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Stuffed: Thanksgiving on Hope Street

November 20, 2013 by Rob Eshman

Last Sunday, my job was to make stuffing for 400 people. I said I’d do it because there’s a part of me that prefers to forget that it’s been 25 years since I was a caterer, and I assumed it would be as easy now as it was then.

Every year for the past nine years, Nashuva, the spiritual community led by my wife, Rabbi Naomi Levy, hosts a Thanksgiving meal at Hope Street Family Center downtown. Hope Street provides childcare, counseling and other social services to thousands of at-risk families. About 100 Nashuva volunteers from the Westside, the Valley and Silver Lake provide a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, along with arts-and-crafts projects for the children and care packages to take home. 

So, on the prior Thursday evening, I went to Costco and bought 20 pounds of onions and 15 pounds each of carrots and celery. I filled my car with enough croutons to stuff a twin-sized mattress. At home, I reached far into our storage closet to find the industrial-sized pot I last used to photograph our infant son in, with his head poking over the rim. He’s 20 now.

Things started simply enough. I chopped the vegetables, sautéed them over two burners in two quarts of canola oil, added seasoning and broth. The kitchen smelled good, like Thanksgiving.

I tossed the croutons with some chopped chestnuts, then portioned it all out in large foil banquet pans. I ladled the hot broth over the croutons and began to mix. I used a big spatula, and the boiling-hot stuffing lifted up and — onto my hands. I screamed. The glutinous mass attached the heat to my skin like culinary napalm. I jumped away — and the whole tray tumbled onto the floor, splattered my ankles. I screamed again. I lurched for the sink, my feet slid in a mound of stuffing, and down I went.

I lay on the floor, burned, bruised. My dogs wandered in to lick the turkey dressing off my wrists, like jackals on the battlefield.

Eventually, I cleaned up, cut my losses and assembled the remaining pans. On Sunday morning, I cooked them, and by lunch they were beside the turkeys in the buffet line, just like I’d planned it.

Hundreds of moms, dads and kids came to the center at Hope Street, just south of Pico, that day. People sat down with their food and began to eat. Tania Benacerraf, director of the family preservation program at Hope Street, spoke about all the things the organization does, day in and day out, to help people raise their children in health and safety. 

Over the years, as Nashuva and Hope Street collaborated on many projects, I’ve listened to the stories — of women escaping abuse; of fathers overcoming addiction; of people working two, or even three jobs to make a life for their children. I’m a very lucky person to be able to complain about my mishaps making stuffing. 

We ate together at long tables in a large function room. On a patio outside, the children created spin-art and decorated picture frames. 

Around this time of year, countless Americans stand where I stood that day: helping to serve Thanksgiving dinners in a homeless shelter, a halfway house or a soup kitchen, doing something small, even symbolic, to share this country’s enormous bounty with those less fortunate.

Nashuva’s Thanksgiving meals with Hope Street have spawned deeper ties between the two organizations. But there can be no pretending that by serving turkey and gravy we are somehow righting deep systemic wrongs. The morning after we volunteered, Congress is still debating a Farm Bill that plans to cut $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — a program so many of the hard-working moms and dads at Hope Street depend upon to feed their kids and help lift their families out of poverty. The morning after, Washington, D.C., is still treating the right to decent health care as a political game, rather than a national priority. The morning after, these people are still struggling, and I have a funny anecdote about stuffing.

But while the debates in D.C. all seem to diminish us as a nation, shared moments can still lift us up. We reach out to help some others, and they are kind enough to accept our need to help. 

Perhaps we need to help because we know from experience that ours is a nation of enormous, almost unbelievable wealth. We have seen with our own eyes that we waste more food than those we serve can ever eat. We have been in private homes larger than all of Hope Street. We need to serve because something needs to change.

Just as the families of Hope Street were settling into the meal, my wife stood and offered a blessing in English, as Julie Drucker, a Nashuva member and organizer of the event together with Carol Taubman, translated Naomi’s prayer into Spanish.

“Sometimes life can be very difficult,” Naomi said. “And we struggle to make a living and take care of our families. Thanksgiving is a time to take hope in the future and to know that together we can help each other to make a better life. And we take a moment to give thanks to God for our lives, for our friends, for the gift of community and for being together here today.”

Amen — and Happy Thanksgiving.


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.

Filed Under: Current Edition, Foodaism, Opinion, Rob Eshman Tagged With: costco, dining, dinner, food, hope street, jewish, los angeles, nashuva, rabbi naomi levy, thanksgiving, turkey

My lunch with a Los Angeles Tea Partier

October 23, 2013 by Rob Eshman

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.

Filed Under: Current Edition, Foodaism, Mobile, newspulse, Opinion, Rob Eshman Tagged With: america, barack obama, cartoon, gop, hancock park patriots, jewish, los angeles, obamacare, steve greenberg, tea party, temple emanuel

Sunday at Kenny and Zuke's Delicatessen

August 22, 2012 by Rob Eshman

More than Jews have kept delis, the deli has kept the Jews.

Yes, that’s a direct ripoff of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s famous dictum about the Sabbath.

I didn’t know Heschel, but I bet if I could have gotten him alone over a cup of cold beet borscht at Rattner’s, he would have thought it over, wiped the sour cream from the corner of his mouth, and said, “You know, you may have a point.”

The deli is where we eat, meet, laugh, commiserate, celebrate, feast, deal, cry. Take pulpit and prayer out of a synagogue, add corned beef, and you’d end up with something like a deli.  God is, of course, in both.

Read more at jewishjournal.com/foodaism.

Filed Under: Food, Foodaism Tagged With: deli, dining, food, kenny and zuke's delicatessen, los angeles, restaurant

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These #leeks… bubbling away in plenty of olive o These #leeks… bubbling away in plenty of olive oil, salt and pepper, covered for a bit, then uncovered… these leeks. 

#gardening #gardentotable #veganrecipes
Never been much of a #Purim guy but when @rabbinao Never been much of a #Purim guy but when @rabbinaomilevy asked me to make enough dough for 200 #hamantaschen — that’s *my* celebration. I added fresh vanilla and some grated 🍋 rind to #Breads Bakery sturdy recipe. (And how dependable is my 31 year old @kitchenaidusa bucking and groaning under the load but mixing it up like a champ?) Happy Purim! 

#jewishfood #jewishbaking #homebaking #jewsofinstagram #nashuva
For those who prefer their Purim food savory, I gi For those who prefer their Purim food savory, I give you pitataschen. Sourdough pita, baked in a hamantaschen shape, and filled with avocado and hummus or with an egg, cheese and herbs baked right in the center. The latter are a direct ripoff, I mean inspiration, of @Abulafia in Jaffo, or sambusak, or #lahmajun, or any number of similar baked savory stuffed breads. But it’s #Purim, so they’re disguised as #Jewish. 

How to? Preheat oven to 500 degrees with pizza stone or baking sheet inside. Take pita dough (@mikesolomonov cookbooks have great recipes) or store-bought pizza dough. Cut and roll to about the size of a tangerine. Roll each ball into an 8-inch circle, about 1/4 inch thick. Squeeze together sides to form a triangle, pinching each side well. Brush with olive oil. For hummus version, bake until just brown, about 8 minutes. For egg version, bake until just set, about 5 minutes. Crack egg into well, add some cheese and some chopped fresh herbs and salt. Bake until egg is set, another 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Fill empty pitataschens with hummus and avocado. Use harissa on everything. Happy Purim!

#Purimfood #jewishfood #kosherfood #kosherrecipes #jewishrecipes #middleeasternfood #foodvideos
This is my happy place. For the goat it’s just m This is my happy place. For the goat it’s just meh. 

#babygoats #goatstagram #bajacalifornia #animalrescue
Roasted cod with a cilantro crust from #Falastin:A Roasted cod with a cilantro crust from #Falastin:A Cookbook made use of all the late winter cilantro in our garden. There’s so many layers of flavor to this dish: spices, herbs, garlic, lemon, tahini, olive oil. Oh, and cod. The fish section of this important book comes with a thoughtful introduction to the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has impeded the once thriving Gazan fishing fleet. I love that about this book: celebrating the food without looking away from how the people who cook it struggle and cope. Also: fantastic recipes like this. #cookbook #palestine #palestinianfood #middleeasternfood #foodvideo #fishrecipes
I was driving by the Ballona wetlands preserve Sat I was driving by the Ballona wetlands preserve Saturday just as an RV caught on fire. 

For several years city officials have allowed the delicate ecosystem to become an encampment site for RVs and unhoused men and women. 

This has had dire consequences: The people there are not getting the services they need. The natural landscape, what remains of a once vast marsh and now a critical urban habitat for birds and other animals, has been trashed— needles, garbage, feces, chemicals, gasoline. 

Finally, what had been a beautiful taxpayer-funded preserve that activists fought for decades to rescue from development, is now despoiled— not because of greed, but from misguided policies, apathy and inaction. 

When @LAFD put the fire out they found a dead body in the RV, not the only body found in the preserve since 2019. 

The new mayor and the new 11th district council rep have a chance to step in, finally, and repair the damage done to the nature and the people there. #homeless #losangeles #urbanparks
Quick: make a salad using only what’s ripe in yo Quick: make a salad using only what’s ripe in your yard in #venice in January. Roast beets, section oranges, chop mint then toss with olive oil — not from the backyard (@terre_di_zaccanello). Thanks for inspiration from “Olives & Oranges” by @sarajenkins & @cooklikeafox . #backyardgarden #gardentotable #veganvideos #beganrecipes #mediterraneandiet #foodvideos @revivalrootsnursery
You gotta love Venice. At @thevenicewest down the You gotta love Venice. At @thevenicewest down the block on a random rainy Sunday night the legendary Poncho Sanchez played. Even without the perfect #mojito you gotta dance. #morecowbell #congo #latinmusic #salsa #salsadancing #ponchosanchez #livemusic #venicebeach
An illustrated reel to go with my piece in @jdforw An illustrated reel to go with my piece in @jdforward (bio link) on “Searching for Jewish Sicily.” Everywhere Naomi and I went there were faint signs of a once vibrant Jewish world. Maybe the strongest clues left of its existence are in the food… thanks to all the wonderful Sicilians we met, especially our guide in #Palermo Bianca del Bello and @joan_nathan in whose footsteps we followed. Click on link in bio to read all about it.  #jewishitaly #italianfood #sicily #jewishsicily #koshertravel #sicilia #cucinaitaliana #palermo
Another night of Hanukkah, another fried food. Ton Another night of Hanukkah, another fried food. Tonight: Sicilian caponata alla giudia. Caponata, according to many food historians, has Jewish roots. You can read about it and find the  recipe in my article from @jdforward in the bio link. The recipe, from @labna, fries the eggplant cubes in a 1/2 inch of oil until they are almost caramelized. We ate caponata at every dinner in Sicily, always prepared a bit differently. But the fried version was my favorite. Probably because… it was fried. 

#italia #sicilia #cucinaitaliana #cucinasiciliana #sicilianfood #veganrecipes #veganvideo #vegetarianvideos #kosherfood #foodvideos #chanuka #hanukkah #Hanukahfood #jewishfoodie
In Sicily, I became obsessed with these simple chi In Sicily, I became obsessed with these simple chickpea fritters, panelle. Think of stripped down, basic falafel. Of course because they’re fried I decided to make a batch for Hanukkah. Recipe in bio link. #jewishfood #palermo #sicilia #sicilianfood #italianjewish
It’s traditional to eat fried food during #hanuk It’s traditional to eat fried food during #hanukkah — why stop at latkes? Mix 250 gr flour with 500 ml seltzer, stir well.  Dip in pieces of wild fresh cod and fry in hot oil. Serve with salt and lemon. This is a Roman Jewish recipe for fried baccalà. My big innovation is I fry outside with a propane picnic stove so the house doesn’t, you know, stink. Tomorrow: more fried food. It’s like an advent calendar, but oily. Happy Hanukkah!!! #jewishfood #italianfood #romancooking #italianjewish
Instagram post 17996374606600557 Instagram post 17996374606600557
The instant I tasted Chef Bobo’s frico I thought The instant I tasted Chef Bobo’s frico I thought: latke! @bobowonders shared his Friulian recipe with me so I could sub out the traditional #Hanukkah potato pancake for the Italian upgrade, made with potatoes, onion and Alpine cheese. (Montasio is traditional but the smart woman @thecheesestoreofbeverlyhills told me I could use piave instead and Bobo agreed. Swiss works too). You can make these in the skillet (my first try was a bit messy) or do as Bobo does @thefactorykitchen_dtla : form them in ramekins to make restaurant-fancy versions. The easy recipe is in my article @jdforward in the bio link. Read it, print it, make it for at least one Hanukkah meal. 

BTW if you don’t celebrate Hanukkah you’ll love them too. Grazie Bobo. 

#italianfood #hanukkah #latkes #italianjewish #jewishfood #kosherfood #foodvideo #friuliveneziafood #friuliveneziagiulia #italianrestaurant #cucinaitaliana
Wow, Chef Ana Sortun fixed kugel. Take a look: cri Wow, Chef Ana Sortun fixed kugel. Take a look: crispy threads of kataif pastry enclosing a filling of soft cheese, pureed butternut squash and golden raisins, topped with pomegranate and pistachio. I never liked sweet kugel until I tasted this reimagined version, part of the “8 Nights of Hanuka” menu at Birdie G’s in Santa Monica. Also delicious: Sortun’s olive simit stuffed with fresh goat cheese and another dish of deeply roasted parsnips dressed with caramelized onions and cabbage and shards of basturma. But that kugel….

#jewishfood #hanukkah #chanuka #latkes #kugel
Weeknight dinner at da Ettore in Naples. Naomi cho Weeknight dinner at da Ettore in Naples. Naomi chose eggplant parmigiana and a perfect pizza. When I stumbled over my order, the old waiter said, “I’ll tell you what you’re getting,” and ordered for me: fried zucchini blossoms and spaghetti with clams. The tables filled, but people kept coming, so the old waiter just set out more tables in front of someone else’s store. Then a minstrel came by and music broke out. Fast forward a month and I’m watching Howard Stern interview Bruce Springsteen, who explained it all. “I’m Southern Italian, Naples,” Springsteen said. “There’s a lot of innate music ability for one reason or another in Southern Italians.” 

#naplesrestaurants #italianmusic #italianfood @Howardstern #brucespringsteen #pizzanapolitana #cucinanapolitana @daettore @springsteen
Fried ricotta turnovers — Cassatedde di Ricotta Fried ricotta turnovers — Cassatedde di Ricotta — are a specialty of Grammatico bakery in Erice, in Sicily. The delicate dough hides a creamy, not too sweet filling, a comfort food version of cannoli. 

The recipe is in the book “Bitter Almonds,” which tells the remarkable story of Maria Grammatico’s life. Maria was sent to an austere orphanage at age 11, where the nuns used the children as free labor. “I put in a long apprenticeship at the San Carlo: for the first three years I did nothing but scrape the pans. They had to be perfectly clean; if I made a mistake I got a rap on the knuckles.”

When Maria left she had learned enough to open her own shop in Erice, which is now famous, packed with people. The pastries, cookies and marzipan candies I tried there were exemplary. 

But my favorite were these ricotta turnovers. Similar but lesser versions turned up on most Sicilian breakfast buffets.  Anyone know where to get them in LA? NY? 

#italianfood #erice #sicilianfood #sicily #italianbaking #pastry
Same dude, but now the cow has a T-shirt. #mercato Same dude, but now the cow has a T-shirt. #mercatoballarò #palermo
We first had these Sicilian “Esse” cookies at We first had these Sicilian “Esse” cookies at a Panificio Campanella in Monreale, outside Palermo. I like having them to dip in my coffee, so after we ate all the ones we brought home, I searched for a recipe. This one, from shelovesbiscotti.com, comes very close to what we had in the old country — simple, flavored only with lemon peel and a whiff of good olive oil. Enjoy! #italianbaking #kosherrecipes #biscotti #cookieporn #bakingvideos #foodvideos @PanificioCampanella #monreale
“The best bread in Italy is in France,” @stanl “The best bread in Italy is in France,” @stanleytucci writes in his food memoir @Taste (by the way, I did *not* see that knockout last chapter coming). In Sicily, that’s true of the dry chunks of plain white bread most servers plop on your table. But on the last day of our trip we walked into a bakery in Monreale, outside Palermo, and discovered Sicilian bread. Monreale is famous with tourists for its cathedral, but with locals for its small, round loaves, made with local semolina flour. Just across from the cathedral Naomi spotted a bakery opening after siesta, Panificio Campanella.

The young bakerwas dumping hot round loaves behind a display case. He broke one open and offered me a bite. It was a deep yellow-orange tint, with a nutty fragrance and a coarse, earthy texture. I had to see the flour. First he showed me a picture of the ancient Sicilian variety of wheat grains on his iPhone: “Native Sicilian hard wheat,” he said. Then he took me to the back and reached in to a sack, pulling out a fine yellow powder, which those same deep brown grains had somehow become.

I was using my pathetic excuse for Italian, but I definitely heard him ask me if I wanted it plain or a cunzatu. “Cunzatu" was the only Sicilian word I’d learned, because after three days in Palermo,I’d seen those sandwiches everywhere. He split a fresh loaf open and filled it with the ingredients: a deep red slice of tomato, salty cheese, a couple sardine filets, olive oil, dried oregano, salt and lots of pepper. He handed it over and I crunched down. Wow. The best bread in Italy, turns out, is in Monreale.

#italianfood #sicilianfood #sicily #sicilytravel #palermofood #palermo #stanleytucci #cunzatu #monreale #italianbaking #italianbread
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