food – Jewish Independent

Food as great as views

Courtney Hazlett in Malta, one of the many places she has visited to record her Netflix program Restaurants on the Edge. (photo from marblemedia and OutEast Entertainment)

For producer Courtney Hazlett, traveling around the world for her new Netflix series, Restaurants on the Edge, has been an unforgettable, rewarding experience.

The premise of the show is to take struggling restaurants that have incredible locations with breathtaking views but ordinary or subpar food, and turn them around. A team of experts – chef Dennis Prescott, designer Karin Bohn and restaurateur Nick Liberato – come in and transform the establishments into magical eateries. The show is co-produced by marblemedia and OutEast Entertainment, which is a company run by Hazlett and her husband, Steven Marrs.

“We go around the world with a team of experts and, in a positive way, find restaurants that aren’t living up to the beauty of their location and help change that,” said Hazlett, who is also the show’s creator. “We change the décor, menu and business model. We want to add menu items that speak to that destination.”

Hazlett, who lives in Los Angeles, came up with the idea for the program while eating outdoors at a restaurant in Venice, Calif.

“We often go to places where the better the view, the worse the food,” she told the Independent. “That was the seed. I thought, we can go around the world, find restaurants that aren’t living up to the beauty of their location and help change that. My initial impression was, because of the spectacular view, restaurant owners felt they didn’t have to go all out with the food. But that wasn’t the case. It’s not that they aren’t trying, it’s just that a lot of restaurant owners are in over their head.”

In helping decide what changes needed to be made in each restaurant, Hazlett said they first went to social media to see what people were saying about the establishment. They looked at reviews on Tripadvisor and Yelp and read the comments patrons made.

“What I was most passionate about was the storytelling aspect,” she said. “We went out and met people who lived there. In some ways, the story of community shows up on the plate.”

Since it’s being aired on Netflix, it must be a global show, Hazlett explained. “We had to show as many corners of the earth as we could. It’s a lot of globetrotting.”

In Season One, released on Netflix in Canada last week, on March 14, the team traveled to Malta, Hong Kong, Tobermory (located in Ontario four hours north of Toronto), Costa Rica, Austria and St. Lucia.

Hazlett said Tobermory looked like the Caribbean, with gorgeous blue and green water, underground caves, cliffs and ancient forests. Tobermory is almost completely surrounded by water, with Lake Huron on one side and Georgian Bay on the other. The team chose to make over a seasonal restaurant called Coconut Joe’s.

“The owner was a sweet guy who was struggling with the business,” she said. “He loves to travel and wanted to make a restaurant inspired from his travels. That main inspiration was palm trees, and he wanted to have menu items reflecting any place you would find a palm tree. He had about 30 items on the menu – from Thai to Caribbean food, all over the place. The décor was tiki but not in a good way. The restaurant owner’s busy season is only eight weeks of the year because it’s so far north. Since we filmed the episode in the busy season, he had to shut it down one and a half of those weeks in June.”

The designer’s goal was to transform Coconut Joe’s from tacky tiki to chic tiki. The chef’s goal was to celebrate local food as well. At the end of the restoration, the owner was grateful and thrilled with the results.

Season Two, also released on March 14 in Canada, brought the team to seven more destinations, including wine country in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. There, they chose to transform the Outboard Waterfront Pub.

“The owners of the restaurant are such an integral part of the story we tell and, in this case, we were thrilled to include a father-daughter team, Campbell and Anne Stewart,” Hazlett said. “Campbell is hoping to retire sooner rather than later and leave the restaurant in Anne’s hands, and Anne, when we filmed, had an infant. So they’ve got a lot on their plate.”

Hazlett said she has always loved food and cooking. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she earned a degree from Tulane University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She went on to work at People magazine and OK! magazine, then was a correspondent for MSNBC, covering pop culture for MSNBC, as well as Today, Morning Joe and more, before running entertainment teams for NBC News Digital.

“Around 2012, I started producing,” said Hazlett, who moved from New York City to Los Angeles. “Then I started to develop content and, in 2014, created the production company OutEast Entertainment. ABC just ordered a medical drama pilot from us called Triage; it’s directed by Jon Chu, who directed the upcoming film In the Heights.”

Although Hazlett is Jewish and raises her children Jewish, she was born Christian.

“What happened is my mom never knew her father and, later in life, found out he was Jewish, and it unlocked something in me,” she explained. “Growing up, I always gravitated towards Judaism. My husband of eight years [Marrs] was a lapsed Catholic and we both converted. For us, as we started to lean into the Jewish traditions, it became such a centring force for our family. Over time, we started to keep Shabbat and celebrate Jewish holidays. We wanted our kids to grow up Jewish – they go to religious school and we are super-active in our temple. Converting became an easy choice for both of us and it made a lot of sense.”

In keeping with her Jewishness, Hazlett would love to find a location and restaurant in Israel. “Next season, I would love to film in Israel and other Jewish places,” she said.

Hazlett admitted it was a lot to ask an owner to close down his or her restaurant while her crew did renovations, especially if the restaurateur had a cash flow problem. “But, on the flip side, being on Netflix is great advertising for them,” she said, adding that they don’t compensate the restaurants, but they do pay for the cost of the makeovers. “In fact, I received notes from the restaurant in Malta that he has had more than 2,000 people reach out to him because of the show. That’s a lot of new customers!”

Alice Burdick Schweiger is a New York City-based freelance writer who has written for many national magazines, including Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Woman’s Day and The Grand Magazine. She specializes in writing about Broadway, entertainment, travel and health, and covers Broadway for the Jewish News. She is co-author of the 2004 book Secrets of the Sexually Satisfied Woman, with Jennifer Berman and Laura Berman.

Symbolic treats for Purim

While hamantashen are one of the most known Ashkenazi treats, many other foods are associated with Purim. (photo by Rebecca Siegel)

In the Book of Esther, all we are told is that letters were sent to the Jews in the provinces, telling them to have days of feasting and gladness. Fourth-century scholar Rava interpreted this to mean a seudat Purim, a meal in the late afternoon, to differentiate Purim from other days.

There are no rituals attached to the seudah, and no special Kiddush is said, though some people make up a Purim Kiddush, which is nonsense or a parody on something in the Torah.

Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, a French writer, philosopher and translator who lived in the 13th and 14th centuries, wrote a parody of a talmudic tractate, called Masekhet Purim, citing 30 different dishes to eat on Purim. He included chestnuts, duck, venison, goose and pigeon.

One custom, particularly of Jews of Middle Eastern backgrounds but also of some Ashkenazim, is to serve dishes with chickpeas on Purim. Why is this done? They say, in order to remind us that, to keep kosher, Esther lived on vegetables, notably beans and peas.

Another custom, according to the late Gil Marks in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, is to eat turkey, because Europeans had thought the bird came from India and the Book of Esther says Ahasuerus ruled from India to Kush. The Hebrew word for India, the country, and turkey, the animal, is hodu. Another idea is that the turkey bird is very foolish, and so was Ahasuerus.

Some people also serve kreplach, the triangular-shaped, meat-filled, savoury pastry on Purim. They do so because the meat inside is prepared by chopping, which is a form of “beating,” akin to the stamping of feet on the floor to drown out Haman’s name.

In the 17th century, European Jews made a dish called megillah kroyt, consisting of sauerkraut, raisins and honey. A stringy dish, it symbolized the rope used to hang Haman.

In her book Quiches, Kugels and Couscous, on Jewish cooking in France, Joan Nathan writes that Jews of Alsace made Alsatian Chouroute, sauerkraut with sausage and corned beef, because the sausage hangs in butcher shops and reminds them of Haman. The Alsatians also call the corned beef “the Haman.”

At the actual seudah, Marks says that Ashkenazim often serve koyletsh, or keylitsh in Russian – a long, braided challah symbolizing the rope on which Haman was hanged. Other Ashkenazi dishes include kreplach in chicken soup, knishes, pirogen (filled, boiled, pasta dumplings), stuffed roast chicken or veal breast, stuffed cabbage, and tzimmes.

Some Sephardim serve breads or foulares (pastries filled with long-cooked eggs), sambusak (meat turnovers), stewed chicken, and rice with chickpeas or nuts.

According to Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, because the name of G-d is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, “the sense of the mysterious and hidden extends even to the food.” In other words, we cannot see the fillings inside and that alludes to “the many intrigues, secrets and surprises unfolding in the Purim story.”

The sweets served on Purim symbolize a good “lot” and a sweet future. In fact, Muslims refer to Purim as Id-al-Sukkar, the Sugar Holiday.

The most important aspect of many Purim pastries is their shape. Most Ashkenazi Jews only know of hamantashen, the name for which comes from the German mohn (meaning poppy seeds) and taschen (referring to pockets). Some say the pockets refer to Haman, who stuffed his pockets with bribe money.

The original name was mohntaschen, and the tradition of eating them may date back as far as the 12th century. Shmil Holland, the Israeli historian, caterer and cook, says, when Jews fled Germany for Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, they took the poppy seed pastry with them and added the Yiddish prefix “ha,” thus making it hamantash. The Midrash, however, says, while reflecting on his plan to get rid of the Jews, Haman realized the three Patriarchs would intercede. Thus, the pastry is triangular in shape.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Kosher foods are branching out

From kimchi to cast iron, more than 300 new products were on display at this year’s Kosher Fest. (photo by Dave Gordon)

At Kosherfest this year, there were such traditional Jewish staples as gefilte fish, matzot, bagels and cured meats. But cauliflower pizza crusts, organic tequila, vegan cheeses, kimchi and date-seed coffee were among 300 new products on display.

The two-day event in New Jersey was the 31st annual convention. It showed that kosher food does not necessarily hail from countries with large Jewish populations. In the hopes of grabbing a slice of the market, exhibitors came from around the world, including from South Korea, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and the Netherlands.

From Pakistan, Adnan Pirzada, the general manager of Dewan Sugar Mills, was exhibiting kosher-certified ethanol for companies to use in beverages and mouthwashes. Currently, they export to 30 countries and are seeking U.S. consumers. The certification is new to the 15-year old company, which produces 125,000 litres of ethanol a day.

“We wanted to tell people that there’s nothing not kosher that ever comes in contact with what we make,” he said, noting that “sometimes, non-kosher ingredients can be in foods and people not know it.”

An example of that came from Dakshin Thilina, the director of Nexpo Conversion, makers of kosher dried coconut milk powder and coconut oil in Sri Lanka. Nexpo supplies an Australian ice cream manufacturer and an organic chocolate manufacturer, and hopes to find U.S. distribution.

“There are three big players in Sri Lanka [in the coconut industry] and they all use sodium caseinate, an animal-based product, and that makes it non-kosher,” he said. “So, now, with vegan, organic and other aspects that make these popular, we needed to enter the market in a different way. We cut out the sodium caseinate and went with a pure organic powder. Without that component, it’s essentially lactose-free – the allergies people suffer from due to milk-based products is out and, because it’s non-dairy, kosher Jews can use it anytime, alongside meat.”

In Dubai, kosher catering is a one-woman show, and she was at Kosherfest.

Elli Kriel, a South African expat of seven years who lives in Dubai, began her company recently. “I was producing kosher food for our family and people started reaching out to me,” she said. “Travelers in particular, moving through the city, needed kosher food. I used to invite them to eat in our home, but I realized, as more and more people began reaching out, I was in a good position to offer kosher catering.”

She said Elli’s Kosher Kitchen’s launch was bolstered by the United Arab Emirates’ Year of Tolerance, announced in February, “a government initiative promoting the idea of diversity within the UAE and the tolerance for all religions and races.” It was then, she added, that the Jewish community was formally recognized and, “at that moment, I thought it was perfect to step forward.” There are about 150 people in the Jewish community, with tourists receiving food each day, she said.

photo - Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product — Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product. *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

Kosherfest attracted about 6,000 attendees this fall, some 800 more than last year. With 360 exhibitors, roughly 300 products on the floor had been introduced within the last 12 months, said organizers.

A recent Quartz article elaborated that it is “fairly astounding that more than 40% of the country’s [United States’] new packaged food and beverage products in 2014 are labeled as being kosher, while it was on only 27% of packaged foods in 2009.”

Explanations for this include the public’s desire for assurance that a product does not include certain allergens, or traces of allergens, such as shellfish. Or an assurance that a product is vegetarian or vegan, as in the example of Oreo cookies, that once contained lard, prior to the producers’ switch to kosher.

Another example of food that contains ingredients that may surprise some consumers is cheese. Most cheeses contain enzymes and rennet (animal-derived), but the Sheese line uses coconut oil, palm oil and other vegan replacements. Hailing from Scotland’s Isle of Bute, the “cheese” is lactose-free, vegan, kosher, cholesterol-free and gluten-free, appealing to various dietary needs.

In light of bug infestations in dozens of supermarket vegetables and the challenge of washing them thoroughly so as not to ingest these non-kosher critters, Boston-based Fresh Box Farms came to Kosherfest with a solution. They’re growing and selling leafy greens that are hydroponically grown in a triple-sealed environment, using no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. “It’s free of any pests. And we don’t wash our product, and the consumer doesn’t need to either,” said Jacqueline Hynes, senior marketing officer.

An online essay by Star-K, a kosher certification agency in Maryland, noted that some “35 million non-Jewish consumers of kosher products” buy them because of health and food safety concerns, “as a trustworthy means of ensuring that these criteria are being addressed.” Food production companies, it says, are increasing their lines of certified products, due to “more general cultural anxiety about industrialization of the food supply.”

Menachem Lubinsky, chief executive officer of Lubicom, the organizer of the event, said kosher foods today appeal to a “more health-conscious consumer. Now, it’s become almost fashionable to have vegan or gluten-free, so why not kosher? They don’t want any customer to be left out.”

By 2025, the kosher industry will reach some $25 billion US in sales a year, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product. One company sold kosher cast-iron cookware. Isaac Salem, president of New York-based IKO Imports, said their cookware differentiates itself from other such products, as its non-stick “seasoning” is created with a proprietary plant-derived oil base, rather than the typical animal fat, “which obviously can come from non-kosher sources.” He said their cookware holds up against competitors, and appeals to vegans, as well.

Consumers who keep kosher will also be able to enjoy something they’ve never had before. Promised Land Beverage Company’s Exodus Hopped Cider does not contain any leavened products or grains; rather, it has fermented apples and hops, add could double as a kind of beer.

“Now you can have beer at the seder,” said Yoni Schwartz, company president, “something unimaginable in the past.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Serve up a gift of food

Daniella Silver, author of the Silver Platter cookbook series, has recently come out with Variations: Simple and Delicious Dishes. Two Ways (Artscroll Shaar Press).

In The Silver Platter: Simple to Spectacular, Silver offered recipes with basic ingredients, inviting readers to experiment. In The Silver Platter, Simple Elegance, she focused on recipes with a little more creative flair in presentation and attention to detail. In Variations, she shares with readers versatile recipes that can be served at least two different ways.

In the new cookbook, the basic recipe is on the left-hand page, with a note whether it is dairy, meat or pareve or any combination; if it is gluten-free, if it freezes well and the number of servings. The amounts are regular and metric. On the right-hand page is the variation. Both pages have colour photographs. In the book as a whole, there are 251 recipes and 273 photographs.

Variations’ 10 sections are appetizers (like Deli Egg Rolls and Dill Pickle Football Wings), soups (including Vegetarian Vegetable Quinoa Soup and Dinner Steak Soup), salads (such as Panko-Topped Kale Salad and Pretty Brussels Sprouts Salad), fish (French Fried Onion Salmon and No-Mayo Avocado Tuna Salad, for example), chicken (Old-Fashioned BBQ Chicken and Potato Latke Schnitzel, among others), meat (like Brisket Ends and Overnight Shabbos Corned Beef), dairy (Crustless Baby Red Potato Quiche, Baked Broccoli Tots, etc.), grain sides (such as Crispy Garlic Couscous and Fresh Orzo Salad), vegetable sides (like “Everything Bagel” Asparagus and Maple-Glazed Japanese Sweet Potatoes) and desserts (among which are Low-Fat Ginger Biscotti and Olive Oil Salted Raspberry Brownies).

There are a lot of creative ideas for experienced cooks and great new ideas for all cooks to explore. On her website (daniellasilvercooks.com), Silver says, “I wrote Variations because I felt it’s time to change things up. I want readers to get creative with the foods they prepare by understanding that a recipe can be versatile in preparation or presentation.”

As a food writer and cookbook author, I caught a couple of small but obvious technicalities. When Silver suggests a choice of two ingredients – honey or silan, soy sauce or tamari, for example – she does not mention both possibilities in her instructions for the variation.

When she suggests using a prepared pan, she is inconsistent in indicating in her instructions what preparing the pan means – vegetable spray, flour, etc. She is also inconsistent in telling the reader to preheat the oven as an initial step. Lastly, in the prime recipe, she uses numbers in the instructions; in the variations, she does not. Numbering all of the recipes would have made it easier for cooks, and I have done so below. Here are two recipes with their variations.

RUSTIC SHEET PAN CHICKEN
meat, gluten-free, freezes well, yields 4-6 servings

1 3 lb chicken, cut into eighths
4 peeled, trimmed carrots, cut in half crosswise then lengthwise
1 19 oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 cup dried fruit (raisins, apricots, prunes)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp extra light olive oil
3 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Trim and discard excess fat from chicken. Arrange chicken, skin side up, in a single layer on prepared pan.
Scatter carrots, chickpeas and dried fruit around chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika. Drizzle with oil or maple syrup; toss to coat.
Bake, uncovered, for 50-60 minutes, or until chicken juices run clear when pierced with a fork.

Variation: Rustic Couscous
for a meatless main, omit the chicken

Cook 1 1/2 cups couscous according to package directions.
Toss carrots, chickpeas and dried fruit on prepared baking sheet with spices, oil and maple syrup or honey.
Bake, uncovered, at 375°F for 40 minutes or until golden.
Place couscous onto a large serving platter, top with roasted veggies and dried fruit.

ROSE PETAL APPLE TART
pareve, gluten-free option, yields 10 servings

Dough
1 1/2 cups flour (or gluten-free flour)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbsp vinegar

Filling
5-6 thinly sliced apples
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a 9- or 10-inch flan pan or pie plate with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, oil and vinegar. Mix to make a soft dough.
Press dough evenly against bottom and sides of prepared pan.
In a medium bowl, combine sliced apples with brown sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice; gently mix well.
Starting at the outer edge of pan, place apple slices slightly on an angle to form a circle, making sure to overlap the apples. Repeat with additional rows, working your way toward centre.
Place additional apples in any gaps (apples should be tightly packed). Pour on any remaining liquid in apple bowl.
Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Variation: Apple Crisps

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Peel, core and cut apples into large chunks.
Place in large bowl; mix with brown sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice.
Place in individual ramekins. Bake, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes.

Serve either the principle or variation dish hot or at room temperature.

Rosh Hashanah’s many foods

At a Sephardi Rosh Hashanah seder, one of blessings, over leeks (or cabbage) is the request, may “our enemies be destroyed.” (photo from Wikimedia)

Food customs differ among Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. For example, whereas Ashkenazim dip apple in honey at Rosh Hashanah, some Sephardim traditionally serve mansanada, an apple compote, as an appetizer or dessert, according to The World of Jewish Desserts by Gil Marks, z”l.

Just as gefilte fish became a classic dish for Ashkenazi Jews, baked sheep’s head became a Rosh Hashanah symbol for many Sephardi Jews, dating back to the Middle Ages. Some groups serve sheep brains or tongue or a fish with head, probably for the same reasons, for fruitfulness and prosperity and wishes for the New Year of knowledge or leadership.

The Talmud mentions the foods to be eaten on Rosh Hashanah as fenugreek, leeks, beets, dates and gourds, although various Jewish communities interpret these differently.

According to Rabbi Robert Sternberg, in The Sephardic Kitchen, Sephardi Jews have a special ceremony called the Yehi Ratsones (Hebrew for “May it be Thy will”), where each food is blessed. There are foods that symbolically recognize God’s sovereignty and our hope He will hear our pleas for a good and prosperous year.

The Hebrew word for gourds is kara, which sounds like both the word for “read/proclaim” and the word for “tear.” When we eat the gourd or pumpkin, there are two possible Yehi Ratzons that can be said. The first one goes: “May it be your will, Hashem, that our merits be read/proclaimed before you.” The other is that the decree of our sentence should be torn up.

The second food mentioned is fenugreek, or rubia, which sounds like yirbu, the Hebrew word for “increase.” Therefore, we say a Yehi Ratzon that contains the request, may “our merits increase.”

The word for the third food, leeks or cabbage, is karsi, krusha or kruv, which sounds like kares, or the Aramaic word karti, to cut off or destroy. The Yehi Ratzon asks, may “our enemies be destroyed.”

The fourth food, beets or beet greens, silka or selek, sounds like siluk, meaning removal, or she’yistalqu, to be removed, or the Aramaic word silki. The Yehi Ratzon requests that “our adversaries be removed.”

The last food is dates, tamri or tamar, which sounds like the Hebrew word sheyitamu and the Aramaic word tamri, to consume. Hence, we say a Yehi Ratzon that asks, may “our enemies be consumed.”

image - For many Jewish cultures, the fish head is a symbol on the Rosh Hashanah table — For many Jewish cultures, the fish head is a symbol on the Rosh Hashanah table. *(image from chabad.org)*

All of these foods, which grow rapidly, are also symbols of fertility, abundance and prosperity. Among other items that might be on a Sephardi table at Rosh Hashanah, Sternberg includes baked apples dipped in honey or baked as a compote with a special syrup; dates, which were among the seven species found in Israel; pomegranates, which have many seeds, or black-eyed peas, to represent our hoped-for merits; rodanchas, a pastry filled with pumpkin whose spiral shape symbolizes the unending cycle of life; and a fish head, symbolizing a wish to be the head in life, a leader, and not the tail. The main course might feature stuffed vegetables, symbolizing a year full of blessings and prosperity.

Some communities ban sharp, bitter or black foods for Rosh Hashanah, such as black olives, eggplant, chocolate or coffee.

In The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, Edda Servi Machlin, z”l, who grew up in Pitigliano, Tuscany, explains that her father held a seder for Rosh Hashanah around the theme of growth, prosperity and sweetness. On the seder plate were a round challah, a boiled rooster’s head, fish such as anchovies, boiled beets, figs and pomegranates. In the centre was a dried, round, sourdough cake with an impression of her father’s right palm and fingers, and fennel weed growing on each side.

The foods were then blessed – “May we grow and multiply like fish in the ocean, like the seeds of a pomegranate, like the leavening, grain and fennel of the bread. May the year be sweet like beets and figs.”

The meal consisted of soup, fish, salad, chicken and fruit. Italian Jews also often serve at Rosh Hashanah desserts made with honey and nuts; stick or diamond-shaped cookies; strufali, cookies made of fried dough balls in honey; or ceciarchiata, cookies that resemble chickpeas and are made from bits of dough like the Ashkenazi teiglach.

A Greek cookbook writer from Ioannina (Yahnina) wrote that the people of her area made koliva, a thick porridge of wheat berries flavoured with cloves, cinnamon, walnuts and honey for eating on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. According to Marks in The World of Jewish Desserts, wheat berries are unprocessed whole wheat with the outer husk removed, leaving a nutty flavour and chewy texture. Jews of Yahnina also ate kaltsoounakia, a half-moon-shaped cake stuffed with ground walnuts, honey, cinnamon and cloves. For the main course, dishes in Yahnina were influenced by the Turkish occupation and included stuffed tomatoes, stuffed squash and stuffed vine leaves – filled with lamb, rice and parsley, as well as okra stewed with chicken.

photo - Instead of honey cake, Greek Jews might have baklava for Rosh Hashanah dessert — Instead of honey cake, Greek Jews might have baklava for Rosh Hashanah dessert. *(photo from Wikimedia)*

Other Jews of Greece have different customs. Nicholas Stavroulakis, author of Cookbook of the Jews of Greece, writes that some people soak apples in honey or eat quince or rose petals cooked in syrup as the New Year sweet. Fish is often the main course and, in place of honey cake for dessert, Greek Jews use almonds or pumpkin in making turnovers, as a symbol of abundance. Other desserts include semolina cake in syrup, pastry triangles filled with nuts or dried fruit, or baklava.

Among Jews of Syria, sugar or honey is substituted for salt at the table, and many families do not serve any dishes that are sour. For the second night Shehechiyanu blessing, the fruit used may be quince, prickly pear, star fruit or figs. Instead of, or in addition to, dipping apples in honey, Jews of Syria often dip dates in honey.

Many Jews from Muslim countries also eat autumn foods cooked with sugar and cinnamon; the food names contain a symbolic allusion to prayers in Aramaic and, through alliteration, are recited over the vegetables and fruits. Syrian Jews use the same prayers but over different vegetables: leek, Swiss chard, squash, black-eyed peas, pomegranate and the head of an animal. This idea of wanting people to be smart, as symbolized by the head or brain, is observed by Jews of Tunisia in their serving of a cake made with chicken and calves brains.

Moroccan Jews take sesame seeds, warm them in the oven and eat them with apple dipped in honey to symbolize that Jews should be fruitful and multiply like the seeds and have the sweet year. They also eat the pomegranate because of its alleged 613 seeds, which symbolize the 613 mitzvot. Moroccan Jews identify the seven autumnal foods as pumpkin, zucchini, turnip, leek, onion, quince and Chinese celery, and sprinkle these with sugar and cinnamon to eat at the beginning of the meal.

Some Moroccan Jews also serve cooked lamb head as an appetizer for Rosh Hashanah. Other lamb dishes served might be lamb with prunes and almonds or lamb intestines filled with rice, meat and tomato, seasoned with cinnamon and cardamom.

Another popular dish served by Moroccans for Rosh Hashanah is couscous, the traditional North African grain, or farina. It is steamed above a stew made with meat or chicken, chickpeas, pumpkin, carrots, cinnamon and raisins. Baked fish with the head, made with tomatoes and garlic, tongue with olives, or meat and rice rolled in Swiss chard are other Moroccan New Year’s dishes. Two soups that may be served are vegetable soup with pastels, a meat-filled turnover similar to kreplach, and potakhe de potiron, a yellow, split-pea and pumpkin soup. The evening may be completed with honey-dipped “cigars,” filled with ground almonds and traditional hot mint tea.

“Cigars” are traditional for Moroccan events and can be made sweet or savoury. The sweet version is a slim roll of Phyllo pastry filled with almonds, pistachio nuts or walnuts, baked or deep fried and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Savoury cigars may be filled with cheese, chicken, meat, potatoes or tuna.

For Rosh Hashanah, Jews of Egypt make loubia, a black-eyed pea stew with lamb or veal, to symbolize fertility.

Jews of Iraq cook apples with water and sugar like applesauce, as a symbol of a sweet New Year. Some also prepare a special, pale-green bottle-shaped squash, which they eat with whole apple jam and sugar. They also make the blessings over leek, squash, dates, pomegranate and peas and place the head of a lamb on their Rosh Hashanah table.

Yemenite Jews, who do not consider themselves Ashkenazi or Sephardi, dip dates in honey instead of apples; others mix sesame seeds and anise seeds with powdered sugar and dip dates in this mixture. They also eat the beet, leek, pomegranate and pumpkin, as well as a salted fish head. The main meal for Yemenites would be a soup made of chicken or meat, carrots, potatoes and the spice hawaj (a combination of black pepper, cumin, coriander and turmeric). Meat stew, cooked chicken, rice, dried fruit and nuts complete the meal.

Whatever your family’s origins, why not try something from another Jewish culture this Rosh Hashanah?

Grab a ferry, head to Buzzy’s

The Hungry Jew, one of the signature sandwiches at Buzzy’s Luncheonette. (photo by Adam Bogoch)

My friend, Adam Bogoch, pitched it as the “Smoked Meat Story.” Soon after that email, he would write his own review, for narcity.com, titled, “This smoked meat sandwich on Salt Spring Island in B.C. will actually change your life.” His friend and colleague, Howard Busgang, had opened a deli on the island, and not only did I need to meet Busgang, but I needed to get on a ferry and taste The Hungry Jew, one of the signature sandwiches at Buzzy’s Luncheonette.

Between the Independent’s annual summer publishing hiatus and the High Holidays, it was November before Adam and I headed to Salt Spring. The travel ran like clockwork and we were pulling up to 122-149 Fulford Ganges Rd. right in time for lunch. We shared a Hungry Jew – a Montreal smoked meat sandwich with homemade horseradish sauce, coleslaw and, I kid you not, two latkes – and the Rabinowitz, Buzzy’s take on a Reuben. They were both incredibly good, and the only reason I’ve waited this long to share the news is because I wanted to wait until better weather, when people would be more likely to take a day or weekend getaway.

photo - Howard Busgang serves customers rugelach on a sunny November afternoon — Howard Busgang serves customers rugelach on a sunny November afternoon. *(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)*

Even in winter, Buzzy’s was busy. Having arrived at prime feeding time, it was hard to get Busgang to sit down and, as we talked, he was constantly distracted – in a good way – by customers.

“Tell me, I’ll get you another sandwich before you go,” he said as he finally was able to join me at a table outside for the interview.

Born and raised in Montreal, stand-up comedy took Busgang first to Toronto and then to Los Angeles, where he met his wife, Melanie Weaver, and where he lived for 28 years, before returning to Canada.

“She’s Jewish-adjacent,” joked Busgang. “She was working for a rabbi when I met her.”

The two met on a blind date, he said, brought together by a Jewish comic who knew both of them.

When he started in comedy in the early 1980s, Busgang said, “There were not a lot of comics around. It wasn’t like today where every second person does stand-up, so it wasn’t that OK a profession,” as far as his parents were concerned. “It was kind of an oddity, like maybe he’ll grow out of this kind of thing.”

Busgang attended Jewish high school, then went to McGill University before heading to Toronto.

“You know where I started?” he said. “United Synagogue Youth, USY, that’s where I started. I was emceeing all their events and that led me to go professional.”

He recalled the first time he performed at amateur night in Toronto. “They packed the place with all these people from USY who knew me. It was packed, and it was great.”

photo - Howard Busgang, left, and Adam Bogoch prepare sandwiches — Howard Busgang, left, and Adam Bogoch prepare sandwiches. *(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)*

So great, he said, that he was put into regular comedy shows right away, “which wasn’t so easy, by the way, because it wasn’t my friends anymore in the audience.”

When he was a stand-up comedian, Busgang did a lot of Jewish material. “I was a very Jewish comic,” he said.

In Los Angeles, he moved from stand-up to comedy writing. “I just was a little tired of the road,” he said, and performing caused him some anxiety.

“Listen, I had a respectable career, I did well, but I would constantly punish myself by asking, why am I doing this? But I think I do that with everything. I do that with this place [Buzzy’s], I do that as a writer.”

As Busgang was in the middle of saying he might just be a miserable guy, he was called back into the deli to help make a sandwich.

Weaver took his place. Her recollection was that a woman from the synagogue set up that first date.

“I was the only non-Jew in the whole place,” she said. However, Weaver was raised Jewishly, with her family observing some of the holidays, hosting seders, for example, and she taught at a Jewish camp. Born and raised in New York, she moved to Los Angeles some 30 years ago. She and Busgang have been married for about half that time.

“Howard had this property on Salt Spring our entire marriage,” she said. “And so, our entire marriage, I kept hearing ‘Salt Spring,’ ‘Salt Spring,’ and all I kept seeing was this property tax bill every month. I was, like, how good could it be? Then the elections and everything started to happen in the U.S. and it just got bad. We took a trip up here in September [2016], I fell in love and then we came in July [2017].”

A blended family, the couple has three daughters: Alexandra, 30, in Toronto; Emma, 20, in Seattle; and Hannah, 10, who was dividing her attention between helping in the deli and playing with a local dog while her mother was being interviewed.

Neither Busgang nor Weaver had any restaurant experience before opening Buzzy’s. “It’s funny,” she said. “The night before we were open, we had to learn the cash and I was almost in tears.”

The ignorance was a kind of blessing, she said. “I don’t think we knew what could go wrong, so ignorance was bliss, in this case.”

Their first day, there were lineups out the door.

“We got thrown into it, which was great,” she said. “I think if we had opened in the winter, when it was slow, it would have been a different experience.”

Busgang’s love of cooking seemed to have come out of nowhere, said Weaver. “And then he started to smoke his own meat. So, we had that in our back pocket.”

But the couple still wasn’t planning on opening a restaurant, until the location became available. “It was basherte,” she said.

In addition to Busgang’s meat-smoking skills, Weaver’s desire for a good tuna sandwich was a motivation. “So, again, why not open a deli? Not the brightest of ideas, but it worked out.”

photo - Howard Busgang’s father called him Buzzy, hence the deli’s name — Howard Busgang’s father called him Buzzy, hence the deli’s name. *(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)*

And it’s hard work. There is only one staff member. Busgang smokes meat “around the clock,” said Weaver. “It’s like having a newborn. It’s a lot of work but the rewards – it’s a community, we’ve become part of a community and it means so much. My daughter gets to work the cash register. It’s crazy. We still can’t believe we have keys to this place.”

She said, “If we did anything right, it’s that we didn’t focus on the tourists, we focused on our people, and so we have a lot of loyalty here. I think people also come here [because] there’s a lot of cursing, a lot of bad behaviour, you can come here and just laugh, and that’s what we want. Come here, have a laugh, I’ll make you eat, you have to finish your plate or you go to your room. That was our business plan – make the community happy, hopefully make a few bucks.”

Since they opened, the menu has seen some additions; in particular, matzah ball soup and tomato soup. “We don’t want to get too big. We just want to stay like someone’s kitchen,” she said.

And the island has been very welcoming. “Someone knew that we want to make our own pickles, so they’re going to grow us cucumbers,” said Weaver as one example. “The love here,” she said, “it’s insane.”

Hannah, who had checked in a couple of times with her mother, joined the interview. In addition to sometimes working the cash, she delivers food to the Saturday market and to the bar a few doors down from the deli.

“That’s another thing,” said Weaver, “it’s a family joint.”

School runs four days a week and, while Hannah enjoys helping out, she was still getting used to living on the island. When she’s not working or at school, she’s probably at soccer or horseback riding; she had just received a paddleboard for her birthday. Though she has a couple of sandwiches named after her, her favourite is the grilled cheese.

“A lot of what we’re doing here has to do with taking the power back in our lives,” said Busgang, when he returned to the table. “It has to do with being in showbiz all those years and feeling like you had no control over anything and feeling like you’re handing over all the power to other people to validate you…. I was tired of it.”

Buzzy’s opened on June 22 last year. “Whereas, in show business, nobody wants to help you, in this business, I have so many people who want to help me.”

One of those people was William Kaminski, owner of Phat Deli in Vancouver, who Busgang described as a mentor.

“We’re not perfect but we’re figuring it out,” said Busgang.

The smoked meat he has got down to a science.

“We’re open till four o’clock and then I have to get my brisket ready for the next day, so I have to bathe the brisket,” he said. “We cure it for eight days – dry cure – and then I have to take the salt out, so we bathe it. I’m bathing a brisket right now and sometimes I sing to it. It’s very sweet. After I bathe it, then I put some rub on it and then I’ll take it home and we’ll smoke it for seven-and-a-half hours. And then it goes in the steamer for two, three hours.”

Finding rye bread was one of the early challenges.

“I knew I was in a special place,” he said, “because people would come by with bread and say, ‘Try this bread.’ They’d constantly come in and say, ‘What are you going to do about the bread?’ It became like a cause célèbre, the bread. It took me three months, and I got someone here on the island to make me an organic rye bread.”

Barb Slater makes the bread; Shigusa Saito, the knishes. Saito is now also “making a dark chocolate babka to die for,” wrote Busgang in a follow-up email. “If you’re not already dead, she’s also making us New York cheesecake, our soon-to-be-famous potato knishes, and rugelach.”

Meanwhile, Busgang – whose credits include having been a head Just for Laughs-gala writer, creating the award-winning sitcom The Tournament and writing for TV series Boy Meets World and Good Advice, among many others – is still writing, still pitching shows. Earlier that afternoon, he was slicing meat while plugged into his phone, listening to a meeting in which a producer was trying to put a deal together.

Weaver popped out to say that Busgang often has to go next door to finish his calls because the meat in the charger of his cellphone prevents his phone from charging. “There’s meat everywhere,” she said.

photo - The November sunset as seen from the ferry, en route home — The November sunset as seen from the ferry, en route home. *(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)*

A couple of relatively new customers stopped to say hello to Busgang and Weaver. They said they were slowly adding Buzzy’s to their list of usual places to eat.

And, said Busgang and Weaver, local Jews have discovered, by going to Buzzy’s and meeting fellow Jews, that there actually is a Jewish community on the island.

“We’re blessed to have this,” said Busgang.

As he explained the deli’s name – his father called him Buzzy – Hannah returned, offering him a taste of a new salad dressing she had created. “Daddy, just try it.”

“Interesting,” he said, “I like it.”

“It’s gross,” she corrected him.

Three generations seemed present in that moment.

As the interview came to an end, Busgang asked, “Do you want some rugelach? I gotta keep feeding you.”

Buzzy’s is open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Find them at facebook.com/buzzysluncheonette and then head to bcferries.com and start planning your trip.

A visit to Jewish Portland

Nessim Menashe, born on the Isle of Rhodes in 1887, came to Portland in 1909. By 1914, he had established a shoe repair shop in northwest Portland, which he operated until 1921. (photo from Oregon Jewish Museum and Centre for Holocaust Education, OJM 03274)

Reading the history of the Oregon Jewish community can feel like reading B.C. Jewish history in a carnival mirror. Everything is familiar but just a little out of place.

Since the sister communities of Vancouver and Portland share both common history and common concerns about the future, there is much we can learn from each other. This is one reason why the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is excited to be hosting a trip to Portland in late May.

The three-day, two-night trip will take participants to historic sites and Jewish restaurants, and introduce them to engaging locals. Travelers will eat at Aviv, Lefty’s Café, Katchka, and Kenny & Zuke’s Deli. They will visit the Oregon Holocaust Memorial, Oregon Jewish Museum, Powell’s Bookstore, Beth Israel Historic Synagogue, Portland Art Museum, Oregon Historical Society Museum, Portland Rose Garden and Portland’s South End Jewish neighbourhood. They will also enjoy a curator-guided tour of the Oregon Jewish Museum.

As in British Columbia, it was the gold rush that attracted the first Jews to Oregon. German-born Jacob Goldsmith and Lewis May opened a general store in Portland in 1849 and helped found the Masonic Temple the following year. The community’s growth kept pace with the rapidly growing city and, in 1858, the Reform congregation Beth Israel was established. Jews had a disproportionate presence among the merchant class, with one-third of the 146 merchants on record in 1860 being Jewish. They worked in the industries of clothing, tobacco, furniture and wholesale.

Just 328 kilometres north, the Jewish population of Victoria followed a similar trajectory. The earliest arrivals stepped off boats arriving from San Francisco in 1858. They, too, established careers primarily as merchants and, in 1863, opened Congregation Emanu-El, which continues to operate today. In the 1870s, Jewish merchants began placing their bets on the future of a small encampment on the Fraser River, going by the name of Granville. These bets paid off when Granville became Vancouver in 1886, the terminus of the intercontinental railway.

The Jewish populations of Portland and Vancouver have grown dramatically over the decades since, with new arrivals from all corners of the world making their contributions. In both locations, community organizations blossomed early on, providing essential social and cultural services. Today, the Jewish population of Portland, at 50,000, is roughly double that of Metro Vancouver, thanks largely to a wave of young American Jews who were drawn to Portland in the wake of the 2008 market crash.

To learn more about the Oregon Jewish community and to experience it firsthand, join the JMABC-led trip, which departs by chartered bus on Monday, May 27, and returns Wednesday, May 29. For more information and registration, visit jewishmuseum.ca/program/portland-jewish-history-tour. The deadline to register is March 31.

Meet new or favourite writers

The Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival starts this Saturday night (Feb. 9) with Joshua Cohen, author of Moving Kings and ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction. It continues for five literary-filled days at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and here’s a sampling of books you might want to add to your reading list, and authors you might like to meet.

Set in 1920, in the fictional shtetl of Golikhovke during the Russian civil war, Judgment, by David Bergelson (1884-1952), is a melancholic novel about humanity in a time of uncertainty, where different political factions are warring, each under their own ultimately meaningless banner; neighbours cannot trust one another, let alone strangers; and justice is meted out randomly by a cruel, indifferent force.

Stationed in an also fictitious abandoned monastery called Kamino-Balke, near Golikhovke, the sickly Bolshevik Filipov is in control of the area along the Ukraine-Poland border. There are smugglers who travel across the border for commercial reasons and Socialist Revolutionaries who travel across it in preparation for an uprising against the Bolsheviks. Jews and non-Jews live together in relative tolerance but political loyalties, ethnic ties and differing ideas of morality ensure a constant tension. All live in fear of being captured by one of Filipov’s agents, as guilt of a crime does not need to be proven for a person to be beaten, imprisoned and/or shot.

What makes this novel beautiful is Bergelson’s prose. Imaginative metaphors: “Large, invisible hands merrily picked up whole heaps of snow and just as merrily released them.” Animated objects: “… the coat lay there bent over, dejected, as if it had made a long, pointless, idiotic journey” and “The cannons’ muzzles – black, fat and eyeless – stared longingly in the direction of the forests around Moshne….” Humour: “Stone fences suited the inhabitants of Yanovo, for all of them were as stubborn as their stone fences: stone upon stone.” And empathy, in this case, for the undercover agent Yokhelzon, whose “eyes (which inspected everything, people said) had already taken in the horror of death – they winked joyfully, so that the horror would not show afterward.”

As should be obvious, Harriet Murav and Sasha Senderovich have done a masterful job of translating Judgment from Yiddish to English. They also provide a fascinating introduction to the novel, its historical context, the author and his other works (Bergelson was executed in 1952, on Stalin’s orders), the book’s title, form, themes and use of language.

Senderovich will be at the book festival on Feb. 10, 3:30 p.m.

***

Michèle Smolkin’s novel Silence, je tombe is a witty, philosophical novel that explores how people can become isolated from one another, including themselves. Told from the perspectives of a few protagonists, readers will likely relate to many of the feelings expressed.

The novel starts with a pregnant Tania, as she, her husband Paul and their toddler Margot are making the drive to their new home in “Manhattan, Kansas, The Little Apple,” from Vancouver. Tania’s disenchantment is obvious and she expresses her anger towards her husband – who, as a professor of philosophy, couldn’t find a job elsewhere – with vicious (and very funny) sarcasm, mostly in her thoughts, but aloud, as well. She had imagined a different life for herself – living in New York, the Big Apple, for one thing; and certainly not in the Bible Belt. As a Francophone Jew, she anticipates that fitting in might be a problem.

As the book progresses, we get to know Tania, Paul and a disturbed man named Kevin, plus a couple of other minor but important characters. Through them, we contemplate love, what attracts people to one another and what forces them apart, what happiness is, what actions might be unforgivable, how our childhoods influence our adulthoods, and, of course, the inadequacy of words for certain situations, and understanding why, sometimes, silence is the only possible response.

Smolkin’s talk – the book festival’s first-ever French-language event – will take place Feb. 10, 5 p.m. (Note: Festival program shows incorrect time.)

***

A River Could Be a Tree is, thankfully, not the memoir of a person who goes from believing fanatically in one religion to being swept away as unquestioningly into another, though it might seem like it would be, given some aspects of the press material. “How does a woman who grew up in rural Indiana in a fundamentalist Christian cult end up a practising Jew in New York?” asks part of the blurb on the book flap. Well, for starters, Angela Himsel seems to always have been an inquisitive person, and never an avid follower of Herbert Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. She was an obedient child, but is still struggling with understanding how her parents believed so much in the church doctrine that they didn’t give her sister the care that might have prevented her death at a young age.

A River Could Be a Tree is a measured, often humourous, always intelligent memoir. Himsel starts with a prologue that gives readers a very large hint as to what led her to ultimately convert to Judaism: she and her boyfriend Selig were, “just once … careless about birth control.”

But the journey to that point is long and more complicated, and Himsel takes readers through it with the benefit of hindsight, hard-won insights and a writing style that is serious, honest but unsentimental, and filled with initially unexpected levity. As but one example, a mere three paragraphs into Chapter 1, in which Himsel talks about her parents’ religious heritage, Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism, she writes about Martin Luther, that, at age 41, he “married a nun, a woman he had helped smuggle out of a convent in a herring barrel. While irrelevant to Luther’s religious beliefs, a nun in a herring barrel is always worth mentioning.”

And A River Could Be a Tree is well worth reading. Himsel will speak at the book festival on Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m.

***

There is so much information in Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food by Rachel Herz. And a refreshing aspect of the book is that it’s not written from a dogmatic, all-knowing viewpoint. Herz acknowledges that sometimes studies come to different conclusions, sometimes scientific progress means that what was once thought true is disproven, and that different people will experience food, exercise and other things differently. Readers looking for certainty might be disappointed, but those wanting to learn will learn a lot. Who doesn’t want to know, for example, why tomato juice is one of the most popular drink orders on planes? Does sugar really help the medicine go down, so to speak, i.e. reduce the effects of pain? And why can buying ethically branded or organic products make us less charitable?

But Why You Eat What You Eat is more than an amalgamation of trivia. Herz has compiled a very readable and relatively comprehensive resource that will, as the title promises, help explain why we eat what we eat; how all of our senses – taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing – affect how we experience food. And knowing these things just might make us feel better about ourselves, and make choices that would serve us better.

Herz will be at the book festival on Feb. 13, 6 p.m.

Gourmet anything but lazy

Susan Mendelson, founder of the Lazy Gourmet, shares a little about herself and her business at the launch of this year’s The Scribe. (photo by Kenneth I. Swartz)

One of Vancouver’s most successful food industry professionals shared her story recently, helping to launch this year’s edition of The Scribe, the journal of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.

The topic of the 2018 issue is food, covering restaurants and related sectors from the early days of the community up to destinations that are still operating today. Susan Mendelson, best known around town as founder of the Lazy Gourmet, brought her thespian side to the audience at the Western Front Nov. 28, eliciting laughter as she guided the packed hall on a tour through her remarkable career.

“My mother’s mother, Grandma Faye, was a large influence in my life,” Mendelson said. An extraordinary baker and cook renowned in her small Jewish community of Quebec City, Grandma Faye took it as a challenge to keep a deep freezer filled with baking for when friends dropped by or to be ready for a tea party.

As a child, Mendelson loved to cook and bake. When the Six Day War broke out in Israel, in 1967, the family rallied to raise funds to send to Israel. Young Susan planned a bake sale in their backyard. She made all of her favourite squares and cookies and the neighbours snapped them up. Mendelson’s mother only told her years later that the cost of the ingredients was on par with what was raised that day. Thankfully, Mendelson told the audience, that wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.

Mendelson came to Vancouver to study at the University of British Columbia and gravitated to the theatre department. Her theatre professor, Larry Lillo, became a close friend. He broke the news to Mendelson that she would never be a great actress … though he really loved her cheesecake.

After third year, Mendelson took a break from school and worked in a group home for troubled teens. There, she met Deborah Roitberg, with whom she made the food for the kids in the group home. An instant friendship developed.

After traveling to Europe and Israel, Mendelson thought she would return to school and pursue social work. Around that time, Lillo had founded Tamahnous Theatre, an experimental ensemble that was becoming the resident company at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He hired Mendelson as house manager, which allowed her to go to school during the day and work at the Cultch, as the institution is familiarly known, at night. But the salary didn’t cover her expenses, so she began to make cheesecake to sell at intermission, later adding carrot cake and Nanaimo bars to her repertoire – “when the curtain came down at intermission, the lobby was stormed by people pushing in line to make sure that they got their piece of the cake.”

Anne Petrie of CBC radio’s afternoon show called Mendelson, having heard about the cheesecake phenomenon, and asked her to come on the program.

“I told her that I was putting myself through university with the recipe, but that I would come onto her show to tell her listeners how to make chocolate cheesecake, a recipe that my friend Miriam Gropper had given me,” Mendelson said.

Her cheeky attitude was a hit with audiences, and she was asked back. She returned for Valentine’s Day, talking about aphrodisiacs. Soon she had a regular radio gig paying $25 per appearance.

Mendelson’s boss at the Cultch started asking her to cater opening night parties. Wedding catering followed and then Mendelson was given the responsibility of catering to all the performers at the first iteration of the Vancouver Children’s Festival. She and Roitberg discussed opening a take-out food business.

“Our concept was that people would bring in their casserole dishes and platters and we would fill them with our food and they would take them home and pretend that they had made them themselves,” she said. “We would call ourselves the Lazy Gourmet, in honour of our customers who wanted gourmet food but were too lazy to make it themselves.”

Over the years, Mendelson had shared scores of recipes with radio listeners and some asked her to put them in book form. Mama Never Cooked Like This sold out and went into reprints; it was picked up by an American publisher.

To coincide with the publication of her second book, which was written for children and titled Let me in the Kitchen, the producer of the Children’s Festival, Chris Wootten, asked Mendelson to produce her own show. The best part of that experience, Mendelson recalled, was that a single dad in the audience brought his 7-year-old son and they bought the cookbook and made recipes

from it. “Six years later, I met those two,” she said. “And, seven years later, I married the dad and became stepmother to the most wonderful young teen. I was so happy that Jack and Soleil had experienced that show and that in some way we shared that amazing experience of my life.”

TV appearances followed and Mendelson was asked to write a souvenir cookbook for Expo 86.

But the trajectory was not entirely positive. After expanding the Lazy Gourmet from one store to three, the company began losing money. They eventually abandoned two of the storefronts and Roitberg left the business to raise a family.

Soon after the birth of daughter Mira, Mendelson was invited to cater a new event that was coming to Vancouver: the Molson Indy Vancouver.

“If you thought that the Children’s Festival wore me out … you can’t even imagine what that event did to me physically,” she said. “But, of course, I loved it and, by the last few years of the race, which took place on Labour Day weekend – Jack will tell you that it was our anniversary weekend that we didn’t celebrate for nine years – we were also catering the Abbotsford Airshow, which took place two weeks beforehand and, two weeks before that, we catered the Skins Game at Predator Ridge in the Okanagan.”

In addition to hard work, Mendelson credits her success to hiring people who she says are smarter and more talented than herself. A couple of years ago, she gave shares in the company to two long-term team members and moved into a part-time role. The company continues to expand, including a lifecycle catering department. “We call it womb-to-tomb catering,” she said, citing baby-namings, britot milah, b’nai mitzvah, weddings and funerals, as well as personal events. More recently, Mendelson took on catering the lunches at Vancouver Talmud Torah.

The Scribe launch also included words from Cynthia Ramsay, editor and publisher of the Independent, who has also, for the past nine years, edited The Scribe.

“When I started the job, the journal was a mix of academic essays and community-related history,” Ramsay said. “But it soon changed to become a means by which the museum could highlight its collection; the oral histories, photographs and other artifacts that it houses on the community’s behalf. We’ve done issues on the Jewish Western Bulletin, the Jewish Independent’s predecessor; on the furniture industry; scrap metal dealers; the clothing industry; on some of the community pioneers who are buried in our cemeteries all around the province; and, this year, of course, our issue is on the food and service industry.”

She credited museum staff Alysa Routtenberg, Marcy Babins and Michael Schwartz, and the publications committee, which this year included Routtenberg, Perry Seidelman, Gary Averbach, Debby Freiman, Fred Swartz and Ronnie Tessler. The JI’s production manager, Josie Tonio McCarthy, does the layout for the journals.

Seidelman, president of the JMABC, urged audience members not to throw out photographs or documents. “Give them to us,” he said.

Sweet birthday party for kids

Jordana Saks gets great joy from baking. (photo from Saks of Sweets)

“I love baking, because it’s a fun activity that allows me to be creative. More importantly, there is nothing more fulfilling than the wide-eyed smiles I see on other faces when they enjoy something that I have baked.”

Jordana Saks’ love of baking inspired her to create Saks of Sweets, which plans and leads kids’ birthday parties. “What better way to celebrate a birthday than with friends while baking, decorating and eventually eating the delicious cookies?” she asks on the business’s website.

Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ont., Saks studied cognitive science at McGill University in Montreal, before heading to San Francisco for a year. She arrived in Vancouver about 18 months ago, and has been in love with the city ever since.

Recalling her early sweet baking impressions, Saks said, “I started baking as young as 6 years old. My mom and aunt inspired me to bake, and taught me the tricks of the trade. When the eggs in my aunt’s fridge were past the expiry date, she used to call me over to practise the art of cracking an egg.

“Every year at Chanukah, for the family party, my aunt and I would make cookies and spend hours decorating them with unique designs. In addition to this tradition, we baked at least one new recipe each month. Still, to this day, when I visit home, we get together for a baking day – trying new recipes and recreating past ones.”

When Saks was studying at McGill, she used baking as a stress reliever, leaving her and her roommate with an abundance of baked goods.

“To prevent ourselves from eating an entire cake or a couple dozen cookies, I started an Instagram account called Saks of Sweets, where I could share when and what I was baking,” said Saks. “My friends would comment on what they wanted to try. I would find out where they were studying on campus and would deliver the goods, until nothing was left of that batch.”

When she moved to Vancouver, Saks recalls listening to a podcast called Side Hustle School, with Chris Guillebeau. “The entrepreneurial wheels in my brain were turning,” she said. “I was thinking about my passions and how I could channel those into a business. And, combined with my love for baking is my love for working with children. I’ve had many experiences working with kids and have enjoyed every one of them. After sitting down for an hour at a coffee shop and thinking about how to combine these two passions, the idea for Saks of Sweets quickly emerged.”

Saks of Sweets provides in-house baking birthday parties. Saks’ clients have loved the parties because, as parents, they do not need to stress or worry about anything except for inviting the children. The rest of the planning is in the hands of Saks of Sweets and Saks leads every party, along with one helper.

“We set up the individual baking stations, and the children will learn to roll out the Saks of Sweets shortbread cookie dough,” said Saks. “They will then choose from a wide variety of cookie cutters to create their cookies.

“While the cookies are in the oven, the children will decorate and personalize their baking aprons. Lastly, they will have a wide range of icing colours and sprinkles to decorate their unique creations. As an extra bonus, the take-home box for the cookies and the personalized aprons double as a loot bag.”

Prospective clients only need to provide a table for the rolling and decorating, and a working oven for the baking. Some parents like to provide a meal for the children, like ordering in pizza.

photo - Saks of Sweets brings the party to your children — Saks of Sweets brings the party to your children. *(photo from Saks of Sweets)*

For those not wanting to have the party in their own home, Saks of Sweets partners with the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, so that people can rent the centre’s party room for the birthday celebration.

“Right now, I am doing cookie cutting and decorating, but I’d like to move more into baking other delicious things, such as cakes, cupcakes, pies and more,” said Saks. “This expansion will happen soon, when the time is right.

“When I started this business, my hope was to channel my passions into throwing a creative birthday party that makes both the children and parents happy. I wasn’t overly concerned about the business scalability or strategy, because I didn’t want to get bogged down in the details or dissuade myself from taking that first step.

“From that perspective, my hopes have been met. Each party has been extremely well received by the parents, and the children are always smiling. My only new hope is that I can throw these more often.”

Saks of Sweets is Vancouver’s only in-house baking birthday party. The business concept is all about convenience. It is meant to be stress-free for parents, so they can also enjoy their child’s party.

Saks of Sweets can accommodate most dietary restrictions or allergies and works with clients to tailor the party to any needs or wishes. “For example, in the past, I’ve had to ensure all ingredients are kosher … and I can do parties for families that are kosher,” said Saks. “Furthermore, the ingredients and the cookies are all nut-free. However, they may contain traces of nuts, due to baking utensils that may have touched nuts in the past.”

The cost for a Saks of Sweets party for 10 to 12 children is $300, and each additional child after 12 is $22. For more information, visit saksofsweets.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.