Hanukkah

kugel.killerI don’t make a lot of kugels.  I don’t make them because my kids don’t really eat them and as much as I want to eat the whole tray, it would take me a month to work off the calories.  My grandma used to make them all the time.  What I loved most about her kugels were the left overs.  

The following day, for breakfast, she would cut off a slice, put some butter in a saute pan and literally pan fry the slice of kugel.  Like the kugel really  needs anymore butter than it already has.  Yet, it is a childhood memory that is rests comfortably on my tastes buds.

My sister-in-law, Tammy is the official kugel creator in our family.  She makes them all time and her 3 kids devour it.  Tonight, my kids experienced kugel for one of the first times (in the past, they  have turned their noses up at it).  They are kugel converts. This kugel would make anyone a convert!

I am guilty of eating seconds.  It is that good!

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brisket.jpgMy 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.

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chocolate-gingebreadstars1.jpgOn the first night of Hanukkah, I wanted to make something representative of our holiday. On the nights that we are not entertaining friends and family for dinner, we are invited to others for food and fun.

With that said, I wanted to make cookies that everyone could enjoy. I doubled the recipe and then cut out 3 1/2″ stars. After freezing the rolled dough, I cut them into shapes and froze once again (I find the cookies keep their shape when baking when I do it this way). When I was ready to bake them I sprinkled with turbinado sugar and added some white non-perils.

I had so many cookies that I decided to make cream sandwiches out of half of them. I whipped up a batch of the best white chocolate ganache. These were absolutely delicious!

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hanukkah_candleslatkes.jpgI took a walk with my grandson Isaac a few weeks ago. We went to see the ducks. He knows what ducks say as well as cows, goats, horses (with prompting), and chickens. He is two years old. His name, biblical and strong, may herald the beginning of a new era in baby naming. I have a second grandson, born in September. His name is, Leo Henry, very distinguished. Leo has a tough act to follow in Isaac, but I am sure he will hold his own.

It is pay back time, in a way, since my son, the younger of my two children, is the father of the animal whisperer, while his older sister the original tough act to follow is Leo’s mother.

Now, in my early sixties, I am happy I can keep up with Isaac and expect to hold my own with Leo, as well. Grandchildren arrive on the scene these days much later than in the past. We are a healthier “older generation.” We trek. We do Pilates, but do the children really have to wait so long to figure out who they want to be, to settle down, and to multiply?

For many years, from well before the empty nest until the birth of grandchildren, we have no one to take trick or treating and, at this time of year, for those of the Jewish persuasion, no one with whom to light candles and fry latkes.

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dreidelcandies.jpgI was recently roped I…I mean asked to participate in Canter’s Chanters Chanukah Extravaganza at my Temple. When it was first presented to me, I thought, ‘Great, our Canter is a cool guy and is probably open to doing some improv or something with the kids. That’s got to be why he’s asking me. This’ll be fun.”

But, no. He griped that the kids were positively incapable of doing improv and that was why he prevailed on my services as well as other Temple members who happened to be performers; to write and perform small vignettes that would be done eight times, as eight groups were led through the Temple. The motif was to be “You want to know what Chanukah is all about? I’ll tell you what Chanukah’s all about…”

Each group was to represent one aspect of the celebration. My friend Amy Simon, writer and performer of the wonderful show Cheerios in My Underpants, volunteered to create some sort of wrap-around to feature ‘latkes’.  She had the run of the Temple kitchen and would be making real latkes to give to the kids. Her idea was to create a Bubbie personae.

Dreidels were up for grabs so I decided to take a whack at it. I love games and this is a mindless game much like Yahtzee, only you win pennies or chocolate. 

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