Chanukah

Four nights so far!

At the table

Latkes and salmon

In the Kitchen

Alice grating the potatoes.

Len’s bread.

 

A Beautiful Life in Food

— source

Joan Nathan’s cookbooks always offer lots of wonderful recipes, though I have followed only a few of them. One recipe that appears in her new memoir, My Life in Recipes, is especially tempting to me because it features a specialty of a long-closed Ann Arbor eating place. “Ann Arbor Schnecken” or Pecan Sticky Buns were a favorite of hers during her years as a student at the University of Michigan. I liked them too! In the photo you can see her working on a tray of these very very sweet treats!

I’ve been aware of the main details of Joan Nathan’s life for some time — I liked reading the book because I lived in some of the same places that she lived, and I share some of the memories from my own life. Raised in Jewish communities in the New York and East Coast area (unlike me, a midwesterner, though sharing the Jewish-American experiences), she came to Ann Arbor as a student a few years before we moved here. She also spent time in Paris, France at about the same time that we spent our first stay in Grenoble, and many of her memories remind me of things I enjoyed there as well. Obviously this makes it fun to read the early chapters of her book, especially as she provides connected recipes for each short chapter. 

As background for her childhood, she also described family memories of her parents’ origins in Europe. I especially liked her brief stories of Augsburg, Germany, and I would like to try her recipe for Augsburg’s special plum cake, Zwetschgenkuchen, when plums are in season. I’ve heard of it from my own family — my son-in-law is from Augsburg. He, my daughter, and my granddaughters have talked about this favorite, also called Zwetschgendatschi. They say it can’t really be made properly except with the special local Augsburg plums!

In her twenties, Joan Nathan had several very interesting jobs, especially working in Jerusalem as an aid to the mayor, and also worked in publishing in New York. She describes these years by alternating recipes with memories, which I enjoyed. My own visits to Israel were many years later, which contributed to how much I enjoyed this part of her story. And this is Joan Nathan, so I am sure that the recipes would come out just delicious if you cooked them!

After her marriage in the early 1970s, the author lived in Washington, DC, where she met many prominent members of political and social society, as well as many celebrities of cooking and culinary journalism. At this point, her book seems to do more name-dropping than really interesting narrative. I was dissatisfied with the way she presented these intriguing relationships, but felt that she never really provided a thorough portrayal of the many compelling figures who came in and out of her life. Sad to say, I really didn’t connect to these later chapters, and eventually scanned them rather than reading in detail.

Celebrities

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

 

Orchids, Folktales, and a New-to-Me Painter

Orchid Show at Matthaei Botanical Garden

A number of orchid societies from nearby areas presented displays of orchids at this show, which we visited this weekend.
Below are photos of the orchids, as well as other plants on display in the greenhouses.

Two orchids and one cactus from the cactus room in the greenhouse.
I am very amused at finding a plaid plant!

From the Bonsai and Penjing display.

A stone plant: Lithops.

The orchid show.

All greenhouse and orchid photos © 2024 mae sander.

West African Folk Tales

An illustration from the tale “The Hunter and the Tortoise”
about a hunter who finds a miraculous singing tortoise, promises to keep it secret, but finally betrays it.

I’m reading a few folk tales from a collection titled West African Folk Tales by William Henry Barker (1882–1929) and illustrated by Cecilia Sinclair. This Project Gutenberg facsimile was made from the original text, published in 1917. I like reading these simple tales, about the tricky spider Anansi and his friends and family. Some are “just so” stories that explain the behavior of animals or birds; others are moral tales where characters are punished for not keeping secrets or the like; and some are just for fun.

It’s especially notable that so many of the tales involve hunger: the characters are constantly motivated by food shortages or the need to produce or set aside food, or their luck at finding a magical source for food. For example, 

“Anansi’s wives could not even get proper food; they had to live on unripe bananas with peppers.” (p. 26)

“Egya Anansi was a very skilful farmer. He, with his wife and son, set to work one year to prepare a farm, much larger than any they had previously worked. They planted in it yams, maize, and beans—and were rewarded by a very rich crop. Their harvest was quite ten times greater than any they had ever had before. Egya Anansi was very well pleased when he saw his wealth of corn and beans. He was, however, an exceedingly selfish and greedy man, who never liked to share anything—even with his own wife and son. When he saw that the crops were quite ripe, he thought of a plan whereby he alone would profit by them” (p. 47)   

“Once upon a time there was great scarcity of food in the land. Father Anansi and his son, Kweku Tsin, being very hungry, set out one morning to hunt in the forest.” (p. 66)

“There once lived upon the earth a poor man called Ohia … . Ohia thought of a plan which many of his neighbours had tried and found successful. He went to a wealthy farmer who lived near, and offered to hew down several of his palm-trees. He would then collect their sap to make palm wine. When this should be ready for the market, his wife would carry it there and sell it.” (p. 71)

Of course as in many folktales from many places, the magical or secret sources of food are often destroyed by the characters’ greed or selfishness. I have been curious about the Anansi tales because of the stories by Neil Gaiman that use them, and I’m finding these quite delightful.

Cutting down palm trees in order to make palm wine.

What I Hope to Read Tomorrow

Mayer Kirshenblatt: A Painter of Memories 

The Village Carp Pond

A Purim Play: children watch through the window.

Sabbath Candle-Lighting: wine, candles, challah.

Mayer Kirshenblatt (1916-2009) was born in Opatow, Poland. (The town was called Apt in Yiddish). In 1934, he emigrated to Toronto, where he worked in various jobs, married, and lived for the rest of his life. For his last 20 years, encouraged by his family, he began painting scenes from his youth in order to document his life in Apt, a shtetl whose Jewish population and culture had been destroyed by the Holocaust. Kirshenblatt's work is currently the subject of a special exhibit in the Polin Museum of Jewish History in Warsaw, Poland, and has been featured at several exhibits in the US as well. For more about Mayer Kirschenblatt, see "From Memory to Canvas, Lost Way of Life in Poland" (New York Times, May 7, 2009) 

NOTE: My father was born in a shtetl in what is now Belarus, about 500 km from Opatow, The life that these paintings depict was very very similar to the life my father described, so I’m happy to be introduced to this painter. Before the Holocaust, these and many other Jewish towns were ethnically unified in culture, language, and religious practice. The national borders that exist now were different before World War I, and have changed several times since then.

For Elizabeth’s tea party — two types of wine!

Passover

Elijah the Prophet, from a 16th century Haggadah. The traditional belief is that Elijah will herald the coming of the Messiah.
To welcome Elijah a cup of wine is left on the Seder table -- "Elijah's cup" -- and near the end of the
ritual, someone opens the door, inviting him in, all hoping that his arrival will bring peace to mankind.

 

From the Haggadah: “This is the promise — not only once did they arise to destroy us, rather in every generation they rise to destroy us. But the Holy One Blessed Be He will save us from their hands.”

This evening, April 22, is the first Seder, the traditional meal that celebrates the beginning of Passover. The Passover holiday is celebrated mainly in people’s homes, though there are sometimes communal meals as well, especially for those who are separated from their families such as students who live away from home. The “Haggadah” is the book of rituals, readings, and prayers that is used for the service that accompanies the meal. I suspect that the above quotation is on a lot of people’s minds this year, along with the irony of a wish for a peaceful world.

Although not religiously observant, we usually celebrate Passover in our home or with family or friends. I’ve written about it many times. Because we had a family visit last week, we ate Passover food early, so here are some pictures illustrating traditional foods that we enjoyed ahead of time.

“Conundrum” is a great name for a wine at Passover.

Wine is one of the traditional items on the Passover table. During the ceremony, all participants drink four glasses of wine at specific times as the Haggadah requires. The start of the ritual is the reading of The Four Questions, asking “Why is this night different from all other nights,” and beginning the explanation of the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt as presented in the Biblical book of Exodus. Since a conundrum is a puzzling question I thought the wine was very aptly named. (Note: for those who observe the kosher dietary laws, this is not kosher wine.)

Two foods that are part of the ritual: Matzo, the unleavened bread eaten as the Israelites fled Egypt,
and Charoset, a combination of grated apples and nuts, representing the mortar that the enslaved Israelites used to build the Pyramids.

Our table setting for our pre-Seder meal.

Symbolic foods: egg, parsley, horseradish, wine.

Another food that’s not required but is traditional: matzo ball soup.

Gefilte fish is not part of the Haggadah ritual, but it’s a key dish in many people’s Passover meal.

Recipes using dried fruit such as prunes are a Passover tradition.

Blog post and photos © 2024 mae sander

A Sad Time for a Holiday

The first candle to light tonight — in my home. Israeli menorah with doves of peace!

Hanukah starts tonight. We have various plans for celebrating the holiday, but it's a sad time. Here is a summary from Reuters of the situation for the holiday in Israel (source):

"Two months into a war with Hamas, the faces of Israelis taken hostage to Gaza still appear on individual posters plastered across Jerusalem bus stops and flashed across buildings. The sombre mood was all-consuming on Thursday at the start of Hanukkah, the first Jewish festival since 7 October … It was a solemn moment for all of Israel and not only for families of the 138 Israelis still held hostage."

 

At a rally in Tel Aviv last month

Writing in the New York Times, Qanta A. Ahmed, a senior fellow at The Independent Women’s Forum, presented her thoughts in an op-ed titled “Two months later, Hamas’s Oct. 7 horror cannot be allowed to fade.” She says:

“Barely eight weeks have passed, but this needs saying: Hamas committed crimes against humanity in Israel on Oct. 7. That much should be obvious from the terrorists’ own mass-murder video recordings, but it is indisputable for anyone who has visited, as I have, the ravaged sites of their attack. … As a Muslim woman, a physician and a journalist, I have devoted much of my work to battling radical Islam. …Islamism is a monster I know too well. And I know its hatred of Israel, hatred of Jews is especially poisonous.”

Antisemitism At Home 

As this holiday begins, we should be celebrating the end of a war in Israel when Jewish life was threatened — of course I mean the victory of the Maccabees over 2000 years ago. But celebrating this ancient victory is hard when forces around the world and direct violence in Israel once again are threatening to destroy Israel! 

Here at home in the US, we Jews are facing the most extreme antisemitism of our entire lives. The Anti-Defamation League reported on the incidence of antisemitism in October after the Hamas orgy of murder, rape, and kidnapping in Israel: “Preliminary data from ADL Center on Extremism indicates that reported incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault increased by 388 percent over the same period last year.” (source)

Over three-quarters of Jewish college students have recently encountered antisemitic verbal or physical attacks since the war began. (source) At congressional hearings this week, several prestigious college presidents embarrassingly refused to take a stand on whether a call for the genocide of Jews was against their free-speech policies. This is a complicated issue, but the safety of Jews on campuses is clearly not being taken seriously by the administrators.

In an article titled "There Is No Right to Bully and Harass," writer David Frum in the Atlantic describes this horror show:

"Rhetoric drawn from the Jefferson-Mill tradition is now being used to defend behavior that is meant to intimidate or harm. Important elements of our society have shifted from their former claim that speech can be violence to a bold assertion that violence should count as speech. ... Rifle through the news accounts of the past few years and you find dozens, if not hundreds, of similar cases of vandalism, bodily interference, even outright assault as forms of anti-Israel expression. Only this week, the Biden White House and the governor of Pennsylvania issued statements condemning the mob action against a falafel restaurant in Philadelphia owned by an award-winning Israeli-born chef and entrepreneur. But such menacing behavior has become the preferred style of anti-Israel expression in the United States and Canada."

This new American antisemitism pretends to be something else — it hides itself in a variety of ways. Another article in the Atlantic explains how this is working: "How to Be Anti-Semitic and Get Away With It: Too many communities have developed ways to excuse or otherwise ignore prejudice," by Yair Rosenberg. He writes: 

“Out of 8 billion people on the planet, there are only 16 million Jews—but far, far more anti-Semites. … I have become a reluctant expert in all the ways that anti-Jewish activists obfuscate their hate. … too many communities have developed ways to excuse or otherwise ignore anti-Semitism. Today, such prejudice is growing in high and low places because powerful people around the world are running the same playbook to launder their hate into the public sphere.”

From the White House last month:

“We can’t stand by and stand silent [in the wake of Antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents]. We must, without equivocation, denounce Antisemitism. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia.” – President Biden (source)

Earlier this week, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution opposing antisemitism. However, the wording of this measure is controversial; several thoughtful representatives preferred a more effective measure. 

“Nadler, Goldman and Raskin on Monday introduced an alternative resolution that condemns antisemitism and calls on executive branch agencies and Congress to implement the Biden administration’s national strategy to counter antisemitism.” (source) 

The issue of intensified antisemitic behavior and speech may seem complicated, but the problem is pretty obvious: classic antisemitism is back, along with some new forms as well. Throughout the US, Jews are now subject to verbal and physical attacks on their organizations, their businesses, and their very existence, and old racial slurs that had become socially unacceptable are now becoming normalized. 

It’s not a pleasant time to celebrate the holiday, but we will try.

Blog post by mae sander. © 2023

Zingerman's Class: Roman-Jewish Cuisine

Cookbook author Leah Koenig in the Zingerman's Classroom in Ann Arbor.

"Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen," with presenter Leah Koenig took place Wednesday evening at Zingerman's. In addition to the locally famous bakery, Zingerman's has a teaching center for bakers and cooks offering a wide variety of classes and presentations. Len and I enjoyed the evening. Leah demonstrated three recipes from her recently-published book; we also received small samples of each dish, which we found delicious. The three dishes were:

• Semolina Gnocchi Gratin (Gnocchi alla Romana) -- layered disks of semolina pasta and cheese, baked until golden.
• Sauteed Spinach with Pine Nuts and Raisins (Spinaci con Pinoli e Passerine) -- a delicious flavor combination with onions, pine nuts, golden raisins, and lemon zest. Len, who normally detests spinach, found it quite tasty.
• Chocolate and Almond Cake (torta di Mandorle e Cioccolata) -- flourless almond and chocolate cake suitable for Passover, and very similar to many other Passover cakes I've eaten.

Images from Leah's Cooking Demonstration

On the table: cheese, egg yolks, butter for the gnocchi recipe.

Chocolate and Almond Cake, Leah's recipe at Real Simple

From the cookbook: a delicious-sounding pastry bar with pine nuts, almonds, and dried fruit.
A specialty of a famous bakery in the Roman Ghetto. Leah told us quite a bit about her experiences in Rome and about this bakery.

Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen

Blog post and original photos © 2023 mae sander

Wine for Elijah

Passover starts on Wednesday. The ritual meal on the evening when the holiday begins has many traditions, which include drinking four cups of wine at specified points in the communal reading of the Haggadah, the special book with the order of the service, or Seder.

Elijah the Prophet, from a 16th century Haggadah. The traditional belief is that Elijah will herald the coming of the Messiah.
To welcome Elijah a cup of wine is left on the Seder table -- "Elijah's cup" -- and near the end of the
ritual, someone opens the door, inviting him in, all hoping that his arrival is immanent.

Planning our Seder, I was thinking about common wisdom and common expressions that have to do with wine and other beverages. Like describing a sad drunk person as crying in his beer, or a loser as crying over spilled milk. So I searched, and found a number of quotes about water, wine, and even whiskey. Here are some of them:

• In wine there is truth: Latin original: In Vino Veritas. -- Pliny the Elder
• Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. -- Proverbs 20:1.
• Priests are said in Scripture to devour the sins of the people; and they find sins so hard to digest that they must have the best wine to wash them down. ― Erasmus
• Never refuse to give your enemy water. -- African proverb
• The water pot does not go down to the water by itself. -- Ugandan proverb
• Only the rich complain when it rains. -- Zambian proverb
• A genuine gift is like water from the tap; when it flows out, it does not flow back. -- Zambian proverb.
• The usefulness of a well is known when it dries up. -- Ugandan proverb

African proverbs about water are especially poignant because of life-threatening droughts in many regions of the continent.
(Photo source.)

• When you are dying of thirst, it is too late to dig a well.” - Japanese proverb
• When one man drinks while another can only watch, doomsday soon follows. – Turkish proverb
• They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that the ones who drink milkshakes don't win many ballgames. — Casey Stengel
• Man does not live by bread alone, he also needs a beverage -- Woody Allen
• Work is the curse of the drinking classes -- Oscar Wilde
• I don’t drink water…fish pee in it -- W.C. Fields

W.C.Fields did not drink water.

• Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over. -- Mark Twain 
• Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink - under any circumstances. -- Mark Twain
• Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough. -- Mark Twain
• We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy! — This is the real Ben Franklin quote, often cited in a garbled form.
• Drink does not drown care, but waters it, and makes it grow faster — Ben Franklin

Sources

• https://mcc.org/centennial/100-stories/words-wisdom-african-proverbs-water
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/water-quotes-from-around-world-jim-lauria
• The Adages of Erasmus
• Quotes of Mark Twain (note that on the internet are many Twain quotes and quite a few are fake)

Drinking wine at a Passover Seder from the Sarajevo Haggadah, around 1350.