Tzimmes

Year-round holiday recipes

Tori Avey’s Honey Apple Bundt Cake before being dusted with sugar powder or decorated with icing. (photo by Shelley Civkin)

Rosh Hashanah may well be in the rearview mirror, but Tori Avey’s Honey Apple Bundt Cake (toriavey.com/honey-apple-cake) is guaranteed to be a staple on your dinner table, no matter the time of year. It’s definitely not your typical yontif honey cake that doubles as a brick. Filled with shredded apples, it not only satisfies your sweet tooth but is off-the-charts moist.

Except for the apple-shredding part, which I do by hand, this recipe is fast and easy. I used to have a food processor with a shredder attachment but I never used it, so I gave it to my niece. I also used to have a Bundt pan, but I rarely used it, so I gave it to my niece. She now has an extensive collection of high-end small kitchen appliances. And I borrow from her. My point is that this cake was a colossal hit at my Rosh Hashanah dinner table, and is one recipe I’ll be making on the regular. You’re welcome.

HONEY APPLE BUNDT CAKE

3 large eggs
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp allspice (optional)
dash ground cloves (optional)
4 apples (peeled, cored, shredded)
3 tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 325˚F. Peel, core and shred your apples.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until they’re frothy. Whisk in the honey, white sugar, brown sugar, oil and vanilla. In a separate medium-sized bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and spices (optional) together. Incorporate the flour mixture into the liquid, and stir to blend. Fold in the shredded apples (I used Ambrosia or Fuji but you can use any kind you like) and their juice.

Spray your nine-inch Bundt pan with cooking spray, making sure to evenly coat the entire inner surface. Pour the batter into the pan. Since Bundt pan sizes vary (I use a 10-to-15-cup pan), make sure the batter fills the pan three-quarters full or less – don’t fill beyond that or your cake might overflow during baking. Use a spatula to gently smooth the batter on the top so it’s flat and even all the way around the pan.

Bake the cake for 75 to 90 minutes. If you’re using a dark-coloured Bundt pan, it may bake faster, so start checking at 50 minutes. When the edges darken and pull away from the sides of the pan, and the cake is brown all the way across the top, insert a toothpick (or wooden shish kabob skewer) into the thickest part of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done. It’s a very moist cake, so it’s easy to undercook it. Bake it a little longer if you’re unsure, but not too long or it’ll dry out.

Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then invert it onto a flat plate. Tap the Bundt pan gently to release the cake, then let the cake cool completely before you dust it with powdered sugar. Since the cake is moist, it tends to soak up the powdered sugar, so only add it right before serving. I put three tablespoons of powdered sugar into a small handheld mesh sieve and sprinkled it on top of the cake by tapping the sieve. If there’s any cake left over, keep it in the fridge, covered.

If you happen to be a fan of drizzled icing, this next part is for you. To make an icing, sift one cup of powdered sugar into a mixing bowl. Add a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract and half a tablespoon of water or non-dairy creamer. Whisk the sugar and liquid to blend, adding the liquid very slowly, until it just comes together. Add additional liquid by half teaspoonfuls, mixing constantly, until the mixture has the texture of very thick honey. When you pull a spatula through the icing and it takes a few seconds for the gap to close again, the texture is right.

Pour the icing into a sealable plastic bag. Close the bag, leaving a small bit open to vent, and push the icing towards one lower corner of the bag. Cut the very tip of that corner off the bag. Squeeze gently to drizzle the icing over the cake. Let the icing dry completely before serving – this takes 30-60 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

Another new Rosh Hashanah recipe I tried convinced me that not all tzimmes are created equal. Ksenia Prints’ Russian Jewish Carrot Tzimmes (immigrantstable.com/my-grandmas-russian-jewish-carrot-tzimmes) is definitely a cut above and checks all the boxes for rich depth of flavour. Some of my Rosh Hashanah guests actually asked if they could take some home!

RUSSIAN JEWISH CARROT TZIMMES

2 lbs carrots peeled & cut into 2-inch pieces
7 oz pitted prunes
7 oz dried apricots
zest of 2 oranges, in strips
juice of 2 oranges
4 tbsp honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cardamom (optional)
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Blanch carrots in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then drain.

In a large ovenproof dish, combine carrots, prunes, apricots and orange zest.

Combine orange juice, honey, brown sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom (optional), and pour this over the carrot mixture. Toss to coat.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, stir, and continue baking uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes, until carrots are tender and the sauce has thickened and reduced to a glaze. Season with salt to taste and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

The orange zest strips become almost candied and the glaze is sweet and slightly spicy. This dish freezes perfectly and offers a deep, rich flavour that only gets better with time. Seriously. You can make it in advance, like I did, then defrost and reheat it in the microwave. No one was the wiser. And everyone was happy.

The $64,000 question is this: Why do we save these delicious recipes only for holidays? Get thee to the oven now!

Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

Tri-Cities Chabad Siyyum Sefer Torah on March 10

Moshe Denburg, founder of the musical ensemble Tzimmes. (photo from Tzimmes)

Tzimmes will take part in the Siyyum Sefer Torah celebration of Tri-Cities Chabad, as the community marks the completion of a Sefer Torah on March 10, 2:30 p.m., at Old Orchard Hall in Port Moody.

Rabbi Mottel Gurevitz, the driving force behind this year-long project and the spiritual leader of Tri-Cities Chabad, expressed the significance of completing a Torah: “The completion of a Sefer Torah is a monumental occasion in the Jewish tradition. It represents the unity of our community, the passing on of our heritage to future generations and the commitment to our shared values. It is a symbol of strength, resilience and continuity.”

– information from Tri-Cities Chabad

Tzimmes helps close festival

Left to right, Tzimmes’s Saul Berson, Yona Bar Sever and Moshe Denburg perform in the Ukrainian Hall Community Concert and Social on Nov. 5. (photo from Heart of the City)

A festival favourite, Tzimmes, will perform at the 20th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, taking part in the Nov. 5 Ukrainian Hall Community Concert and Social, which closes out the 100-plus live and online events that take place at more than 40 venues over 12 days.

Presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre with the Carnegie Community Centre, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and other community partners, this milestone year of the festival – with the theme “Grounded in Community, Carrying it Forward” – starts Oct. 25.

“We have performed at DTES Heart of the City Festival on several occasions over the years,” Tzimmes founder and band leader Moshe Denburg told the Independent.

“November 2008 was the first time and, two years later, in October 2010, we performed again. We were invited a few years ago, in the fall of 2020, but couldn’t make it due to a scheduling conflict.”

In addition, said Denburg, a small group from the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), which Denburg founded, played the festival in 2011. “The repertoire was, of course, intercultural, but included klezmer and Hebraic pieces as well,” he said. “Every time we played the festival, there was a truly welcoming atmosphere, and I would like to say it is an honour to be part of the mitzvah (good deed) that Heart of the City is performing for the neediest amongst us.”

“For 20 years, the Heart of the City Festival has been grounded in the Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the cultural practices of the community,” notes the press release. “The festival works with, for and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward our community’s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences and artistic processes to illuminate pathways of resistance and resilience.” The festival’s mandate “is to promote, present and facilitate the development of artists, art forms, cultural traditions, history, activism, people and great stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.”

The closing event at which a trio of musicians from Tzimmes will play – Denburg (lead vocal/guitar), Yona Bar Sever (lead guitar/backup vocal) and Saul Berson (clarinet/flute/saxophone) – will also feature the Barvinok Choir, Dovbush Dancers and the Vancouver Ukrainian Folk Orchestra. The concert will be opened by cultural speaker Bob Baker of the Squamish Nation and DTES resident, artist, poet and community activist Diane Wood will read “100 Years of Struggle” by the late Sandy Cameron, an historian and poet, among other things, who was very involved in the Downtown Eastside.

About what the Tzimmes trio will play at the concert, Denburg said, “The Tzimmes repertoire is always made up of Jewish music in the larger world context. So, there will be aspects of klezmer and Yiddish song (European), Ladino (Judeo-Spanish/Mediterranean), and pieces in a more Middle Eastern style as well. If anyone wants a primer on our repertoire, they can visit our YouTube page: @BigTzimmesProductions. Have a look/listen to ‘Dror Yikra,’ ‘Cuando’ and ‘Moishe’s Freylakh,’ and you’ll get an idea of what’s to come.”

The Independent last spoke with Denburg in 2021 about Tzimmes’s then-new two-CD album The Road Never Travelled. Since that interview, the group released, in 2022, a remixed and remastered version of their first album, calling it Sweeter and Hotter.

“In 2020, as we were creating our fourth album, The Road Never Travelled, I realized that there was almost enough material for a second disc, but it needed a few more pieces,” said Denburg. “Around that time, my dear friend and band mate, Yona, suggested that I try to remix our debut recording. We always felt that we were constrained by a simpler technology back in 1993, and that certain aspects of the mix could be improved – vocals could be clearer, instruments brought into better relation and so on. Looking around, I found a fine facility in Red Bank, N.J., that specialized in transferring old reel-to-reels to a digital format. The tapes of Sweet and Hot were 27 years old, but they transferred wonderfully to digital tracks.

“On the second disc of The Road Never Travelled, we included several remixed liturgical pieces from Sweet and Hot,” Denburg said, noting that the group continued the process and worked on every track of their 1993 debut album. He said, “The result, we believe, is an enhanced version of Sweet and Hot that does not compromise the original at all; in fact, we humbly submit, the result of all this work is that the sweet parts are even sweeter, and the hot stuff even hotter!”

The closing concert/social of the Heart of the City Festival – called Building Community: 20 Years of Friendship – takes place at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre, with doors opening at 2 p.m. and the concert at 3 p.m. Tickets ($30/$20) are available at eventbrite.ca.

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photo - Among the many Heart of the City events is a month-long exhibit at Carnegie Community Centre of photographer David Cooper’s work for the festival over its 20 years — Among the many Heart of the City events is a month-long exhibit at Carnegie Community Centre of photographer David Cooper’s work for the festival over its 20 years. *(photo from Heart of the City)*

Among the many other events taking place during Heart of the City is an exhibit of photographer David Cooper’s work for the festival over its 20-year history, curated by Vancouver Moving Theatre co-founder Terry Hunter. (For more on Cooper, see jewishindependent.ca/capturing-community-spirit.)

Cooper will attend the Nov. 1, 4 p.m., opening reception in the third-floor gallery at Carnegie Community Centre. The exhibit, which runs to Nov. 30, will feature two to four photos from each of the festival’s 20 years, displayed chronologically with the festival poster for each year.

Organizers said Cooper provided guidelines for selecting the images: “simple, elegant, expressive images with energy, movement and/or emotion that represent the cultural and social diversity of the festival’s programming and people.” The exhibit also will include photos of festival participants who have passed away.

For more information, visit heartofthecityfestival.com.

Tzimmes celebrates 35 years

The Tzimmes sextet, in 2019. Left to right are Saul Berson, Phil Belanger, Tim Stacey, Amy Stephen, Yona Bar-Sever and Moshe Denburg. Also part of the ensemble in the new recording, but not pictured here, is Fabiana Katz. (photo from Tzimmes)

Vancouver Jewish musical ensemble Tzimmes celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, the group, led by Moshe Denburg, has released a new album, The Road Never Travelled, its first in 23 years.

Denburg, who is also a classical composer, founded Tzimmes in Victoria in 1986. Throughout that time, the ensemble’s modus operandi has been to incorporate as many types of Jewish music as possible – traditional Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi, along with more contemporary and secular styles.

The new album is comprised of two discs. Disc 1 offers secular pieces, while Disc 2, Liturgy Lane, presents listeners with original music based on sacred texts.

The repertoire includes “Hahmi-ini” (“Let Me Hear Your Voice”), which was written in 1966, when Denburg was in his teens; the title track, “The Road Never Travelled,” from 2005; and “other original arrangements of more recent vintage,” such as “Oyfn Veg” (“On the Way”). Some of the songs on Disc 1, including the title track, are English pop/folk/world music. And not all the songs on the album are Jewish. There is, for example, a rendition of the Beatles’ “In My Life.”

The recording and mixing history for the collection stretches 28 years. When it became clear that this was more material than could fit on one album, Denburg decided to turn it into two.

“For a number of years,” he told the Independent, “we had some tracks that were on the back burner, so to speak – unfinished recordings that were begun in 2005-06. Tzimmes kept working in general – some concerts, lots of simchas, but completing a new recording was not in the cards, mainly because my own work was focused on founding and husbanding the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO).

“A few years ago, I wound down my administrative duties with the VICO, and started considering, in earnest, completing a new Tzimmes recording. The final impetus occurred when I turned 70, in 2019. I brought the group together, worked on a lot of new, and older, material, and took them into the studio to complete the older tracks and to lay down some fresh ones,” he said.

The Road Never Travelled features many past members, and several other musicians who have collaborated over the past 20 years, to become the Tzimmes of today. Denburg (voice, guitar) is joined by Fabiana Katz (voice), Yona Bar-Sever (lead guitar, voice, electric bass), Saul Berson (clarinet, flute, saxophone), Amy Stephen (voice, accordion, whistle, lever harp), Tim Stacey (bass, electric bass) and Phil Belanger (drums) to form the ensemble. A dozen other musicians, including guitarist Itamar Erez, cellist Finn Manniche and vocalist Myrna Rabinowitz – as well as international instrumentalists Joseph “Pepe” Danza, Yuji Nakagawa and Adel Awad – also appear, among others.

Tzimmes’ last album, KlezMyriad, was released in 1998, though the ensemble has performed at concerts and larger-scale projects since then. While changes have taken place over the past many years, it continues to be a tight-knit group of musicians.

When asked about the ensemble’s longevity and how it has maintained its cohesion, Denburg explained, “I believe Tzimmes has steered clear of the more difficult conflicts that are legion where artistic collaborations are concerned. But, as a bandleader, it has taken the wisdom that comes only with much experience to keep one’s passion alive while allowing for the artistic expression of one’s colleagues. This is what a good bandleader ought to do.

“Tzimmes is more a family than an enterprise, at least that’s the way I look at it,” he continued. “So, as in all families, there is the joy of knowing that everyone is basically rooting for each other and, yet, at the same time, conflicts do occur. We have lived long enough together, and have matured as people together, to have buried most of the hatchets and be guided by our natural affections for each other, and our love of our common purpose – the making of music.”

About the ensemble’s history, Denburg said, “Over 35 years, ensemble members come and go, and, actually, no one who was with me in 1986, when Tzimmes was formed in Victoria, is with me today. Tzimmes has changed and evolved over the years. Of today’s members, some have been with the ensemble for 30 years, some for over 20, and others are newer additions. One of the hallmarks of the new recording is that almost all Tzimmes members, of yesterday and today, are part of the recording.

“Tzimmes has always been dedicated to presenting Jewish music in all its facets,” Denburg concluded. “The challenge has always been to deal with the variety of these musical expressions in a non-superficial way, to make an original contribution to Jewish music-making.”

As the pandemic eventually fades, there are plans for a concert to herald the release of the CD and celebrate the ensemble’s 35 years. And Denburg sees many possibilities in providing musical services of various kinds.

“Speaking for myself, in the longer term, it would be nice to see Tzimmes continue with some next-generation musicians,” he said, “to carry on the tradition of original Jewish music-making in Vancouver.”

For information on buying tracks and sheet music, visit tzimmes.net.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.