Hanukkah

I'm wishing a Happy Hanukkah to all of our Jewish friends. Since Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days the Jewish people celebrate with foods that include oil.

Fried foods like potato pancakes (“latkas” in Yiddish) and doughnuts (“sufganiyot” in Hebrew) are traditional Hanukkah treats because they are cooked in oil and remind the Jewish people of the miracle of the holiday. So why not an olive oil cake!! Instead of butter, oil is used to create this beautiful dessert. And best of all, no mixer is required. We also have some other great Hanukkah recipes for you to enjoy.

And the tangerine glaze…wow. I have a whole bowl of Satsumas on the counter, and they are as juicy as can be. Perfect to squeeze and bake into this cake and glaze.

I’m a California Jew. If one were to compare ethnicity in terms of packaging, we’d be ‘plain wrap’. Both my folks were Jewish, but Mom was an Atheist and Dad, well,  he grew up in the little town of Chloride Arizona and Grandpa Harry was the Sheriff.  Once, when I was a kid, I brought a stray cat into the house. Dad hated cats. The center of his face turned purple with rage. “You git that ornery varmint outta here!”  Get the picture?

Then I met my salt of the earth, “Philly bro” husband who promised his father on his deathbed that he’d have his kids bar/bat mitzvah’d, what the fuck was I gonnna do?

I joined a neighborhood Temple. By the way, our house is literally straddled by Temples. Sephardic (the building and the inside is breathtakingly gorgeous) the Conservative and the Reform. Guess which one we chose? Also, it had a renowned Mommy and Me program.

When we attended the first Shabbat as a family, I was nervous.  I wore a dress. That was me ‘towing the line’. I didn’t know what to expect.  What I liked about our Temple was that it was modest.  Still, I was worried  my uncouth manners would make me an outcast OR get us kicked out.

As Chad and I were hurrying across the street to the Temple, I said “Now look, we’ve got to be really, uh, you know, polite.” “What’re you talkin’ about?” he said. “You’re the one with the sailor mouth.” It’s true. You hang around Comedians long enough….

The first thing I ever stole was a piece of Bazooka Bubble Gum. I lifted the small, red, white and blue rectangle out of the glass canister on the counter, wrapped my fist around it and shoved it in my pocket. My heart pounded against my chest with fear and excitement as I glanced around the store making sure no one had seen me. It was a rush. Taking it. Not getting caught. Pulling something off. Putting something over.

My friend KBell makes socks for a living. But it’s what comes out of her kitchen that’ll really knock your socks off – the world’s most perfect brisket.

That’s a boast, I know, that is bound to generate some heat. But what you have to know about Kbell’s brisket is two things: She’s ridiculously generous about sharing her recipe, which actually hails from her mother Selma Bell of Gloucester, Mass. And, for all I know, from Selma Bell’s mother, too. The Bells from Gloucester are like that, a tight-knit (so to speak) family. But the second and probably more important aspect of KBell’s brisket is that it’s pretty much fool-proof.

The key is in the timing. If you’re serving the dish for Friday night, say, you need to make it on Thursday. That way, you refrigerate the meat overnight and can easily hack off the extra globs of fat in the morning and then thinly slice the beef against the grain and, voila – the perfect brisket is simply heated up 45 minutes before you serve it, au jus.