Soup is not just food. It’s an experience, a sustenance, a simple yet magnificent meal, if done right, which is generally easy. Probably every culture on earth has a signature variation and, in the Jewish tradition, there is nothing more…
(photo from oliveandwild.com/collections/judaic) It is the season for gatherings and celebrations, and many travelers are urgently trying to make their way home for the holidays. An innate urge seems to drive them back to their roots. And, I wonder, What…
(photo from flickr.com/photos/scazon) The sky turns shades of orange and mauve as I glance outside my dining room window and notice the sun slipping behind the trees. The havoc and chatter in the house has peaked. I call my daughter…
“Maoz Tzur,” recording by Abraham Tzevi Idelsohn. (photo from Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880-1948 by Yehoash Hirschberg) What do we have every year at Chanukah but rarely think about in terms of their origins? The songs. In…
Cookbook author Joan Nathan, left, with journalist Sybil Kaplan. (photo from Barry A. Kaplan) Before I review King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking around the World by Joan Nathan (Knopf, 2017), I have to admit, I am…
You don’t have to go to Israel to savour the perfect Israeli sufganiyot. (photo from IMP) Here is a favourite Israeli Chanukah recipe courtesy of Tnuva, an Israeli company that makes kosher cheese and dairy products. ISRAELI MINI SUFGANIYOT (12…
Look up bananas and you’ll learn a lot, like I did. Botanically, bananas are, believe it or not, a berry, grown as a plant. They were first domesticated in Papua, New Guinea, about 5000 BCE and were known in the…
Chanukah lights (photo from pxhere.com/en/photo/285940) Rabbi Kibbitz! Rabbi Kibbitz!” Young Doodle ran into the rabbi’s study, breathless and excited. “Rabbi Kibbitz! It’s time to light the Chanukah candles!” Doodle stopped cold. The senior rabbi of the village of Chelm sat…
South Side Hebrew Congregation. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields) “It has seemed to me sometimes as though the L-d breathes on this poor grey ember of Creation and it turns to radiance – for a moment or a year or…
The view of Camelback Mountain from Mountain Shadows resort. (photo by Masada Siegel) On a late Thursday afternoon in August, my husband arrived home from work and excitedly said, “You have to come out front and see the double rainbow…
