Celebrating Modern Jewish Living Through Food, Tradition, and Family


Whatever ever happened to the delicious almond cookies that were served in Chinese restaurants at the end of a meal? How I looked forward to this after we ate what was considered the Jewish Chinese meal. We started with Egg Drop s[…]-READ-MORE>

I’m convinced the world is divided into two groups: those who look at this picture, start to drool, and think to themselves, how can I get my hands on the red ones? and those who think, meh, does absolutely nothing for me.
The[…]-READ-MORE>

Long before Madonna, Demi Moore, Britney Spears and the rest of (not Jewish) Hollywood were sporting red Kabbalah bracelets, my kitchen cabinets, purses, closets, drawers, children’s rooms, and just about anything that could open […]-READ-MORE>

Flashback to the years 1948 -1958. Looking back on my childhood, I can’t believe just how much I remember. During these years I was seven to 17, living with my parents. I remember the street we lived on: Schenectady, Avenue, A[…]-READ-MORE>

I’m not sure how Jews originally began their love affair with Italian food, but for this writer, I know how it all began. At the age of seven, my parents moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island (what they then considered ‘the country[…]-READ-MORE>

Sounds like a crazy title, doesn’t it? Until a few weeks ago, I would have been inclined to agree with you, but at the recent Shiva for my husband’s grandfather, I experienced a deeply rich connection to the man I only saw a handf[…]-READ-MORE>

My husband and I had one of those tears-streaming-down-your-face belly laughs yesterday over something from my childhood that I likely blocked out for some 40+ years: Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda.
Yes, you know the one: light green[…]-READ-MORE>

I guess you could say I’m a bit of an anomaly when it comes to ordering a sandwich in a deli: to me, the thinner the sandwich, the better. I know, I know, this is not how it’s done (or expected) when ordering anything between two […]-READ-MORE>

Growing up in my house, there were a few food-related things you could bet your life on:
1. My dad’s bagels were always in the kitchen in a brown paper bag. Anything with seeds had a bag of its own.
2. Mayo was used for two […]-READ-MORE>

It’s 9:00 a.m. on a cold Sunday morning. Thanksgiving is a but a few weeks away, Christmas catalogs have been filling up my mailbox for weeks now (already?) and just about everything in my inbox these days is about gratitude, givi[…]-READ-MORE>

This is my father’s bench.
The same bench where my father stood, leaned against, kibitzed from, schlepped hundred pound piles of dough onto, and expertly made hundreds of thousands of bagels by hand from 1970 to 1990. The same[…]-READ-MORE>

The picture above might just look like a plate of bakery cookies, but to me, they mean so much more.
I was actually compelled to buy these cookies, put them on one of my finest plates, set them on my Shabbat table, and could no[…]-READ-MORE>