followed by half of the flour/water mixture.

Bring to a low boil. Stir in noodles.

At any point, add a bit of stock, water or flour mixture to desired consistency. The soup should be hearty and somewhat thick.

Stir in remaining 1/4 cup cilantro. Add salt to taste.

*Meme makes hers with a whole chicken, water and onion, salt and pepper, simmered for a couple of hours.

Koreatown Lunch

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At night Koreatown is Manhattan– packed restaurants, backed up valet stands, lines out the doors to even the diviest BBqs.  By day, it's a different story.  You might be the only customer. You'll see the families behind these family-run places.  You'll see the servers plucking the stems off a haystack of sweet peas piled on a dining table. Or you'll see this: the daughter sitting alone in a place that by midnite wll  be crammed full of hipsters.  She'll be watching educational cartoons in English.  Her immigrant parents will be peeling a pile of fishy-smelling brown roots, getting ready for the dinner rush.  And the girl?  She'll be going to medical school.

I took this picture when I had a lunch meeting at Yan Bian on 3rd and Western Friday afternoon.  We were the only customers. We let the owner bring us three of her favoirte Korean-Chinese dishes, all of them spiked with pointy red chilis.  My favorite things: Spicy chicken. Beef with mushrooms and chili.  And this picture.

Why Ditmas Kitchen and Cocktails on Pico Will Succeed

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High-end kosher restaurants in LA last about as long as an American Idol’s singing career.

Every few months, one arrives in a blaze of publicity and expectation—Prime Grill, La Seine, etc.— and a captive audience of people who keep kosher and are wealthy enough to drop a couple hundred bucks on a bottle of Castel rushes out to try it. And  then faster than you can say “overpriced” the restaurant vanishes, leaving behind a contrail of kvetching.

There’s a lot of reasons to think that Ditmas Kitchen and Cocktails may be different.  There’s even a good chance—you heard it here first—Ditmas may succeed.

Ditmas occupies the old Bocca space on Pico Blvd. near Robertson.  Bocca, an import from the Old Country (meaning, Encino) was one of the high-end kosher places that didn’t take.  Ditmas moved into the large space—which began life as a Coco’s family restaurant—and has transformed it into a vibey, gastro-hang with zero attitude, a sense of fun—and solid, soulful food.

Chef Alex Reznik created Ditmas.  The former “Top Chef” also headed the kitchen at La Seine– but there I got the feeling he was a show pony trotted out by the owners, then made to cook what they thought kosher LA wanted to eat.

At Ditmas,  the menu is all Reznik.  It combines a sentimental homage to his East Coast roots—Ditmas is the name of the Brooklyn avenue that splits Boro Park from Flatbush–  with a firm sense of what everybody wants to eat these days—high-quality ingredients, simple preparations,  more farmhouse than fusion. 

That may explain why the clientele doesn’t look particularly Jewish– and I mean that in a good way.  There’s no way to know for sure, but Ditmas seems to draw people in because of its food,  atmosphere,  service and—get this—absolutely fair prices. The fact that Ditmas is kosher doesn’t limit its audience, but  expands it to include kosher-observant Jews.  The first night I ate there, a large crowd of 20-somethings occupied a nearby table, and none of them or the other guests in our section looked like your typical kosher restaurant clientele.

The large space has been suitably hipstered to incorporate earth tone upholstery, large expanses of dark wood, and an eat-in bar area with a high, common table.

Of course, then, there’s a cocktail list, and of course it features house-made liquors, tonics and craft-brewed beers. I had an old-fashioned with a dose of thyme, and we ordered a dish of house-pickled vegetables off the bar menu.  The bright pickled vegetables  had something a lot of kosher restaurants fear—serious red chili heat.  I wanted another bowl.

The starters include a much-Yelped-about steak tartare with house-made mustard and  quail egg.  We ordered the Jerusalem artichoke soup, which a waiter pours over a garnish of pea shoots and yam chips.  The texture was, to be charitable, rustic–  more of a vegetable puree than a soup. But the flavor was pure and simple.

The main course choices revolve largely around cows.  Braised short ribs with polenta.  Fresh pasta with short ribs.  Lots of steaks, all simply grilled and served with fries and a house made A-1 sauce.   Other choices include sablefish, salmon, and a grilled chicken.

We ordered a 6-ounce “Eye of Rib Eye”—sounds like a clue in a pirate movie—and the chicken.  Both were easy to like—simply prepared, ample, and, in the case of the chicken, surrounded by carefully crafted cilantro coulis, chanterelles and rosemary-scented gnocchi.  

Dinner prices are about $50 per person with wine.  That’s what you’d pay for similar meal at a similar restaurant like Waterloo and City or Cooks County—meaning there’s no “kosher surcharge,” even though kosher restaurants do have built-in economic disadvantages (not open Friday night, higher meat costs, etc).

I’d go back to Ditmas—and that’s something I never said about the long list of high-end kosher places  that have opened and closed in the past.  Reznik gets it:  if there’s no sense of joy, there’s no sense in eating out, kosher or not.

In that  Reznik takes his place among new generation of chefs creating kosher in the image of Alice Waters and Richard Olney, not your bar mitzvah caterer.  West of Ditmas on Pico, Katsuji Tanabe is serving porkless but authentic Mexican street food at Mexikosher.  And east of Ditmas,  Chef Todd Aarons has taken over the “26” space.  I haven’t been there yet, but at Tierra Sur in Oxnard, Aarons demonstrated his knack for superb farm-to-table wood-fired kosher cooking.  In short, I can hardly wait to eat more kosher on Pico.

And that’s something I haven’t said for a while.

Ditmas Kitchen + Cocktails

8731 W Pico Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90035 

(310) 271-9300


ditmasla.com

The Kosher Bacon Donut

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Harry Ben-Zvi, the founder and owner of something called The Glazed Donut Bistro, had a problem.  He opened a new donut shop, and as a strongly-identified Jew, he wanted to post a mezuzah, the ritual amulet marking the entrance to a  Jewish home or business, on his door.

The problem was … well, I should let him explain, in an email he sent me a couple of weeks ago.

And yes, that really is a glazed donut bacon sandwich:

Being a proud yet fairly secular Jewish man opening up an artisan donut shop, I found myself facing a religious dilemma.

I wanted to hang a big, beautiful Mezuzah on the front door so everyone would know who owned this great looking shop.

Earning some extra points with the man upstairs couldn't hurt the new venture either.

Problem being, the donut shop is not Kosher…not even close.

Could I still have my Mezuzah? Yes

Should I still have my Mezuzah? On the front door?

As the Maimonides has long since passed to answer this most monumental of questions, I asked my old Rabbi.

The big hearted orthodox Rabbi asked about the shop being open on the Sabbath.

I replied; “This location, these rents, not much choice”

The Rabbi understood.

Ever the faithful solider, the Rabbi moved on to the menu.

“Are the donuts kosher?” asked the Rabbi.

I said no.

“You know, making donuts kosher is easy” the Rabbi followed up .

I smiled and told him; “Not these donuts”.

“What do you mean” asked the Rabbi.

I pointed to a picture of our Maple Bacon Glazed Donut and explained

(I didn't have the heart to mention our Glazed Pulled Pork Donut Sliders).

“So Rabbi, what's the call? Can I put up my Mezuzah on the front door?”

The Rabbi contemplated and thoughtfully replied:

The mitzvah of hanging a Mezuzah on the front door would be nullified the moment a  Jewish patron unwittingly eats treif.

The compromise; Forgo the Mezuzah on the front door and hang a Mezuzah on the office door.

So what is a Jew to do?

It's a free country and I could hang my Mezuzah on the front door…or I could split the baby (or in this case, the donut) in half and temper my Jewish pride with some Judaic humility.

The Mezuzah will go up on my office door, and I will sell maple bacon glazed donuts and pulled pork sliders on the Sabbath.

As I am a G-d fearing man, I hope the big guy upstairs understands.

My lunch with a Los Angeles Tea Partier

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Of the 3,977 angry e-mails I received last week, one stood out.

“I am a Jew, a member of Temple Emanuel in Los Angeles, and the founder of the largest local, grass-roots Tea Party group in Los Angeles called the Hancock Park Patriots,” Mark Sonnenklar wrote.

“I, and many of my fellow leaders in the Tea Party movement, are pretty upset about the recent ‘Tea-hadist’ cartoon published in the Jewish Journal. I would like to discuss this matter with you. Would you be open to a phone call?”

Sonnenklar was referring to the political cartoon in the Oct. 11 issue of the Jewish Journal. Our longtime cartoonist, Steve Greenberg, portrayed a Tea Party activist as a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest labeled “Govt Shutdown.” You get the idea.

Tea Party-affiliated Web sites reposted the cartoon and urged readers to e-mail me their outrage. It worked. Overnight, my inbox filled with thousands of e-mails railing against the cartoon. The vast majority of the letter writers were not Journal readers. Many repeated the charge that the cartoon “mocked the actual victims of Islamic terror,” and I took that to heart. I issued a public apology for the cartoon’s insensitivity to terror victims. 

Many letters were vicious; some were strange. 

“May God show you the error of your wicked ways and give you the redemption you clearly do not deserve!!” Scott Walker wrote.

 “You should … use your amazing resources to find out just how many Muslim Brotherhood members are working in the White House,” Charles Walter wrote. “Did you know Obama has a ‘Sharia Czar’?”

Truthrevolt.org, an intelligent conservative site, originally flagged the cartoon. But a site named PatriotAction.com had picked up the cause, and many of the e-mails turned outright anti-Semitic.

“Jews have caused [sic] the world by stealing land instead of just paying for it in the first place, I guess I can understand the idiocy,” someone calling himself Ron Paul wrote. 

The few writers who identified themselves as Jews were not much kinder.

“This may come as a shock to you, Comrade Eshman,” Aaron Shuster wrote, “but not all Jews share in your utopian socialist agenda for Islamic hegemony.”

Amid these screeds, Sonnenklar’s civility stood out. So did his Web site. It listed seven action steps activists could take. No. 7 was, “Click here to sign up for the Koch Brothers Check Distribution” — a cheeky swipe at those who say Tea Partiers are just dupes of the 1 percent. 

I called Sonnenklar, and three hours later we met for lunch at Le Petit Greek on Larchmont.

Sonnenklar is 44, a corporate lawyer, father of three, and he bears more than a glancing resemblance to Bradley Cooper. He wore blue jeans and a trim striped dress shirt, untucked, along with the standard L.A. three-day growth of beard.

We decided not to talk about “it” — the cartoon — until at least after the grilled halloumi.

Sonnenklar told me he had established the Hancock Park Patriots in 2010, because he was “tired of not doing anything. I wanted to make a difference.”

Between 50 and 100 people from all over Los Angeles attend the Hancock Park Patriots’ monthly meetings. Sonnenklar estimates about 20 percent of them are Jewish.

“The goal is not to become a third party,” he said, “but to become more powerful within the GOP. There needs to be a Tea Party to bring the Republican Party back to its core principles.” 

Those principles: smaller government, greater individual liberty, protecting free enterprise.

The Constitution is sacred, he said — everything has to flow from that.

I asked him: Don’t many progressives want the same things? More efficient government, greater liberty, etc.? And isn’t the Supreme Court the arbiter of the Constitution, and didn’t it uphold Obamacare …

“It’s a very politicized court,” he interrupted, and then batted away my arguments.

He saw President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to “fundamentally transform” the country as a declaration of war against America. I saw it, in the context of a boilerplate campaign speech, as a promise to the middle class.

We were like two doctors who agreed easily on what an ailing patient looked like, but not on the cure.

“I’m not a moderate,” he said, smiling. “I’m just more articulate than most.”

I asked him how that flies in his Reform Beverly Hills synagogue, which has a liberal reputation.

“I have no doubt if people found out I was a leader of a Tea Party group, I would be ostracized,” he said. “As a conservative in Los Angeles, you can’t be open. You’re going to be the one guy at the dinner party who stands out. The Tea Party is almost a support group. Now I feel I can be open about who I am and my political views.

“We are under attack by the hard-left establishment,” he went on. “They are using Alinsky-like tactics to undermine any opposing point of view. That’s why this cartoon hit such a nerve.”

Sonnenklar knew I had publicly apologized, but he pushed further. Would I run a cartoon of Obama in a Hitler mustache?

That didn’t sound very funny or clever to me, I said — and talk about insensitive. I did point out that the Journal publishes opinions from many different perspectives, because thoughtful debate is a core Jewish value. 

We reached an impasse on many points, but it was a good, long lunch — a useful outcome to an unfortunate incident. After all, thoughtful argument may be a core Jewish value. Agreement — not so much.

Rob Eshman is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. E-mail him at robe@jewishjournal.com. You can follow him on Twitter @foodaism.

People of the Vine: Rob Eshman talks Jews, wine and history with Jeff Morgan

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Jeff Morgan is winemaker and co-owner of Covenant Wines, based in Napa Valley, where he makes kosher wine under the Covenant, RED C and Landsman labels.

Rob Eshman: To start, let’s put aside, for a moment, the distinction between kosher and non-kosher wine and pose a more fundamental question: Why is wine so critical to Jewish life and celebration?

Jeff Morgan: In every ancient Mediterranean grape-growing community, wine was an integral part of the dietary regimen as well as religious practice. The Greeks and Romans ultimately lost faith in Dionysus and Bacchus, but they kept their vineyards. And their modern-day progeny continue to grow grapes and drink wine daily. 

History led the Jews down a different path. In ancient Israel, viticulture was also an essential part of Jewish life. This is reflected in the Torah, where wine is regularly alluded to, beginning with Noah. We lost our land after the Roman destruction of the Temple 2,000 years ago. Still, our ancestors managed to maintain their customs and religion throughout the ensuing millennia. For much of this time, Jews could not plant vineyards, and wine production was problematic.

 

RE: If you accept modern historical thinking that the Bible was composed around 500 B.C.E. by exiles returning from Babylon to Persian-controlled Palestine, did the wine rituals and customs reflect surrounding customs or were they passed-down ancient traditions, or both? Were they unique to Jews or common to other religions and peoples of that time? Is there scholarship on the roots of Judaism’s wine customs?

JM: Whatever your theory on the Bible’s origins, its stories bear witness to our people’s long history. Whether written or oral, Jewish wine tradition is the result of longstanding cultural practice. 

Still, the Jewish relationship to wine has remained rooted in religious practice. Despite challenges in simply finding a bottle [or an amphora] of wine, our ancestors were able to maintain their wine traditions. I would venture to say that we Jews have the oldest codified relationship to wine of any people on earth. In this light, how could wine be anything but critical to Jewish life?

[Jews and wine: A timeline]

RE: Is wine seen as a gateway to God in the way some tribes use hallucinogenics? Or was it simply a common beverage elevated by religious authorities?

JM: There’s some truth to both. You don’t need to be a talmudic scholar or have a Ph.D. in anthropology to understand that the mind-altering effects of [too much] alcohol might have caused early Jews to suspect that wine could open the door to an alternative reality. 

You refer to wine as a “common” beverage. I would counter that it is a thoroughly “uncommon” one. The early rabbis recognized wine’s unique qualities and so incorporated wine into Jewish religious life. But I would hardly say they elevated it. It was a natural development. 

 

RE: Was wine limited to ceremonial, ritual and festive use, or did it play a role in daily Jewish life?

JM: The people of every wine-growing nation drink wine daily. In this respect, why should the Jews in ancient Israel have been different? Wine aided in digestion by stimulating salivary glands. It also provided significant amounts of vitamin B, along with manganese and iron. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a glass of fine wine knows that it also can soothe mind and body at the end of a hard workday. In short, a daily dose of wine is and was a no-brainer!

 

RE: Islam bans alcohol and many Christian sects oppose it. Did Judaism ever give rise to a “temperance” movement?

JM: Not that I know of. How can you make Kiddush with “temperance”? Let’s remember that Kiddush [with wine] was legal even during the United States’ misguided experiment with Prohibition.

Rudd Vineyard. Photos by Steve Goldfinger

RE: So you’re saying the relationship of Jews and wine was codified in our holy books and customs. How did it translate to real world Jews in history? If the surrounding cultures opposed alcohol, did Jews follow suit? I noticed in Morocco, Jews owned the vineyards around Mogador.

JM: Well, we weren’t always so successful in maintaining our tradition. I believe the Muslims ripped out most of the vineyards in Israel once they took over back in the eighth century. I would hope that we benefited from a “benign neglect” attitude. During many of these historical periods, the “abstainers” were probably happy to know where they could find a good bottle of wine! 

RE: And in Eastern Europe?

JM: It’s unlikely that the Jews in the shtetl had enough wine stashed away for daily enjoyment. It was easier to grow good wine grapes in Morocco than Poland. Their priority was to make certain enough Kiddush wine was available for Shabbat and other holy or festive occasions. 

 

RE: And in the United States, how did the idea of sweet kosher wine come about?

JM: I guess Concord grapes are the culprits. New World Jewish immigrants adopted them 150 years ago; they were the only grapes around. A native American member of the species vitis labrusca, Concords, in my opinion, were never meant for wine. They are better for eating. Fermented, they have a “foxy” quality — that is, an earthy, musky flavor — that needs to be disguised with sugar. The wines of Israel and Europe traditionally were made with grapes from the species vitis vinifera, like Cabernet and Chardonnay, for example. Unlike Concords, these vinifera grapes are delicious when fermented dry.

 

RE: Passover is a holiday structured around wine — was that a Jewish innovation?

JM: I don’t believe so. As I’ve already said, most ancient Mediterranean cultures were celebrating important occasions with wine. Nonetheless, the Hebrew term for feast or banquet — mishteh — comes from the word lishtot, to drink. For me, this is further confirmation that wine has long held a pivotal place in Jewish celebration. 

 

RE: Was there ever a strain in Judaism that opposed wine and alcohol consumption?

JM: I hope not.

 

RE: I think the Nazirites did. That didn’t last long.

JM: And Maimonides, no less, castigated the Nazirites for abstaining from wine, rather than just drinking in moderation. 

 

RE: For all the embrace of wine in the Bible, there’s clear condemnation of drunkenness. “Do not drink wine nor strong drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest you die: It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations” (Leviticus 10:9). The message is: Enjoy wine, but not too much?

JM: There is a lot of common sense in the Bible. That message should be right up there with the Ten Commandments!

 

RE:  Christianity uses wine as a sacrament — it is the blood of their savior. Does that idea have Jewish roots?

JM: Aside from some poetic license that might associate the color of wine with blood — and this is common to all wine-drinking cultures — I really have no sense of a wine and blood connection in Judaism. Sure, Christianity borrowed from Jewish tradition regarding wine, but I have no idea who came up with the blood thing. For the record, you can make Kiddush on white wine! 

Rudd Vineyard is owned by Leslie Rudd, business partner of Jeff Morgan.

RE: The blessing of the wine does not use the word for wine. It simply refers to it as “the fruit of the vine.” But wine is so much more than that — the result of technique, fermentation, yeasts, sugars and other ingredients. Do you find a spiritual lesson in referring to it simply as “the fruit of the vine”?

JM: Wine is naturally blessed, or holy. Kiddush helps us experience or recognize the holy nature of special moments such as Shabbat. In the same way, we don’t bless just “the bread,” we bless “the bread brought forth from the earth.” Our prayers always make the connection between God, man and earth.

Maybe the wording of our blessing has to do with the fact that grapes are purely a creation of God, but wine requires human intervention. As a winemaker, I can tell you I pray a lot during the harvest. Sure, we humans make the wine. But we are not totally in control. I set things up as best as I can for success, but someone else is driving the wine train.

 

RE: What percentage of Jews will drink only kosher wine?

JM: That number probably coincides with the number of Jews that are “Sabbath-observant” or [in this country] Orthodox. My guess is, maybe, 10 to 15 percent.

 

RE: How do you explain the boom in quality kosher wine — of which, truth be told, Covenant stands as a shining example?

JM: Thank you for the compliment. It’s all about demand and supply. A more sophisticated public wants to drink better. And wines the world over — kosher or not — are better than they used to be. Better viticulture; better winemaking across the board.

RE: As a winemaker, how do you explain the laws of kosher wine: Are they there to make wine better, or to keep Jews separate, or what?

JM: I really don’t presume to able to explain the laws of kashrut. But my guess is that they are linked more to religious practice and societal control than wine quality. 

 

RE: Kosher wine gets a bad rap because people assume the process of pasteurization, what is called in Hebrew mevushal, degrades the wine. Do you agree?

JM: If so-called wine experts knew just a little bit about kosher wine, they would know that it doesn’t have to be pasteurized at all. In fact, most of the fine kosher wine coming from the 300-plus wineries in Israel today is not pasteurized (or mevushal, in Hebrew). The same goes for the best French and Spanish kosher wines. Our kosher Covenant wines from California have never been pasteurized either. In fact, they are not even filtered, as are so many other wines — both kosher and not kosher — today. 

In the old days, they really boiled the wine. That probably made it undrinkable. Today flash pasteurization — which rapidly heats and cools the juice or wine — has far less negative effect. In fact, sometimes heating can enhance aromas, making them more fruit forward. There is nothing simple about wine — except drinking it. Let’s just say flash pasteurization involves complex technology that, when used properly, can produce excellent wine. 

 

RE: So if you could tell contemporary Jews one thing about wine, that would be?

JM: Wine, as our heritage demonstrates, is for every day — not only the Sabbath and holy days. If you are not drinking good wine in moderation at most meals, you’re missing out on one of the great joys of life. 

5 Steps to the Best Nicoise Salad

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This story by Judy Zeidler about cooking for an empty nest really hit me hard.   Judy is a glass-half-full bundle of enthusiasm, and I suppose her children follow suit. Their brood departs, they adjust their recipes, move on.  I find myself not so… adjustable.

Our son left for college two years ago and I still haven't got used to cooking for three.  Now our daughter is on the cusp of college, and I'm facing cooking for two.  It just…sucks.  A big part of the joy of cooking is the joy of feeding– at least feeding the people you love.  That's what gives me the energy to look forward to shopping and cooking after a full day at work.  That's often been my recreation after a full day at work.

Long before we had kids, I loved to cook dinner for just the two of us.  Aren't I just going back to that?  Yes, and no.  Ever since we filled those two seats at the dinner table, anything less than four feels a bit empty.  I find myself making faster, simpler things, the kind of dishes that scale down from four servings to two but still feel like a meal.

Nicoise salad is one of those dishes.  Almost every week, when the kids filled the table, I'd make one with whatever vegetables were freshest.  Now I'm pushing to make a slighty smaller version– though I still find myself making enough at least four, out of habit.

Nicoise is easy because we always have a can of tuna or a hunk of wild cold-smoked salmon, and eggs.  You open, arrange with whatever good vegetables are around (lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, peppers, avocado), add capers and olives, lemon and olive oil– done. Easy– but not perfect.

To make it even better, here are five tips I've learned over the years:

1. Use olive-oil packed tuna or use a lot of oilive oil and lemon directly on your tuna.  Dry clumps or shreds of tuna in the salad feel like eraser in your mouth.  Tuna needs moisture.  

2. Make a simple dressing. Make a dressing of 1 part fresh-squeezed lemon juice, three parts great olive oil, salt, pepper and a lump Dijon mustard.  Keep it simple but strong.

3. Warm potatoes, warm eggs, cold dressing.  Boil potatoes and slice while still warm.  I scrub but don't peel them if the skins are thin. Place them still warm onto the salad, and pour the cool dressing directly onto them.  It absorbs and each potato becomes a small salad in itself.

4. Don't skimp on capers, or olives.  Capers and olives are the salt of your salad.  Rinse the capers briefly to get rid of excess salt or vinegar, then scatter like salt across the surface.  Use whatever good olives you have, not the canned California type.  I prefer kalamata olives in my Nicoise. Saltier and meatier.  If they're not pitted, warn your guests.

5. Eggs slightly undercooked, beans slightly overcooked. Soft eggs with bright yolks taste better and separate ypur salad from the stuff they serve at the cafe in your office building.  And green beans that are one smidge softer than al dente soak up the dressing better, melt in with the rest. Place your eggs in cold water and bring to boil.  Reduce heat a bit and continue on a gentle boil for two and a half minutes.  Drain and let sit.  When ready to serve peel and slice in half.   As for the beans, blanch in boiling water until very tender, just past bright green.  Immediately plunge into cold water, drain and add to sald.

I'll put the recipe below. It serves four.  Or, with a bit of melancholy, two.

 

[RECIPE]

Nicoise Salad

1 head butter lettuce or other green (arugula, spring mix, etc)

1 handful green beans, trimmed

3 ripe tomatoes, diced

1 avocado, peeled, seeded, cubed

1 yellow , red or orange pepper, cored and diced

1/2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed.

4 eggs

olives

capers

1 lemon

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1/2 c. olive oil

salt and pepper

 

Make the dressing:  squeeze lemon juice into a small powl.  Add mustard and stir well.  Add olive oil, salt and pepper and whisk, shake or stir briskly.  Taste and adjust with more lemon or oil.

Fill a 2 quart saucepan with water.  Bring to a boil. Add green beans and boil until very tender, remove and plunge into cold water. Drain and dry.

Add eggs  to boiling water.  Boil for ten minutes, remove and place in cold water.

Add potatoes to the boiling water and cook until very tender.

In the meantime, in a large rather flat bowl, place lettuce, then arrange the vegetables in groups on top.  Place tuna in center, sliced potatoes and eggs around that.  Sprinkle with capers and olives. Pour dressing over all.  Serve.

Katsuji Tanabe takes 'Chopped!'

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Katsuji Tanabe is the onion of kosher chefs– every time you think you've figured him out, you find there;'s a whole other layer.

Tonight Katsuji held a party at the Mexican Consulate near downtown Los Angeles to screen the episode of the Food Network show, “Chopped!” on which he appears as a contestant.

I first met Katsuji when he was the chef at the kosher steakhouse Shilo on Pico.   He stood out.  Katsuji grew up in Mexico to Japanese and Mexican parents.  He came to America at age 19 with no money, and worked his way into some of the finest restaurants. He isn't Jewish, but he was intrigued by the challenge of cooking kosher.  It was clear he was cooking at a level that went unappreciated by many patrons.  Katsuji was working up hand-chopped aged burgers with cashew milk blue cheese and authentic Baja style tacos with homemade habenero salsa.  The clientele just wanted well-done steak.

Katsuji moved on to open his own place, Mexikosher, also on Pico, where those homemade salsas are center stage.  It's inexpensive, delicious, and maybe the most inadvertantly healthy Mexican food in LA– no cheese, sour cream, lard.  “99 percent of Mexican restaurants aren't kosher,” is the place's motto. “We are the 1 percent. Occupy Mexikosher.”

Katsuji's  first on screen appearance on a food show was in a web series on jewishjournal.com, The Chosen Dish.  He made Thai Tuna Tempura Matzoh Balls. The Food Ntework heard of him and made him a contestant on “Chopped.”

About 60 friends, family and colleagues gathered in a function room at the Consulate to watch the show with him.  Katsuji was his ebullient self– dressed in fancier street clothes, his hair slicked back, he rushed to hug people and introduce friends to one another.   The crowd was as eclectric as the chef. I met an attorney named Ottavio Olivas who moonlighted as the creator/chef of a pop-up called Ceviche Project.   I met a producer from the Travel Channel who worked with Katsuji on his next top secret TV project.  I met a guy who plays hockey with Katsuji.

Hockey?

“Oh, he's crazy competitive,” the guy said.  “He plays in a league, like four times a week.”

Before the show started we ate hors d'oeuvres, including one based on something Katsuji invented for the show– schwarma mole.  A mixologist poured a drink of tequila, pear liquor, ginger liquor, lime, soda and mint, with– as a nod to Mexikosher– a Manischewitz floater.  There was also lots of beer– Katsuji likes to party.

Once we sat to watch the show, the Mexican Japanese Christian kosher cooking hockey playing chef's competitive streak really became apparent.

He trash-talked his opponents (“His plate looks like dog food.”).  He got in their heads. (“I'm crazy enough to open a Mexican kosher restaurant, what can't I do?”)  He talked smack. (“You look tired,” he said to one chef. “You should just quit.”)

But what he really did was cook like a demon.  The gimmick of “Chopped!” is you have to make three different courses from three different sets of bizarre ingredients.  You have 10 seconds once the ingredients are revelaed to start cooking, and 20 minutes to cook.  The completed food sits for 45 minutes before the three-judge panel tastes it.  The day goes from 5:30 am – 11 pm.  

“They have you meet at a Starbucks in the morning. They want to get you hyped,” said Katsuji.  Beforehand a friend had tipped him off that he should just drink water all day, no coffee.   He said that helped him stay calm as the other chefs got more and more wired.

The results were three inventive dishes that drew less on his kosher knowledge and more on his mad Mexican cooking skills.  If the hockey game in handy it was in being able to survive and long slog of competitition.

And when the onscreen announcer declared Katsuji the winner, the crowd in the Consulate erupted in applause.  Katsuji stood in front of the screen, cradling his toddler daughter, beaming.

“Do you think you'll get first place?” the TV announcer had asked the chef.

“Is there anything else?” he asked right back.

World of Flavor

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Every two years, the Culinary Institute of America hosts its World of Flavors conference in its castle-like Napa Valley compound.

Some of the planet’s best chefs show up, along with food purveyors from across the globe, and the endless meals, spread out in a massive hall lined with wine casks the size of Spanish galleons, each revolve around a single educational theme, so that the attendees — institutional food vendors, manufacturers, restaurant chains, journalists — can deepen their understanding about one aspect of food, and in turn use that knowledge to impress, entice and engorge you, the ever-hungry consumer.

Last year’s subject: spices.

I went — first, because I knew I would get to eat some of the world’s best food and wine in the company of great chefs over two crisp fall days in Napa, and second, because the World of Flavors is a stealth United Nations.  It quietly, consistently, draws chefs from countries and cultures that otherwise are in conflict, if not active warfare.  I scanned the roster and found chefs straight from, or originally from, Iran, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and, yes, Israel. 

World of Flavors is a kind of chefs sans frontiers, where cooks come to cook and learn from other cooks—and they bat away questions about politics from people like me.   It’s a cliché—but one that I never get tired of– that food can break barriers.  But in  Napa, I actually began to see how, and it had exactly to do with the subject of this particular conference.

Chefs from Italy, Sri Lanka, Iran and Israel, divided by culture, religion, distance, and even by cuisine, nevertheless all share a common language — spices.

It turns out those fragrant ingredients haven’t just inspired cooks, they have shaped history and culture. We are the beneficiaries of an ancient spice trade that started millennia ago, with no concern for modern borders.  The arc of flavor began in the far-off, exotic spice-producing countries and spread to Europe, China and the New World.

Not that the process was always pretty.  The Dutch decided to take over the West Indies clove and nutmeg trade, and in doing so massacred entire islands full of people. The Spaniards plundered tropical America and returned to Europe with chilis and chocolate. 

But the upshot was the beginnings of Tom Friedman’s flat world.  Most of the world’s basil, which is indigenous to India, now comes from Egypt’s Nile River valley.  Most herbs come from the Mediterranean, home to 17 species of oregano. Dutch food is inflected with Indonesian spices.

“The ramifications of the spice trade are that the world came together through food,” according to Michael Krondl, author of “The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice,” who was a featured speaker at the conference.

On the second floor of the CIA’s Greystone headquarters, a historic castle-like property in St. Helena, chefs from around world took over the stations of a gleaming, cavernous kitchen and proved Krondl’s point, dish by dish.

I was most curious, for obvious reasons, about the Middle Eastern chefs. I wandered over to demonstrations by cookbook author Joan Nathan and the Israeli chef Erez Komarovsky.

“From Thailand to Israel every dish begins with onion, garlic, and chili,”Komarovsky said.

For a dish of baby cauliflower stuffed with lamb, he added spoonfuls of cumin, cinnamon and clove, all of which he ground by hand.  The room filled with fragrance.

Fragrance, rare and familiar, was everywhere.   Singaporean Indian chef/author Devagi Sanmugam brought kapok blossoms and stone flower, a lichen that grows inside wells, from Singapore. Musa Dagdeviren—the Turkish Emeril Lagasse– made a lamb and eggplant dish flavored with cumin, lamb fat—loads of it — a slab of butter and a sun-dried Turkish chili called marash.  Marash, mark my words, will be the chipotle of 2014.

In another room,  Khulood Atiq, one of the first professional female chefs in the United Arab Emirates, was preparing a typical Emirati spice blend:  dried lemon, cumin, coriander, and fennel.  Outside, Moroccan chef Mourad Lahlou prepared a rub for lamb shoulder: saffron and cumin blended with soft butter.

“In Morocco,” he said, “food and cooking is about memories, looking back more than looking forward.”

Back inside, Yotam Ottolenghi, chef and author of the best-selling “Jerusalem: A Cookbook,” made a kind of shakshouka with ground lamb and harissa — yes, there was a lot of lamb everywhere — while chef Greg Malouf, whose family is Lebanese, looked on, and traded notes.

As the dishes piled up, the conflicts that bedevil cultures seemed to whither under the relentless sensual assault of fragrance and flavor.  The chefs ran from their own classes to taste dishes prepared by their fellow chefs.

I stood beside a Thai chef as we  sampled ‪Djerba chef Abderrazak Haouari’s chickpea sous vide egg, harissa, olives, capers and croutons.  It was the best breakfast dish you’ve never heard of. “I want to hug him,” the Thai chef said.

Spices, so often acquired in conflict, now serve as a bridge among cultures.   If only we all understood what chefs do:  It would be a dull world, indeed, without the strange, the new, the different.

“You almost think,” Ottolenghi said, “a little lemon juice would solve all the world’s problems.”

 

Read my last column on the 2009 conference here.

There is a ridiculously small fee ($7.99) to watch the videos from the conference.  They are 1000 times more educational than the Food Network.  The link is here.

[RECIPE]

Harous

Chef Abderrazak Haouari uses this Djerban version of harissa on sous vide eggs, served with chickpeas, capers, croutons and olives.   It is brick red and warmly hot:  great with fish, eggplant, chicken.

Makes 1/2 cup.

1 medium onion, very thinly sliced

Pinch of turmeric

2 tablespoons kosher salt

4 ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded

3 dried chipotle chiles, stemmed and seeded

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground caraway seeds

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Pinch of cinnamon

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

In a shallow bowl, toss the onion slices with the turmeric and salt. Cover the onion with plastic wrap and let stand overnight at room temperature.

Meanwhile, heat a cast-iron skillet until hot to the touch. Add the anchos and chipotles and toast over moderate heat, pressing lightly with a spatula until the chiles are very pliable and fragrant, about 1 minute. Transfer the chiles to a work surface and let cool completely, then tear them into 1-inch pieces. In a spice grinder, coarsely grind the chiles.

Drain the onion slices in a strainer, pressing hard to extract as much liquid as possible. Transfer the onions to a food processor and pulse until pureed. Add the ground chiles, coriander, caraway, pepper and cinnamon and process to a paste. With the machine on, gradually add the olive oil and puree until fairly smooth.

The harous can be refrigerated for up to 6 months.