Special Section: The Love of Food

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The Love of Food

Food Love. For Life.

Lisa Richmon

Atribe of Jewish restaurateurs and food entrepreneurs have been hunting and gathering meals on behalf of the local community and to address food insecurity for most of their adult lives.

These individuals and their food businesses have especially made a variety of contributions to share their love through food during the pandemic. Why are they still going strong decade after decade? What lies behind their instinct to feed others in ways that go well beyond the walls of their restaurant or stands at local farmer’s market?

CHARLES GREENWOOD, BAGELNUTZ AND BRUTTI’S CATERING

It’s easy for me to recognize the importance of giving and sharing when I consider all the humans in our world that are struggling to survive every day. Perhaps more importantly I don’t understand and find it impossible to accept how many people in our community, our world could care less about people who are at risk.

Sharing and giving feels good and knowing that what I can give and share brings comfort and happiness to others goes beyond feeling good, beyond mitzvah…it is my purpose. I challenge myself every day to grow and be successful because it fuels and feeds my desire and mission to give and help others. You asked what keeps me coming back? I guess because I will never be satisfied and will never accept that “enough is enough.” That’s why I’m focused on building a BagelNUTZ factory…to help fund my purpose, my mission of giving well beyond my days. Among Greenhood’s contributions, Brutti’s has fed breakfast to First Responders through Ohef Sholom Temple’s Love Thy Neighbor program and lunch to the congregation’s Soup Kitchen’s guests.

JERRY METLSNER, NO FRILL GRILL

I have been very lucky to be part of our great community, not self-serving, but serving… and serving more than just food, creating a space for our customers to gather with their friends and family to share all life has to offer…that’s what we provide.

Among Meltsner’s contributions, No Frill Grill has fed dinner to overnight guests of NEST, Norfolk Emergency Shelter Team, as well as provided meals for ForKids, Begin Again, and Park Place School.

JOHN STEIN, BAKER’S CRUST AND NEIGHBORHOOD HARVEST

Serving and feeding the community over the last 28 years has been guided by our mission “Eat Well, Be Happy.” Being a responsible corporate citizen and giving back is part of our DNA and lived through our guiding principles. I guess you could say it’s our calling, we love what we do, and we hope that it shows.

The Neighborhood Harvest delivers to 25 families in the food desserts of Hampton Roads every other week for no charge nutritious fruits and vegetables. Baker’s Crust delivers at no charge to the same areas to families that have COVID and can’t get out to buy food.

The Love of Food

LORI GOLDING ZONTINI, IT TAKES A FIG

Knowing what it means to go hungry myself, no one should ever go without. ‘Everyone must eat’ are words I live by. It started with my jam company Lori Golding Zontini. called It Started with a Fig. I gave jam to homeless shelters. My father-in-law was the executive director of JCOC. All these things came together and provided a platform for me to get involved and find solutions to food insecurity in the area. I’ve been feeding our communities now for almost seven years. My mission is to help feed people regionally here in Hampton Roads and to foster relationships throughout the region that address the needs of food deserts with long-term solutions, rather than placing a band-aid on a systemic problem.

JONATHAN FRIEDMAN, CO-OWNER, I-HOP

As the Covid19 virus hit our shores, our country was forced to change how everyone operates day to day. From restaurant dining rooms being closed and the vast majority of people still not comfortable dining out. I wouldn’t call it instinct or even a mission, but “Pancakes with a Purpose.” Hospitals/ First Responders continue to be overwhelmed with this pandemic. These folks work countless hours, putting themselves in harm’s way. I call it an honor to be able to give to these heroes that make a difference in all of our lives.

When things got extremely scary in the hospitality industry, our staff needed something to make us feel they had a purpose. That’s where “Pancakes with a Purpose” came in; feeding more than 1,000 heroes with IHOPs world famous pancakes, it’s more about being an active part of our community than anything else. Giving staff members the opportunity to give back, gave us a sense of normalcy in a time when nothing is normal. Hashem has granted me the ability to give back, and that is what I will continue to do.

A community is nothing without people willing to make a difference. As a community, we must set the example and not be the example.

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The Love of Food

I didn’t realize I was Jewish until adulthood. Family recipes helped me discover my hidden Sephardic history.

Orge Castellano

Imagine for a second a group of Jews making a slightly different version of challah for Shabbat, matzah for Passover and doughnuts for Hanukkah. A group of people whose ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism against their will, yet continued to practice Jewish customs underground, even at the risk of being ostracized and tortured for doing so. Meet the Silent Jews.

Sometimes referred to as Crypto-Jews, anusim (Hebrew for coerced ones), or conversos, Silent Jews are descendants of Spanish Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492. Most left medieval Iberian territories for the Ottoman Empire or North Africa. Others fled persecution and settled in new frontiers in the New World, where many found refuge.

I come from one of those persecuted families who came to South America around 1532 and discreetly practiced Jewish rituals, living in fear of being hunted down by the Inquisition. I only found out that my family was actually Jewish as a teenager, that all our colorful, fragrant, crunchy dishes were deeply rooted in Judaic culinary traditions from 16th-century Spain. That the ingredients and aromas of my mom’s kitchen resembled dishes from the Sephardic gastronomy repertoire.

When the pandemic struck, the combination of lockdown, curiosity, and melancholy led me to knead, mix, and eat plates from my mom’s Jewish inheritance passed on through several generations of women in our family. The kitchen was the right place to honor their sacrifices, bravery and perseverance to maintain tradition, despite centuries of fear and persecution.

My lockdown days soon began to be filled with ingredients such as eggplants, spinach, leeks, and turnips, which mingled with the scents of cinnamon, anise, cardamom, and nutmeg, coming together with dried fruits and legumes.

Arroz con garbanzos (chickpea rice) was one of those dishes. With its characteristic aroma of bay leaf, caramelized onions and raisins, the dish is cooked with turmeric to provide its signature yellow color. As a kid, it was often mixed with a fried egg, with parsley sprinkled on top.

In my search for Sephardic recipes, I became aware that this dish is very simi-

lar to pilaf with saffron, a Mediterranean spice my ancestors did not have access to since it didn’t grow in their new home.

Another delicious dish that also appears in the kitchens of Sephardic Jews from Turkey, Greece, and Morocco is estofado de berenjenas (eggplant stew). Made by sauteing eggplants in olive oil with garlic, onion, and cumin, this quick stew is served with smoked cheese or feta and an abundance of cilantro. My family pairs it with homemade bread or corn arepas, an example of incorporating local ingredients.

On the most stressful days of the past year, comfort food became a necessity. A hearty dish of huevos con tomate (eggs with tomato) afforded me a sense of tranquility and a break from the chaos and uncertainty that surrounded me. This dish, which closely resembles shakshuka, was cooked at my house with ají dulce—the Caribbean’s colorful semispicy pepper—chili flakes and smoked paprika. It’s so piquant and fragrant, I usually pair it with plain white rice or bread. However, my mother served it as a second course to complement her traditional pescado mermao, a hake fish stew cooked over a slow fire in an iron skillet with a mixture of garlic, peas, and eggplant smothered in a sauce of chilis and tomatoes. The last touch included a bunch of fresh cilantro leaves and a hint of sour lime juice. It filled our entire house with a thick, citrusy aroma. And the desserts! There were bunuelos, small balls of fried dough with a sweet or salty filling—mine are usually made with raw cane sugar syrup, cloves, and nutmeg. There was always cake—plantain cake with cinnamon and smoked cheese, or traditional bizcochuelo, a sponge cake that was ever-present in my school lunchbox. Similar to pan d’Espana, which Sephardim took with them to the Diaspora, my mother put her own spin on this soft, light cake, using cornmeal instead of ground almonds, substituting orange blossom water with a few drops of rum, and swapping grated orange peel for the peel of a lemon.

Reconnecting with my roots through food during these difficult times has helped me to cope with stress, anxiety, and loneliness. There’s still so much to cook, eat, and share. I’ll continue paying homage to each and every one of the dishes that my family preserved with such dedication and courage. This is the only way I can celebrate—and always carry with me—their everlasting legacy.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

This post originally appeared on The Nosher.

Jerry Nadler brought Zabar’s bag with ‘a babka and the constitution’ to impeachment hearing

As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler has been busy creating impeachment history. But he hasn’t gone hungry, apparently.

C-SPAN caught Nadler carrying a bag from Zabar’s, the famed New York grocery and appetizing store located in his Upper West Side congressional district, as he took his seat on Wednesday, January 13. The bold orange logo would be unmistakable to anyone familiar with the store.

Multiple news organizations—including New York Magazine and West Side Rag, a hyperlocal blog—reached out to Nadler’s office to find out what was inside the bag.

The response, from Nadler’s deputy press secretary Julian Gerson: “A babka and the constitution, what else?”

Nadler is one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nine chosen managers for the impeachment process, along with fellow Jewish Reps. David Cicilline, Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff. (JTA)

The Love of Food

The Chicken Soup Manifesto features hundreds of recipes from around the world

Rachel Myerson

(JTA)—I fell in love with Jenn Louis’ latest cookbook The Chicken Soup Manifesto at first sight.

The James Beard-nominated chef has curated a collection of more than 100 beautifully photographed chicken soup recipes, which allowed me to vicariously travel the globe with my favorite comfort food as a guide. What more could an Ashkenazi gal with wanderlust wish for?

When I got a chance to chat with Louis, she was as vibrant as her book.

Like me, her prototypical chicken soup was her mother’s matzah ball soup, which she made on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. The recipe is there, on page 62, the matzah balls “exactly how she made them. I think everyone likes a different kind. Mine are really tender on the outside with a bit of chew in the middle.” The accompanying photo features the blue and white china Louis inherited from her mom.

If matzah ball soup is your starting point, too, Louis recommends branching out to the Romanian Supa de Pui cu Galuste de Gris (page 196) with semolina dumplings. The dumplings are fluffy with whipped egg whites and poached, “like super yummy clouds.”

But don’t be afraid to dive in, says Louis. “It’s chicken soup! It should be fun! Explore, learn…it’s a great way to travel.”

Some of the recipes come from Louis’ own travels. “I took a cooking class in Ethiopia and learned to make Doro Wat (page 33). Even though it’s more of a stew, I really wanted to include it.” But most of them were collected through expansive research. “It’s not a creative book,” explained Louis, “it’s a documentary. It’s a shout-out to how cool these recipes are, and how much we all have in common.”

Some came from Louis’ periodic appeals on social media, “I’d put call outs on Facebook once in a while. Like, ‘Hey! Who’s got a chicken soup they grew up with in their family?’”

Others were told to her orally. Was it difficult to translate word-of-mouth instructions into quantifiable amounts? I ask. “Somewhat. There’s a Palestinian recipe—it’s a really great story. This woman sat next to me on a plane and, halfway through the flight, she looked

at me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Hanan. I’m a Christian Palestinian, the peaceful kind.’ She was super sweet. I didn’t tell her I was writing a book, but she told me about her mom’s chicken soup recipe and I wrote it down. It called for, like, a ‘handful of rice,’ so I tried my best to replicate it.” Their encounter ended after landing, and Louis never got Hanan’s details. “I’d love to send her a copy [of the book] but I don’t know where she lives!”

The research process was rich and fruitful. “Just when you think you’re done,” Louis explained, “you find this cool new recipe. It’s really fun to unfold all the layers. They’re all super delicious dishes.” And, she says, despite major differences in flavor, the functions of chicken soup are universal: comforting, often healing broths, intended to stretch a chicken as far as it can go.

Can she pick a favorite? “The South American soups are so unique because they have corn and yucca, which make them sweet and totally different to anything else.” Louis pauses. “Or the Kanjee from Sri Lanka (page 179). I made it in my Instant Pot on a rainy day then went for a walk with my friend. When we got back home, we opened the pot—it was so fragrant. We sat and ate the soup, then split the leftovers because they were so good.”

But, of course, much depends on your mood. Or the time of year. Louis is keen to assure me that chicken soup is not just for winter—“there’s a summer soup from Finland (page 189) with green beans and baby carrots that you can eat chilled. It’s really lovely.”

Regardless of the recipe, Louis is full of tips to achieving the most flavorsome dish, with an entire section dedicated to getting the most out of your chicken. “You always want to cook your chicken slow, on a really lazy simmer. If you cook a little slower, it keeps the meat tender,” she tells me. And if you want a richer broth, use homemade chicken stock, “it’s special… heartier and more luxurious than just using water.”

At the end of the day, Louis reiterates, exploring the diverse offering of chicken soups should be fun. “Make one recipe a week,” she urges, “and learn something new.”

Make sure to check out the recipe for Afghan chicken soup (Yakhni) from Louis’ book.

This post originally appeared in The Nosher.

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