freelancer – Page 475

From cardboard to folktales

Books can take you to the most captivating places. Not always happy places, but places worth exploring, places where the people, environment, challenges and culture are different. A place you can have adventures, learn from what has happened to others or just escape from your daily routine, all for the relatively low price of a book. Oh, and maybe a cardboard box.

The beautifully and creatively illustrated What to do with a Box (Creative Editions, 2016) features the rhythmic writing of Jane Yolen and the inspired art of Chris Sheban. The book is a tribute to the power of the imagination – a way to impart to the younger set that fun doesn’t necessarily need batteries. It’s also a reminder to parents that expensive toys aren’t at the root of what makes playtime enjoyable, and they may even be enticed to join their kids in a cardboard box adventure – if they’re invited to come along, that is.

The writing is simple, as it is for most picture books. That box, “can be a library, palace, or nook,” or a place you can “invite your dolls to come in for tea”; it can be a racecar, a ship, and so much more. And the art by Sheban looks as if he took Yolen’s advice: “You can paint a landscape with sun, sand and sky or crayon an egret that’s flying right by.” It is described as cardboardesque and, indeed, it looks as if he drew the illustrations on different types of boxes.

For slightly older readers (or listeners), Richard Unger has written and illustrated a more traditional story with Chagallesque art, Yitzi and the Giant Menorah (Penguin Random House, 2016). It is a picture book, but with a substantive amount of text on each page. It, too, is beautifully and creatively put together, with most of the text printed on a plain page that includes a black-and-white sketch that doesn’t overlap it in any way, making the reading easier. More importantly, it leaves most of the colorful, vibrant and expressive artwork on the opposite page free from writing. At the end of the book is the brief story of Chanukah.

While set on the eve of Chanukah in the shtetl of Chelm, this tale bears a similar message to What to do with a Box: money isn’t everything. It adds to that the lesson of gratitude.

In the story, the mayor of Lublin gives the people of the Chelm “the biggest menorah” Yitzi has ever seen and the villagers are so grateful, they want to thank the mayor in a way that matches the grandeur of his gift. This being Chelm, the solution doesn’t come easily but, after a few failed efforts, they succeed in a heartwarming way.

* * *

For young adult readers, the stories are much more serious in both subject matter and tone.

Eva Wiseman’s Another Me (Tundra Books, 2016) is set in the mid-1300s in Strasbourg, France. It starts with the main character’s death at the hands of the men poisoning the town’s water – an act the Jews were accused of committing not only in Strasbourg, but other cities in Europe, as well. It was thought that poisoned water was causing the plague and, since fewer Jews were dying, the rumors began that they were causing the illness. In reality, Jews were also dying, but in fewer numbers because Jewish law required much more handwashing than was customary in medieval times.

Wiseman also elaborates upon less tangible Jewish beliefs in Another Me. When Natan, 17, dies, his story doesn’t end. He becomes an ibbur – his soul enters the body of another man; in this instance, that of Hans the draper.

Hans works for Wilhelm, with whose daughter, Elena, Natan has fallen in love. Natan has come to know all of these non-Jews from helping his father in the shmatte business. Wilhelm is one of the very few Strasbourgians who is not antisemitic. Hans is also a good person, though he is jealous of Elena’s affection for Natan. When Natan – to whom she’s attracted – becomes Hans – who she finds ugly – Elena struggles to see beyond the exterior.

While mostly told from Natan’s perspective, Wiseman also allows Elena to tell a substantial part of the story. It is sometimes hard as a reader to change gears, but the dual voices offer a deeper understanding of the situation of the Jews in the city (and beyond), and those who would help them. Being historical fiction, while Wiseman can play with magic, there is, sadly, no chance for a happy ending.

Magic – or, at least, ghosts – also informs the storytelling in Eugene Yelchin’s The Haunting of Falcon House (Henry Holt and Co., 2016).

Ostensibly, this book is a translation Yelchin has made from a bundle of decaying pages bound with twine that he came across as a schoolboy in Russia. He brought them with him when he immigrated to the United States, but let them sit for years. Apparently written and illustrated by “a young Russian nobleman, Prince Lev Lvov,” who was born in 1879, there were many pages missing or unreadable.

“I managed to establish a chronological order of the events and then divided them into chapters, matched the drawings to the chapters, and discarded those I could not match,” writes Yelchin in the translator’s note that begins the book. So “inwardly connected to the young prince” did Yelchin become, he writes, “I can’t be certain, but as I typed Prince Lev’s inner thoughts, I felt cool fingers firmly guiding mine across the keys.”

In the story, 12-year-old Lev’s hands are similarly guided by a mysterious force when he is drawing. Arriving at Falcon House from St. Petersburg to take his place as heir to his family’s estate, Lev – who bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather – dreams of being a hero and nobleman like his grandfather and preceding ancestors. But, with some mystical guidance from Falcon House’s resident ghost, Lev begins to understand that being nobility doesn’t necessarily mean being noble, and his family’s secrets, which are slowly revealed, make him rethink his aspirations.

The ghost, a scary aunt and the disturbing illustrations combine to good effect in The Haunting of Falcon House, even though the story takes a little too long to unfold. The detailed notes at the book’s end provide valuable historical context and add greatly to the reading experience.

Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose: A Novel of the Holocaust (Tor Teen, 2016) is also a retelling – an adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. And, it is a reissue, having originally been published almost 15 years ago in a series created by Terri Windling, which comprised novels by various authors that reinterpreted classic fairy tales.

In Yolen’s reimagining, Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty) is Gemma, Rebecca’s grandmother. Unlike her cynical and competitive older sisters, Rebecca never tires of listening to Gemma’s version of the tale, which doesn’t quite match up with the traditional folktale. When Gemma dies, leaving behind a box containing a few documents and photos that don’t quite match up with what she has told her family about her history, Becca sets off to find the truth.

Her search – done in the days before Google – starts slowly, with the help of her editor, Stan, on whom she has a crush. It takes them from their hometown of Holyoke, Mass., to Oswego, N.Y., where refugees were sheltered at Fort Oswego: “Roosevelt made it a camp and, in August 1944, some 1,000 people were brought over and interned [there]. From Naples, Italy. Mostly Jews and about 100 Christians,” explains the reporter at the Palladium Times to Becca.

What she learns at Oswego leads her on a journey to Poland and to Chelmno. Of the more than 152,000 killed by gas (or shooting) at the Nazi extermination camp that was there, only seven Jewish men are known to have escaped. This allows Yolen to imagine that one woman survived the killing centre, which was established on an old estate in a forest clearing that had a schloss (castle, or manor house).

In Gemma’s cryptic telling of her survival, she is saved from the castle by a “prince,” who we find out was himself saved by partisans after his escape from Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then joined the resistance; in her story, briars take the place of barbed wire, the wicked fairy the Nazis. As Becca discovers the reality of her grandmother’s past and finds her own voice and identity through the journey, we also witness Poles’ difficulties in dealing with what took place during the Holocaust and we meet others – including Gemma’s prince – who are still trying to heal from the destruction the Nazis’ wrought.

Interweaving the “real” story with Gemma’s fairy tale is very effective at building the anticipation and, once Becca arrives in Poland, Briar Rose is a page-turner. One almost doesn’t realize how much they’re learning while they’re reading. Almost.

Quirky fiction meets history

Two quirky books. Both historically based, both written with humor, both dark and light. But there the similarities end.

The quiet and quirky Fever at Dawn by Péter Gárdos is based on letters his parents sent to each other immediately following the Holocaust, as they recovered from their physical ailments in Sweden. The raucous and quirky Two-Gun & Sun by June Hutton takes its inspiration from Morris “Two-Gun” Cohen and Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who actually did know each other, and Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, to tell the story of a young woman who heads to a northern B.C. mining town in 1922 to revitalize her uncle’s newspaper, which he left her in his will.

Fever at Dawn (House of Anansi Press, 2016) begins with a note from Gárdos about the letters his parents – Miklós and Lili – sent to each other from September 1945 to February 1946. Until his father died, Gárdos had no idea of their existence, though his mother had told him, “Your father swept me off my feet with his letters.”

The main quirky thing about this story (there are others) is that Miklós tried to sweep no fewer than 117 women off their feet with his letters. Told by his doctor that he would not survive his tuberculosis, Miklós defiantly decides he wants to get married. He inquires for the names and addresses of all the women survivors being treated in Sweden, and sends all of them the exact same letter. He determines pretty quickly that Lili is “the one,” though 18 women respond.

The secondary characters are well-conceived and play important parts in Miklós and Lili’s developing relationship. It is a beautiful and uplifting story – love and hope from hatred and tragedy. It brings up many issues, in Lili’s wanting to renounce her faith and in how the survivors are treated, for example. The translation into English from Hungarian by Elizabeth Szász is a bit awkward in parts, but otherwise does justice to the work. And some of the awkwardness might be due to the fact that Gárdos, who is a filmmaker and theatre director, originally envisioned the story as a film – which was released last year – but also wrote it as a novel.

Two-Gun & Sun (Caitlin Press Inc., 2015) might also make a good film. It brings to mind Joss Whedon’s Firefly, mixing science fiction (specifically steampunk) with opera’s larger-than-life and often unbelievable drama with history. It’s a very stylized novel, which, more than other books, means that it will be loved by some readers, and not so much by others.

While loosely historical, it does strongly evoke the era and how hard it must have been to survive back then, especially in a remote town, especially if you were a minority, and very especially if you were a woman. The central character, Lila Sinclair, arrives in Black Mountain from Nelson, given by her uncle’s death a more adventuresome, “manly” economic opportunity than marriage, teaching or prostitution, which seem to have been women’s main choices at the time.

Some of the more fascinating aspects of this novel are the daily-life moments, what people ate, how they earned a living, the excitement a traveling troupe generated, the dangers posed by a lack of law. Anyone in the publishing industry will also appreciate Lila’s struggle to get the printing press up and running, and how newspapers once operated. As well, while her relationship with Vincent, a Chinese printer, runs a predictable course, it offers a chance for Hutton to address the racism of the day.

Two-Gun & Sun is a unique twist on the traditional western and, while the ending wasn’t quite satisfactory for this reader, its originality and oddness were entertaining and energizing.

Some of the magic of Israel

In writing Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) with Steven Cook, Michael Solomonov hopes to share with other cooks “some of the magic” found in Israel.

Israeli-born Solomonov grew up from the age of 2 to 15 in Pittsburgh, then the family returned to Israel. After awhile, when his Bulgarian father and American mother divorced, he returned to the United States, eventually learning to be a chef, graduating from culinary school in 2001. He returned to Israel, where his brother had grown up and was on leave from the army; sadly, his brother was killed soon after, and Solomonov once again left the country.

Returning to Pittsburgh, Solomonov met Cook and, in 2005, became chef of their first restaurant, Marigold Kitchen. In 2008, Solomonov and Cook opened the restaurant Zahav in Philadelphia. They also co-own restaurants Percy Street Barbeque, Federal Donuts, Dizengoff and Abe Fisher, all in Philadelphia. In 2011, Solomonov was awarded the James Beard Award for best chef mid-Atlantic.

After the death of his brother, as he and Cook worked together at Marigold Kitchen, Solomonov writes, “I began to see cooking as a powerful way to honor David’s memory. I could expose people to a side of Israel that had nothing to do with politics and didn’t ever make the evening papers.”

This was the inspiration for Zahav, which opened in May 2008, as well as the cookbook Zahav, whose style is unique.

The nine chapters include one on tahini, which has 34 recipes, including seared chicken livers with caramelized onion tahini and tahini shortbread cookies. There are 20 salad recipes, showing that vegetables are everything, including Israeli pickles and spicy fennel salad. There is a chapter on smaller dishes, with recipes for items like fried cauliflower with herbed labneh. The soup chapter has 16 recipes from around the world, such as celery root soup. The next chapter – “Grandmother’s Borekas, Tradition Was My Teacher” – has 20 recipes, such as fried leek patties. “Live Fire, As Close to Magic as I’ll Come” has 16 recipes, like Bulgarian kebabs and pomegranate-glazed salmon, including mujadara. Then there’s the chapter called “Ben-Gurion’s Rice,” with 11 different recipes. “Mesibah, It’s Party Time” has seven recipes, such as whole fish in grape leaves, and “Milk & Honey is a Glimpse of the Divine” has 17 recipes, including konafi and carrot basboosa.

After an introductory essay in each chapter, there are the recipes, and each is also introduced, with casual (and fun-to-read) remarks and easy-to-follow instructions. There are also sidebars with fascinating information about such things as sumac, date molasses, freekah and rose water.

There is no doubt that this book has “a world of Israeli cooking,” and the recipes below reflect that idea.

CHICKPEA BRITTLE
makes three cups

2 cups cooked or canned chickpeas, rinsed
1 tbsp canola oil
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Toss the chickpeas with the oil, transfer to another baking sheet, and roast until crisp, 25 to 30 minutes.

Combine the brown sugar, butter and cream in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until the mixture darkens in color slightly and large, lava-like bubbles cover the surface, about 10 minutes. Add the chickpeas and stir to combine.

Working quickly and using a rubber spatula, spread the mixture out in an even layer on the prepared baking sheet. Let cool to room temperature. Break into two-inch pieces to serve. The brittle will keep a week in a sealed container.

ROASTED OKRA
serves six

6 cups small whole okra
5 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup basic tomato sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp grated dried lime
1/2 tsp kosher salt
handful cilantro leaves, chopped

Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Toss the okra with two tablespoons olive oil and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake until the okra turns brown, about 25 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and toss the okra with the remaining three tablespoons of olive oil and the tomato sauce, lemon juice, dried lime and salt. Top with the cilantro. Serve hot or chilled.

GLUTEN-FREE CHOCOLATE ALMOND SITUATION

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
big pinch salt
2 scant cups chopped dark chocolate (at least 60% cacao), melted and cooled slightly
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup almond flour

Preheat the oven to 375˚F, with a rack in the middle. Oil a nine-inch round or square cake pan. Line the bottom with a round of parchment paper, and oil the parchment.

Combine the butter, sugar and salt in a mixer or other bowl. Beat on medium high until pale and fluffy, about two minutes. Add melted chocolate and mix just until combined. Scrape down the sides and mix for another few seconds. With the mixer on low speed, add eggs, one at a time, beating until each one is incorporated before adding the next. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add almond flour. Mix on low until just incorporated, about 10 seconds.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top with spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.

Her mother’s 100 favorites

In my collection of cookbooks is The Complete International Jewish Cookbook by Evelyn Rose. For more than 30 years, she was food editor of the London Jewish Chronicle. When I received the press release that 100 Best Jewish Recipes (Interlink Books, 2016) by Rose with Judi Rose was being published, I was sure it would be as lovely as the earlier one and was saddened to learn that Evelyn Rose was no longer living – she died in 2003.

Judi Rose had quite a task when she began working on this book, as she narrowed down the thousands of recipes from her mother’s career into the ones their family loved best. She ultimately decided on 100 of her mother’s best-loved recipes – “some of her personal favorites, as well as those of her fans.”

Judi Rose is a food writer, consultant and culinary expert. She and her mother cooked together for more than 30 years and wrote two cookbooks together. The recipes she has chosen epitomize her mother’s principles of “incorporating thinking on health and nutrition, and using new technology to save time and effort.”

“My mother passionately believed that each dish must have ta’am – that extra something that makes it taste special and worth the effort for busy people to put on their table,” writes Rose.

There are 128 recipes in this new cookbook, enhanced by 38 color photographs. After a foreword, an introduction and an essay on festivals and food, the chapters are listed: small plates (10 recipes), soups (13 recipes), poultry (12 recipes), meat (16 recipes), fish (11 recipes), vegetables and side dishes (23 recipes), bread-bakes and desserts (21 recipes) and basics (22 recipes). A final essay is on adapting recipes for the kosher kitchen.

One thing missing from the recipes is whether they are meat, dairy or pareve. Other than that, each recipe has how many servings, how long it will keep in the refrigerator (a clever inclusion not generally listed with recipes), how long it can be frozen and a little introductory note.

Styles include Middle Eastern and Sephardi, and the places from where the recipes come include Austria, Lithuania, Syria, Russia, France, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Persia, Morocco, China, Italy, Greece, Holland, Britain, Israel, Sicily, Egypt, Indonesia, Armenia and Denmark. As the publisher notes, these are traditional and contemporary recipes, for family meals and special occasions, for both novices and experienced cooks.

Here are a few of the traditional, classic recipes.

CHICKEN LIVER PATÉ

3 eggs
1 finely chopped onion
1 crushed garlic clove
4 tbsp soft margarine or rendered chicken fat
5-10 grinds sea salt
12 oz ready-koshered chicken livers
15 grinds of black pepper
1 good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
warm French bread, crackers or sliced challah

Hard boil eggs for 10 minutes, drain, return to pan, cover with cold water and leave to cool.

Fry the onion and garlic gently in the margarine or fat until very soft and a rich brown. As the onion cooks, sprinkle it with sea salt.

Peel the eggs and cut in half. Put one aside.

Put the onion and garlic with cooking juices into a food processor, process until smooth. Add two eggs, livers, pepper and nutmeg. Process until smooth. Taste and add more seasoning if necessary.

Turn mixture into a terrine or oval gratin dish or divide between individual ramekins. Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight. Refrigerate extra egg.

One hour before serving, remove paté from refrigerator to return to room temperature. Pass the remaining egg through a food mill or sieve to decorate the top of the paté.

Serves six as an appetizer, eight to 10 as a spread. Keeps five days in the fridge and freezes for one month.

TRADITIONAL CHICKEN SOUP

1 whole or half chicken with wings and giblets
7 1/2 cups water
2 tsp salt
1 pinch white pepper
2 halved, peeled carrots
leaves and top 2 inches of 2 celery ribs
1 sprig parsley
1 very ripe tomato

Put bird and pieces in a large pot with water, salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil. Remove foam with a large metal spoon.

Peel and halve onion and carrots, and add to pot with celery, parsley and tomato. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and continue to simmer three hours until chicken feels very tender when a leg is prodded.

Strain soup, reserving giblets and carrots in a separate container. Cover and refrigerate soup. Next day, remove congealed fat and return soup to the pot.

Cube giblets and carrots. Add to soup. Serve with matzah balls or noodles.

Serves four to six. Keeps three days in the refrigerator and three months in the freezer.

TRADITIONAL KICHELS

1 cup cake flour
1 to 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
2/3 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup sunflower or other flavorless oil
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350˚F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix flours and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until thick then gradually whisk in the sugar, followed by the oil, orange zest and vanilla.

Stir in enough of the flour to make a rollable, nonsticky dough. Knead until smooth then roll onto a floured board until a half-inch thick.

Sprinkle the dough with sugar, roll lightly to press it in. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and arrange on prepared trays, leaving room for cookies to spread. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until pale gold in color. Leave on wire racks to cool.

Makes about 50. Will stay fresh two weeks in an airtight container and freezes for three months.

An apple-honey cake

Add some apples to your honey cake this year. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan)

In the spirit of trying new things and as the New Year approaches, here is a recipe from my kosher kitchen, a slightly different take on the traditional honey cake. It’s a Rosh Hashanah favorite.

TWO-LAYER APPLE-HONEY CAKE

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 cup sugar or sugar substitute
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup non-dairy creamer
1/2 cup honey or honey substitute
3 cups grated apples

Frosting
2 cups tofu cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted pareve margarine
1 tsp grated orange peel
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey or honey substitute

Preheat oven to 325˚F.
Put vegetable spray on two nine-inch cake pans.
Place flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and sugar or sugar substitute in a large bowl and mix.
Add vanilla, eggs, oil, non-dairy creamer and honey. Mix, then add apples. Place half of the batter in each baking pan. Bake in the oven about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool.
Beat cream cheese and margarine in a bowl until fluffy.
Add orange peel, confectioners sugar and vanilla and blend. Add honey. Chill until firm enough to spread.
Place one cake on a serving dish. Spread with one cup of frosting. Top with the second cake and spread the remaining frosting on the top and sides.

Celebrate sweetness

The High Holidays are all about family and friends coming together and sharing a meal. Kosher Taste: Plan. Prepare. Plate (Feldheim, 2016) by Toronto-based Amy Stopnicki offers home cooks a new formula for kosher cooking, with more than 100 recipes and photos.

In Kosher Taste, Stopnicki has taken her best innovations from years of experience and combined them with her passion for creating balanced and beautiful meals.

“I love to cook and I love to entertain. The warmth and beauty of sharing a beautifully set Shabbos or holiday table with friends and family is my passion and joy,” she explained. “The satisfaction I feel when family and guests dig in for seconds, or when kids enjoy a new dish, this makes all the effort of planning and preparing worthwhile. My goal with Kosher Taste is to share this joy, this passion, with home cooks who are looking to experience delicious new tastes and flavors to share with their families.”

Every recipe offers an easy-to-follow formula. Plan: tips for preparing ingredients ahead of time. Prepare: simple instructions and a step-by-step guide help any level of home cook recreate Stopnicki’s recipes. Plate: making what you have prepared look beautiful when served and what you can serve it with.

Recipes include squash zucchini soup, mango salad with raspberry vinaigrette, broccoli kugel, grilled fennel with balsamic reduction, stuffed mushrooms, salmon pad thai, wasabi tuna steaks, maple-glazed turkey breast, spinach pesto stuffed chicken, skirt steak in rum sauce, simple savory brisket, chocolate-dipped hamantashen and pumpkin pie brulée.

Here are some recipes to try for the New Year.

QUINOA SCHNITZEL
status: meat, serves 6-8

Plan: This recipe can also be baked on cookie sheets. Lightly cover the cookie sheet with oil and coat the top of each schnitzel with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 350°F for approximately 10 minutes on each side. Quinoa flakes are a great gluten-free alternative. They are light and healthy and easy to work with and can be found in most health food stores.

8 chicken breasts
2-2 1/2 cups dried quinoa flakes
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
2 eggs
1/2 cup cornstarch or potato starch
canola (or safflower) oil for frying

Prepare:
1. Slice chicken breasts horizontally and pound to flatten.
2. In a shallow bowl, combine quinoa flakes, salt, paprika, garlic powder and pepper.
3. In another shallow bowl, lightly beat eggs.
4. Pour the starch on a plate.
5. In a large skillet, heat oil over a high temperature for frying.
6. Lightly dip each piece of chicken in starch, egg, and finally the quinoa mixture.
7. Fry each piece of chicken, turning when necessary. You will know it’s cooked when all sides are golden.

Plate: There are endless debates on how one serves and eats schnitzel: with noodles, or salad, or even in a sandwich. Stopnicki’s favorite is Israeli-style with hummus, Israeli salad and basmati rice.

APPLE CINNAMON STREUSEL MUFFINS
status: pareve, makes 18 muffins

Plan: This sweet treat is a great muffin to have for the kids as an after-school snack. Double the recipe and freeze them so you can take them out as needed. They thaw in 10 minutes or so.

2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup water
2 gala apples, peeled and finely diced

Streusel topping
3 tbsp margarine
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Prepare:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream eggs, vanilla, sugar and oil until mixture is light.
3. Add dry ingredients, applesauce, water and apples and combine well.
4. Pour batter into paper-lined muffin tins, filling them 2⁄3 of the way.
5. Meanwhile, combine all streusel ingredients until they achieve a sand-like consistency.
6.Pour one tablespoon of streusel mixture on top of each unbaked muffin.
7. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden.

Plate: Enjoy these alone or with a hot cup of tea.

Museums adapt using tech

Museloop’s app that it created for Israel Museum. (photo from Museloop via Times of Israel)

How do museums and other purveyors of history attract visitors and make the past relevant, especially as people come to expect more and more digital experiences?

Perhaps surprisingly, Werner W. Pommerehne and Bruno S. Frey recognized the problem more than 36 years ago. In their article “The museum from an economic perspective,” which was published in the International Social Science Journal in 1980, they stated:

“Museum exhibitions are generally poorly presented didactically. The history and nature of the artists’ work is rarely well explained, and little is offered to help the average, uninitiated viewer (i.e., the majority of actual and potential viewers) to understand and differentiate what is being presented, and why it has been singled out. Accompanying information sheets are often written in a language incomprehensible to those who are not already familiar with the subject. There is no clear guidance offered to the collections, and little or no effort is made to relate the exhibits to what the average viewer already knows about the history, political conditions, culture, famous people, etc., of the period in which the work of art was produced.”

Keren Berler, chief executive officer of Israeli start-up Museloop recently put the problem into current perspective. Younger visitors, she noted in an Israeli radio interview this past June, find museum visits passive and boring. She said, especially when seeing museum art exhibits, young people need something more to draw them into what they are seeing. So, her company has designed a museum-based application for iPhone and Android use. The application includes games, such as find-the-difference puzzles, plus information about the artist, all of which will hopefully make the visitor better remember the art and some facts about it.

Interestingly, in describing the games, two of the attributes she mentioned were competitiveness and the ability to take “selfies.” Children as young as 8 or 9 years old can use the app on their own, but younger children would need an adult to assist them.

Right now, the Museloop app focuses on Israel Museum’s under-appreciated (read: under-visited) permanent art collection. This exhibit includes the works of a number of “heavies,” such as Marc Chagall, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. The goal is to make the experience so appealing that young visitors will then want to visit other museums. Since Israel Museum is paying the start-up for the development and use of the app, visitors benefit by having free use of it.

In contrast, Tower of David Museum has its own in-house digital department. This department has developed its own applications for heightened exhibit viewing.

photo - Virtual reality in the actual reality of Tower of David Museum — Virtual reality in the actual reality of Tower of David Museum. *(photo from Tower of David Museum)*

According to Eynat Sharon, the head of digital media, her department takes into consideration the visitor’s total museum experience. This experience consists of three overlapping circles: the pre-visit, in which a person visits either the museum’s website or mobile site; the actual physical visit; and the post-visit, in which the person digitally shares with friends and family on Facebook, Instagram and other social media what they encountered at the museum. The museum’s technical equipment and apps may be rented by museum visitors for a small fee.

Are these new applications then to be applauded? Some people still need convincing. Last year, art critic Ben Davis reflected on news.artnet.com, “For many, many viewers, interfacing with an artwork through their phone trumped reflecting on its themes. In effect, now every art show is by default a multimedia experience for a great portion of the audience, because interaction via phone is a default part of the way people look at the world.”

Dan Reich, who is the curator and director of education for the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Centre, said, “Personally, I am not big on technology. You end up with lots of button-pushing but not necessarily a lot of education. As a museum, we are pretty low-tech. We have an audio tour of the permanent exhibit, several stops in the museum where you can press buttons and hear testimony, an interactive map and – more recently – added an interactive screen entitled ‘Change Begins With Me,’ which deals with more recent or contemporary examples of hate crimes and genocide. We have been digitizing our collection of survivors’ testimonies. We have testimonies edited to different lengths. Generally, survivors like to be recorded, knowing their words are being preserved.”

And recent comments on TripAdvisor show that museums don’t necessarily have to be high-tech to succeed in their mission.

Visitors, for example, gave the St. Louis Holocaust Centre high marks.

Other Holocaust learning centres, however, have started taking current technology through uncharted waters. The USC Shoah Foundation now uses holographic oral history. According to Dr. Stephen Smith, the foundation’s executive director: “In the Dimensions in Testimony project, the content must be natural language video conversations rendered in true holographic display, without the 3-D glasses. What makes this so different is the nonlinear nature of the content. We have grown used to hearing life histories as a flow of consciousness in which the interviewee is in control of the narrative and the interviewer guides the interviewee through the stages of his or her story. [Now] with the … methodology, the interviewee is subject to a series of questions gleaned from students, teachers and public who have universal questions that could apply to any witness, or specific questions about the witness’ personal history. They are asked in sets around subject matter, each a slightly different spin on a related topic.” One educator confided that, while the technology is “creepy,” the public apparently likes it.

So, how do museums cope with the possibility that the medium in and of itself becomes the message? In other words, how do museums keep their audiences from being distracted by the technology? At the same time, how can museums survive financially if they follow goals that differ substantially from those of visitors, funders and other supporters?

A few months ago, Canadian entrepreneur Evan Carmichael offered guidelines at an Online Computer Library Centre conference. His suggestions seem applicable to museum administrators as well: express yourself, answer their questions, offer guidance, involve the crowd, “use your audience to create something amazing … create an emotional connection, get personal, and hold trending conversations, go to where things are happening, be there.

Time will tell whether the advent of museum-related high-tech will realize Don McLean’s 1971 tribute to Vincent Van Gogh’s art: “They would not listen, they did not know how. Perhaps they’ll listen now.”

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Another planet earth?

An artist’s impression of the newly discovered planet, Proxima Centauri b. (photo from ESO/M. Kornmesser)

An international team announced recently that a planet with a mass similar to that of earth has been observed orbiting the star Proxima Centauri – the closest star to our sun, just over four light years (about 40 trillion kilometres) away.

The collaboration of scientists from nine countries, known as the “Pale Red Dot” and led by Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escudé of Queen Mary University of London, included Weizmann Institute of Science’s Dr. Aviv Ofir, who is in the group of Prof. Oded Aharonson of the earth and planetary sciences department.

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf – a star with a diameter about one seventh that of our sun and far dimmer: it gives off only 1/600 the light of our sun. The team’s calculations show that the planet, known as Proxima Centauri b, has a mass of at least 1.3 times that of earth and its year – the time it takes to orbit its sun – is a little over 11 days. It orbits quite close to its sun – only five percent of the distance from earth to our sun; but, since its sun is so dim, the temperature on Proxima Centauri b may be relatively balmy and liquid water could theoretically exist on its surface.

The range of distances where the planet’s temperature permits liquid water is often referred to as “the habitable zone.” Although conditions on the planet’s surface are as yet unclear, the scientific team hopes to learn more about this planet in further research. Ofir said it is not at all clear whether life as we know it could have evolved on the planet, and the subject is already the focus of intense debate.

The planet was discovered through measurements of the radial velocity of the star. Such measurements rely on the Doppler effect, the shift in wavelength as an object moves closer to or away from the viewer. The star, according to the team’s highly accurate measurements, is moving at a speed of about a metre a second (or 3.6 kilometres an hour) towards and away from us.

Ofir explained that, when we speak of a planet orbiting a star, in reality they are both orbiting a shared centre of gravity. Since the mass of the star is naturally much greater than that of its planets, that centre of gravity is usually close to the centre of the star, and planets make the star’s motion appear as a “wobble.” And that wobble can be detected by today’s instruments: in the case of Proxima Centauri, the scientists observed periodic changes in the star’s velocity, the result of another body tugging at it. That body, according to the measurements, is a planet with a relatively small mass, just over that of earth.

Ofir pointed out that Proxima Centauri has been studied for the past century, but only now have observations – designed for this very purpose – become sensitive enough to decisively detect the presence of this small planet. He is continuing to work on this and other projects to identify and study planets around Proxima Centauri.

“We discovered the planet with an observatory in Chile. We can’t see Proxima Centauri from our observatories in Israel,” he explained. “It is well below the southern horizon, so it is unobservable from Israel all year round.”

For more information about Weizmann Institute research, visit wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il.

Plight of bees is our plight

A European honey bee extracts nectar from an aster flower. (photo by John Severns via Wikimedia Commons)

Around the world, bee populations have been decreasing in number, year by year, at an alarming rate. Such a tragedy isn’t just stinging the beekeepers, whose livelihoods depend on the honey-making insects, it’s affecting global agriculture.

And there’s more at stake than just honey production. Bees’ handiwork assists in the growth of myriad foodstuffs. In fact, millions of honey bees are depended upon to pollinate plants and crops, which produce a quarter of the food we consume.

According to Science Daily from May 2015, beekeepers across the United States lost more than 40% of their honey bee colonies from April 2014 to April 2015, compared to the previous year’s decrease of 34%.

This is determined from an annual cross-country survey that is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and conducted by Bee Informed Partnership with the Apiary Inspectors of America.

The survey asked commercial and small-scale beekeepers to track the health and survival rates of their honey bee colonies, in an effort to understand how to manage the decreasing population. This is the ninth straight year of losses. It’s referred to as colony collapse disorder.

More than 6,000 beekeepers, who manage 400,000 colonies from all 50 U.S. states responded. All told, these beekeepers are responsible for nearly 15% of the nation’s estimated 2.74 million managed honey bee colonies. The total economic value of honey bee pollination is said to be more than $15 billion each year in the United States alone.

Among small beekeepers – those who manage fewer than 50 colonies – a problem area appears to be the varroa mite, a lethal parasite, able to spread between colonies.

Beekeepers, environmental groups and some scientists also suspect blame lies with an insecticide known as neonicotinoids, or neonics. It is used on crops, such as corn, and on plants found in lawns and gardens. Its toll has been taken seriously enough that the Environmental Protection Agency is examining a series of studies on the insecticide and its effects on bees. The investigation is expected to be completed by year’s end.

The issue has even caught the attention of administrators at the White House, who have formed a task force to study the problem.

In Canada, the problem is even worse.

In Ontario, bee losses have been severe over the last few winters, measuring a decline of 58% in 2013-2014, due to a combination of extreme cold, mites, disease and the types of pesticides used on crops.

While it has experts scrambling for a solution, some people and companies are taking matters into their own hands.

One hotel is doing its part to increase the bee population. On the roof of the downtown Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, about 300,000 bees perch in six hives that produce anywhere between 500 and 900 pounds of honey per year. The hotel offers it to guests, and uses it in recipes.

CBC also recently installed hives on its rooftops in Toronto and Montreal, while Vancouver Police will build two hives at its headquarters.

Meanwhile, across the pond in England, the BBC reported that, in January 2014, in more than half of European countries, there were not enough honey bees to pollinate crops. And more than 14% of England’s honey bee colonies died over the winter, according to the latest research from the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA).

In the United Kingdom alone, nearly 90% of the apple crop and 45% of the strawberry crop relies on wild bees and managed honey bees to grow. It is a billion dollar economy there.

The BBKA’s annual survey of beekeepers across Great Britain showed the losses were up from nine percent last year, but lower than the year before; normal losses are about 10%. It blames “poor and variable weather, pesticides, bee diseases and parasites such as the varroa mite and starvation.”

To make matters worse, demand for the little honey-making insects has grown, while their numbers shrink.

Europe is experiencing a boom in biofuels, which is the result of the “EU renewable fuel directive,” where 10% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2020. What that means for farming is planting a third more “oil” crops, like soybeans, oil palm, oilseed rape, sunflowers – all of which require ramping up bee numbers, which simply aren’t there.

According to the journal Plos One, Great Britain has only a quarter of the bees they need – their deficit equaling seven billion honey bees.

In light of this, as we approach Rosh Hashanah, you may think more about that little jar of honey on the festive meal table – millions, or perhaps billions, of honey bees came together to create that sweet liquid.

We know that the symbolism of honey on Rosh Hashanah is to have a sweet New Year. But there’s more: bees and the Jewish people are alike in many ways.

There’s little we can accomplish if we are alone; much that we can accomplish if we combine our efforts towards our goals as a people. We are more productive when in a community; our “hives” are our communities and synagogues, where we are needed – in fact, required – to be drawn to the whole. The honey bee teaches us that we must come together and work towards a higher purpose.

May everything go well next year not only for ourselves, friends, family and others, but for our little busy bee friends, buzz’mun hazeh!

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.

This week’s cartoon … Sept. 23/16

cartoon - New Year's Resolutions Now vs Then by Malka Martz-Oberlander