Modern Jewish Cooking

It’s official! After 10 months of recipe testing and writing, and many more of editing, photographing, styling, editing more, and just plain old waiting, Modern Jewish Cooking is here in the glorious flesh. Or rather, glorious paper. 

I’ve got a whirlwind of events coming up this week and next in NYC and California. To kick things off, I spent Sunday afternoon chatting with the inimitable Cathy Erway on Heritage Radio Network. It was a serious honor to be on her Eat Your Words show (all about cookbooks), and we had lots of fun. 

Take a listen!

It’s getting real, friends. Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes & Customs for Today’s Table (Chronicle Books) is coming out in March. I know, I can hardly believe it either. To celebrate, I’m hitting the road! I’ll be doing a bunch of fun signings, demos, and other events in New York and California. Join me for snacks, wine, books, and many good times.

MODERN JEWISH COOKING: COOKBOOK LAUNCH AND CONVERSATION
Sunday, March 22, 2:30pm
Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Place, New York City
$15, $12 members

Borscht and book lovers, this one’s for you. Join food writer (NYTimes, Epicurious, Tablet), Leah Koenig in conversation with editor Gabriella Gershenson (Everyday with Rachael Ray, Saveur) about Jewish cooking and eating in the 21st century. This event is the kick-off party for Koenig’s new cookbook, Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes and Customs for Today’s Kitchens (Chronicle Books, 2015). Enjoy a sampling of sweets and nibbles from the cookbook, and get your copy signed by the author. More info.

MODERN JEWISH COOKING: BOOK PARTY
@The EatWith Test Kitchen
188 King Street, San Francisco
Monday, March 23, 7:00pm
$20

Join me in the gorgeous test kitchen at EatWith’s headquarters for a cookbook launch party featuring dishes from the Modern Jewish Cooking. Grab a bite, reminisce about your bubbe’s ethereal (or terrible!) matzo balls, and stick around to get your cookbook signed. Didn’t grow up eating Jewish food? No worries. If you crave all things briny, creamy, tangy, crisp, and soul satisfying, you are warmly invited to raise a glass of (kosher!) Prosecco and dig in.
More info.

DOUBLE COOKBOOK PARTY W/THE COVENANT KITCHEN
Tues, March 24, 6-8pm
@ Covenant Winery
1102 6th Street, Berkeley
Free

Calling all home cooks, Jewish food lovers, and oenophiles! Join me and California vitners/cookbook authors Jeff and Jodie Morgan for a celebration of our newly-released cookbooks, Modern Jewish Cooking and The Covenant Kitchen: Food & Wine for the New Jewish Table. Spend the evening at the Morgans’ beautiful, Berkeley-based Covenant winery enjoying a glass of vino and light appetizers featuring recipes from both books. Talk with the authors, get your books signed, and grab a bottle of Covenant’s award-winning wines to go.

COOKBOOK SIGNING @OMNIVORE BOOKS
Weds, March 25 6:30-7:30pm
3885 Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco
Free

Join me at San Francisco’s food-focused bookstore. Get a book signed, meet the author, and enjoy a glass of wine and a browse through Omnivore’s amazing collection. More info.

COOKING CLASS AND SHABBAT DINNER
Thurs-Fri March 26-27
@ Temple Beth El
2A Liberty, Aliso Viejo
(Events by invitation only - contact Leah if you would like to attend)

COOKING UP CULTURE: A FOOD WRITER PANEL
Tues, March 31, 7pm
@PowerHouse Arena
37 Main Street, Brooklyn

Three New York cookbook authors - Leah Koenig (Modern Jewish Cooking, Chronicle Books), Louisa Shafia (The New Persian Kitchen, Ten Speed) and Cathy Erway (The Food of Taiwan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) join Wall Street Journal Food & Drinks editor, Beth Kracklauer for a panel about choosing to explore their food heritages and the joys, challenges, and responsibilities that come with it.

I am super duper excited to announce that Modern Jewish Cooking is now available for preorder! You can order it here or here or here, or here, and they will ship it to you just as soon as it hits the shelves on March 17, 2015.

By the time the book arrives, you’ll have forgotten all about ordering it so it will feel like a surprise gift. Awesome. 

Transform Rosh Hashanah’s iconic apples and honey duo into a beautiful cheese board that’s perfect for holiday entertaining. Find out how on this post I did for The Kitchn.

The galleys of The Modern Jewish Cookbook arrived in the mail late last week! Aren’t they lovely? It’s such a treat to flip through the pages and get excited about the recipes all over again. 

There’s also lots of work to do - finding typos, making last minute adjustments, and ensuring that everything is in its place. 

I’m excited to get to work! Meanwhile, enjoy the mini preview…

Holy moly: Budapest. I spent three days there last week before shuttling off on an overnight Eurail train to Transylvania. And I’m so very glad I did.

Before arriving, I had read about the city’s beauty, its history, and its Jewish community which, at 100,000 people, is currently the largest in Central Europe. And I knew that its Jewish quarter was in the midst of a surging renaissance and had become, like many historic Jewish neighborhoods (think: the Lower East Side in New York City, Paris’ Le Marais, or Mile End in Montreal) a playground for the young and stylish.

I was not, however, expecting to be quite so taken by the city’s playful spirit or the Jewish community’s remarkable food. And yet there I was: hook, line, and smitten. Many of the country’s richest Jewish food traditions, which always mingled with the country’s broader cuisine, have been lost over time (exacerbated by the Holocaust and the Communist era that followed). But the dishes that remain and the people who are dedicated to preserving and, perhaps more importantly, innovating those dishes, are anything but faded.

Here is a tiny sample of the flavors that make Jewish Budapest vibrant right now:

RACHEL RAJ
Bubbly, sophisticated, and, above all, a talented pastry chef, Rachel Raj co-owns four patisseries in Budapest with her husband, Miklos Maloschick. There, she designs custom cakes and sells homemade cookies and other confections, including hamantaschen, an apple matzo cake, and her signature pastry, flódni. (More on that directly below.)

FLODNI
Raj has helped put this Jewish Hungarian dessert on the world map, and her version was the best I tasted in Budapest. The tri-layered stack of sweet, ground poppy seeds, chopped apple, and meaty walnut paste is finished with a midnight-colored slick of plum jam.

TEAPOT CHANDELIERS AT MACESZ HUSZAR
Don’t mind the unusual name of David Popovits’ restaurant, Macesz Huszár (it translates to “matzah soldiers”). Opened in December, 2013 in the heart of the bustling Jewish quarter, Popovits’ contemporary take on Jewish Hungarian dishes has gained wide and well-deserved acclaim. So has the homey-elegant decor, which includes these beautiful stacked teapot chandeliers crafted by his wife, designer Mária Fatér.

JEWISH STYLE EGGS
Hungarian Jews add two secret ingredients to their chopped egg salad: slowly softened onions and duck fat, which lends savory depth without overpowering the dish. At Macesz Huszár, the dish is served as an appetizer two ways (with liver, like Popovits’ grandma used to make, and without), along with a basket of poppy seed challah and other crusty breads sourced from a local bakery.

TIBOR ROSENSTEIN
When you visit Budapest - because surely it is when and not if - do yourself a favor and have a meal at Rosenstein - first for the food, and secondly in the hopes of meeting Tibor. He’s the founder and co-owner of his namesake fine dining restaurant, which specializes in Hungarian Jewish foods along with other creative, flavorful dishes. Tibor is a born chef and supremely gracious host who derives great joy from pouring shots of his house made pálinka (fruit brandy) for diners. And at 72, he’s one of the most energetic and passionate people I have ever met. His son Robi now largely manages the restaurant, but Tibor continues to come (and cook) there every day. 

SOLET
Hungary’s take on the Shabbat bean and meat stew, cholent, is beloved all over Budapest, both within and beyond the Jewish community. The sophisticated version from Rosenstein (somehow, even the humblest of dishes come alive under Tibor’s watch) came adorned with smoked brisket, stuffed goose derma, and hard boiled egg. Tibor said people visit Rosenstein for the sólet alone. Understandable, but I personally recommend taking full advantage of the rest of the inventive, flavorful menu.

SWEET MATZO BALLS
This unexpected dish, shared with Tibor by a customer, transforms the Passover soup dumpling into a dessert. The matzo balls come filled with plum preserves, flavored with lemon zest, vanilla, and honey, and boiled in sugar water. They are at once humble and sophisticated (see: edible flower) - a perfect representation of Rosenstein’s style. 

Here’s a wee excerpt from a article and recipe I worked on for The Kitchn. Read the whole thing, and get the recipe on their site.

Passover Recipe: Chicken Soup with Shallot-Shiitake Matzo Balls

I am all for getting creative in the kitchen. But sometimes, you just don’t want to mess around with a classic. Take chicken soup. Whether you call it “goldene yoich” (golden broth in Yiddish), “Jewish Penicillin,” or just plain old soup, not much can top the basic, soul-satisfying combination of tender chicken, carrots, celery, and onions swimming in soothing broth.

Besides, people tend to get a little particular about what foods they expect to see on the Passover table. So when the holiday rolls around, I make sure to give my friends and family what they want: pure, unadulterated, intoxicatingly fragrant chicken soup. When it comes to the matzo balls, however, I feel much more comfortable experimenting. Made from little more than eggs, matzo meal, and a little seltzer for lift, they make the perfect blank canvas for adding flavor.

more…

What do you do when the wonderful folks at Saveur ask you to develop a contemporary Passover seder menu? You rock a little happy dance, and then you get cooking.

Check out the full menu over at Saveur.com. It features a sneak peak of a couple of recipes from The Modern Jewish Cookbook - including the sunset-colored pureed carrots with orange and ginger pictured above and my rosemary-maple roast chicken - and a few I dreamt up just for them.

Enjoy and happy Passover!

I have never been so big into birthdays. My Midwestern tendencies simply bristle at the idea of having too much attention paid my way. 

But as I entered my 32nd year this weekend, whether I knew I wanted it or not, I got showered with well wishes, Facebook love, phone calls, good old fashioned birthday cards (thanks Mom), and a glorious day of brunch and massages with my sisters-in-law.

The absolute highlight was attending a dinner hosted by Noah Arenstein of the Crow Hill Supper Club, and prepared by Ron and Leetal Arazi of NY Shuk. The dinner was feast enough - a table groaning with 10 Middle Eastern-inspired salads (charred eggplant and bell pepper salad; freekeh with caramelized onions and herbs; a lima bean and garlic stew flavored with mace), homemade bread, haddock patties served in chickpea and turmeric stew, and their signature hand-rolled couscous cooked in milk and topped with chopped nuts, sour cream, and fruit preserves.

As the meal was winding down, and glasses of mint and sage tea were being passed around, Leetal came out with a stunning, chocolate-frosted poppy seed cake. My head swirled a bit as a I realized the dessert, festooned with candles and accompanied by a Moroccan take on the Happy Birthday song, was for me. (There I am above with Yoshie. He’s beaming. I’m closing my eyes for a wish - but also trying to steady myself!)

Somehow I pulled it together, blew out the candles, and focused on the task of serving impossibly soft and fudgy slices of cake to the table. That particular tradition - which obliges the birthday celebrator to cut everyone else’s cake - suits me just fine! 

Yoshie and I ambled home, stuffed and chatting about our favorite dishes. Despite my tendency for embarrassment, sometimes it really does feel great to get properly celebrated. 

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Find out more about the dinner and NY Shuk in my article for the Forward.