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I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence regarding religion in general and my own Judaism in particular. But this week has been, for lack of a better word, kind of Jewy. On Friday I saw Footnote, the Israeli contender for the past year’s foreign language Oscar. The story of father and son academics in Jerusalem, it had the oddest tone. The music was kind of jaunty/bouncy lending it a comedic vibe. And there were some scenes that rivaled that famous and pretty hilarious crazily crowded ocean liner scene from the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. I hate slapstick but you kind of have to watch this. I promise you’ll laugh.
But the thing was the music often didn’t match the story the movie was telling. The father and son had a strained relationship; I think the dad said about 10 words in the whole movie and seemed like one of those intensely cerebral and intellectually snobbish men who had never been as recognized as he felt he should have been. When he is mistakenly awarded a prize meant for his son, his son protects the father so fiercely that you sense he is compensating for the guilt he feels over having surpassed his dad professionally. Frankly, from what I could tell, his father didn’t deserve being treated with such sensitivity. The movie is really good, and I recommend it, but I was sort of struck by how un-Jewish the father seemed. He was resentful of his son’s success and basically looked at his work as somehow hack-ish (not a word but you get my point) whereas he clearly considered his own studies to be purer and more rigorous. “Aren’t Jewish parents always supposed to support their kids, even if it means sacrificing their own ambition?” I wondered. Then I thought, “Why should they? And where am I getting this from?” I was making assumptions based on a stereotype, a concept I totally resent.
The next day I was reading an article in the Sunday Times about Magic City, a new show on Starz about a group of Jewish gangsters in 1950’s Miami. At first I thought the show sounded kind of interesting and I was regretful that I don’t have that pay-network on my cable line-up. But as I read on I got so annoyed. None of the actors hired to play these fancy thugs is actually Jewish. One in fact is covered with a tattoo of a crucifix so large that he has to endure (and the production has to pay for) two hours in make-up to disguise it. That just doesn’t seem right. They couldn’t find one Jewish actor good enough and authentic enough to play a Jew? Then I caught myself. It’s called “acting” for a reason. Anyone should be able to portray anyone, right?
The next night I watched Mad Men and had a different kind of reaction. The viewer was introduced to a new copywriter vying for a job at the recently integrated ad agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This guy was a brash, obnoxious kid, last name Ginsberg, whom Roger Sterling, the WASP, boozy lech of a company president, referred to as “the Jew.” What made me uncomfortable was how Jew-ish this guy was. From his rapid-fire speech, Brooklyn (by way of the Borscht Belt) accent and uber-aggressiveness, I found myself kind of embarrassed by him. Never mind that the show’s creator is Jewish and therefore Mr. Ginsberg falls into that safe zone of “it’s okay to portray a Jew negatively if you’re a Jew yourself,” I still felt like if I knew him I’d have to apologize on my peoples’ behalf. Does that make sense? At the end of the show Ginsberg is shown arriving at the apartment he shares with his Yiddish-accented father, announcing that he “got the job.” The dad jumps up, starts to say a blessing in Hebrew and suggests they get “two girls” to celebrate. On the one hand, Father was so proud of Son, it felt more in keeping with the way Jewish parents should be, or so we’ve been told. But on the other, I kept wondering why he seemed so “off the boat” for 1966. By then my immigrant grandparents had been living here, and assimilating, for 60 years. My grandfather went to great lengths to lose his Eastern European accent and if you met him you would never know he’d skipped behind coffins during funeral processions in his Polish shtetl for fun. He would have found Papa Ginsberg mortifying. But why would he and why did I? It’s okay for me to want a hunky, tan Miami gangster to be played by a real Jew but I’m cringing at the depiction of one I deem as too-too real?
My conflict really crystallized when I embarked on a Passover project with Niece Two. After almost killing her with nut laden muffins last summer, we’ve both been tentative about “working” together. But with three hours to kill while she and my sister cooled their heels at my place (as Niece One watched the chorus kick theirs up at Anything Goes) I thought it might be a safe time to re-approach the joint creation of a sweet treat. Between watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on HBO On-Demand as well as demanding to use my computer, she showed no interest in making Chocolate Caramel Matzoh Crunch.
The only participation I was able to coerce was in a taste test between Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate morsels and my preferred Ghiradelli 60% Cacao. She capitulated, and with her mouth filled with chocolate, deemed Hershey’s the winner, claiming the other tasted like “weird blueberries.” Why I consulted a four year-old’s immature palate, I do not know. Except I do. I wanted her to play with me and to have a little Jewish fun. After I made the super easy and fantastic chocolate buttercrunch-y matzoh I presented her with some perfectly pint-sized pieces. She took one tiny bite and rejected it flat out. As my grandmother used to say, she “doesn’t know what’s good." Nevertheless, I was so deflated. See how conflicted I am? God help me. Happy Passover. And if you’re celebrating Easter, make this confection with Saltines or join us and buy a box of matzoh.
Conflicted Caramel Matzoh Crunch
From A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking, Marcy Goldman 1998
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Ingredients
4-6 unsalted matzohs
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or unsalted Passover margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a large (or two smaller) rimmed cookie sheet(s) completely with foil. Cover the bottom(s) of the sheet(s) with baking parchment — on top of the foil. This is very important since the mixture becomes sticky during baking.
Line the bottom of the cookie sheet(s) evenly with the matzohs, cutting extra pieces, as required, to fit any spaces.
In a 3-quart, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the butter or margarine and the brown sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil (about 2 to 4 minutes). Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from the heat and pour over the matzoh, covering completely.
Place the baking sheet(s) in the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 350°. Bake for 15 minutes, checking every few minutes to make sure the mixture is not burning (if it seems to be browning too quickly, remove the pan from the oven, lower the heat to 325°, and replace the pan).
Remove from the oven and sprinkle immediately with the chopped chocolate or chips. Let stand for 5 minutes, then spread the melted chocolate over the matzoh. While still warm, use a knife to break into squares or odd shapes. Chill, still in the pan, in the freezer until set.
Variation:
Sprinkle with flaky sea salt for a sweet/salty twist or, If you're eaters aren't allergic to nuts, top with sliced almond
Last week there were two obituaries that ran side by side in the Times that seemed like two parts of a whole. Murray Lender, who with his brothers helped turn their father’s small bakery into the Lender’s Bagels we all grew up with, died at 81. Samuel Glazer, the co-founder of the company that gave us Mr. Coffee, died at 89. If you poked your head into an American kitchen circa 1977, I wonder how many contained both of these modern conveniences.
We always had a package of Lender’s in our freezer which is kind of crazy since we lived in New York and had access to freshly baked, authentic bagels. But for some reason we never stocked any of those at all. There was something about the pre-sliced Lender that leant it an ease not associated with one from say, the defunct H & H. As a child, you needed an adult to cut your bagel in half. But with a Lender’s we could reach into our side by side freezer/fridge and toast one up without assistance. They also made those mini versions which were so cute and the ideal after-school snack, topped with cream cheese and jelly or made into a tiny pizza.
But when forced to choose among Jewish breads, I favor the bialy. It’s like the slim cousin of the chubby bagel. The mouth feel is more akin to an English muffin and the bits of onion sprinkled in the center give it so much flavor. However, other than at the Yom Kippur break fast, I stay away from them as well, but for a reason unrelated to nutrition. Years ago I thought I was dating a guy who was living in Boston and had recently broken up with his live-in girlfriend. We’d had an argument over the phone and because I felt bad about it, I ordered a dozen bialys to be sent to him since, believe it or not, he’d never tasted one. (Yes, he was Jewish.) Between placing the order and their arrival, he left me a voice mail telling me his grandmother had taken ill and he was flying out of town that night. Oh no, I thought, what about the bialys? So I called the concierge at his condo and explained my dilemma; a perishable package was going to arrive and please just throw it out since the recipient was going to be gone for several weeks. “Oh, don’t worry,” the concierge reassured me. “His girlfriend just took them up to their apartment.” Um, excuse me?! So, there went my love for him and for bialys.
Meanwhile, what I learned in the Mr. Coffee obit was electric drip coffee makers weren’t available for in-home use until 1972. I had no idea. I knew my grandmother had a percolator and I remember my parents used one of those Chemex hour-glass shaped carafes but I didn’t know it was because those were the only choices they had. That and Taster’s Choice of course. It’s so funny to think about life before coffee became foodie-ized. When we didn’t know even know what a barista was and no one made cappuccinos in their $300 Nespresso machines at home. Coffee was just a beverage. There is a scene in Strangers on a Train in which Farley Granger's character orders a cup of joe and a hamburger, something completely normal in 1951. Isn’t that crazy? Can you imagine a more disgusting combination? I’ll just wash down this greasy beef patty with some java. Yuck.
And just like the bloated bagels of today, our servings of coffee have swollen too. Did you know that the little cup markings on the side of your coffee maker are for only a five ounce serving but a Starbucks “tall” (aka “small”) is more than twice that? When did we go from sipping from a small cup to guzzling from a giant mutant vessel? I have to say, I prefer to drink my hot beverages from a mug, but there is in fact something kind of civilized about the cup and saucer routine. Watch this commercial and see Joe Dimaggio chatting with the ladies at their Tuesday bridge club as they sip from a pretty coffee set. Such a slice of time.
And speaking of slices, what happened to people coming over for coffee and cake? I have such cozy memories of the sound of a cake server making its way through the cake and gently hitting the plate, the scrape of the server pulling the piece out, the thump of the cake plate being placed on the cloth covered kitchen table. Except, whose memory is this? In reality, I’m not sure I was actually there because I’ve never had anyone over for coffee and cake nor did my mother ever have a table cloth covering our kitchen table. It must have been a scene I saw played out in Kate Martin’s Pine Valley kitchen. Clearly I watched way too much All My Children, but I do like that idea so much. Can you be nostalgic for a simpler time you weren’t a part of? Were the times in fact simpler? I don’t know, but I do know all this coffee talk made me crave, of all things, an apple cake—very surprising since I don’t even really like apples. But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I wanted a warm cinnamon smell to take over my apartment, and not the fake kind you get from a Glade plug-in. Yet each recipe I found was pumped up with so much more butter, sugar and even apples than I wanted. I didn't have any desire to caramelize anything or bake it in an enormous bundt pan or arrange apples in concentric circles. I was in the mood for something slightly sweet, very basic and truly homey. Someone else’s home, but still.
While simultaneously getting a manicure and mulling over my recipe problem, I spotted pastry guru Carla Hall from ABC’s The Chew getting a pedicure. How could I resist the opportunity to introduce myself to a fellow sweet tooth, even if her show replaced my cancelled daily visits to Pine Valley? She immediately understood my apple cake problem and we commiserated over the preponderance of the fussy and the overwrought in the dessert world. Her support gave me the strength to keep up my search which concluded with this recipe from Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook. I didn’t use the raisins and I tweaked the spices a bit, but the result was just what I was after. Chunks of Granny Smith apples surrounded by just enough gently spiced buttery cake with the toasty taste of pecans to give the moist crumb a little crunchy life. And although the coffee I made came from my Cuisinart four-cupper, not a Mr. Coffee, the combination was perfect. But how am I supposed to really recreate my fantasy coffee and cake memory when I don’t like having other people in my house? You know, maybe I should join that bridge club. That is, if I can bring my own mug. And someone teaches me how to play.
Simpler Time Apple Cakefrom Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery & Cafe, 2010 Joanne Chang
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1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (90 grams) cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (1½ sticks, 170 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
two eggs
4 cups (450 grams) peeled, cored and chopped apples
1/2 cup (80 grams) raisins (optional--I didn't use them)
1 cup (100 grams) pecan halves, toasted and chopped
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional--I didn't do it)
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-inch round cake pan.
Sift the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger together into the bowl of a stand mixer (or into a large mixing bowl, if you’re using a hand mixer). Add the granulated sugar and softened butter to the bowl and, using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed for about one minute until the butter is fully incorporated into the dry ingredient, stopping the mixer several times to scrape the paddle and the sides of the bowl to make sure all the butter is mixed in.
Add the eggs and mix on low speed for 10 to 15 seconds, or until fully incorporated. Then turn the mixer to medium high speed and beat for about 1 minute, or until the batter is light and fluffy.
Using a rubber spatula,fold in the apples, raisins (if using) and pecans. The batter will be very stiff and thick. It will look like too many apples and not enough batter, but that’s okay. Scrape all of the batter into the prepared pan, then spread it evenly.
Bake the cake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until the cake feels firm when you press it in the center and the top is dark golden brown. Let the cake cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Invert the cake onto a serving plate, lifting away the pan, and then invert the cake again so it is right-side up.
Slice and plate, the dust the slices with confectioners’ sugar if you feel like making the effort.
Yield: 10-12 servings
COOKBOOK NOTE: The cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. Or, it can be well wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen for up to two weeks; thaw overnight at room temperature for serving.
The other day I got caught behind a family of four stretching across the narrow aisle of produce and prepared foods that greet you when you enter Citarella, a specialty food store in my neighborhood. As I tried to bob and weave my way around the mother, pushing the sleeping daughter in a stroller, and the father, holding the hand of the six year old son, the whining refrain of the boy was like a hammer in my ear. “Mom, can we take a taxi home? I hurt my foot.” No response. “Mah-ahm, can we take a taxi home? I hurt my foot.” Now he was limping and dangling from his father’s grasp. “Mah-ahm, can we take a taxi home…” honestly, this kid was like an IPod on Replay and I would have kicked his injured leg if he hadn’t caused a passel of witnesses to pile-up behind me. I was irate on two counts. One, that I hadn’t contracted the sudden onset of complete hearing loss that seemed to be plaguing his conveniently deaf parents and two, that this kid was whining about taking a taxi. When I was his age we took the bus, unless there was a dire emergency or an incredibly fancy event to get to. Even when I was a teenager my parents weren’t doling out $20’s so I could take a cab safely home after a Saturday night. I may be the only person you know to have stood shivering at 2AM, waiting for the M104 bus on 8th Avenue and 54th Street after a pretty pathetic night at Studio 54 years after it was cool. But that’s not the point. The point is that not only did I not have the fare but I also didn’t assume that a cab was a transportation option.
When did things that were reserved for special occasions become expected? How did the question morph from, “Are you going away over spring break?” to “Where are you going over spring break?” It makes me a little bit sick and it wasn’t the atmosphere in which I was raised. Growing up, vacations were what my parents took to get away from their children. I hated it when they went away, not because I wanted to join them, but because I didn’t want them to leave in the first place. Their departure meant my grandparents’ arrival and that was a big drag. My grandfather would drop me at school and invariably, right as we were approaching the big double doors, call up every drop of phlegm circulating in his respiratory system—making a sound both disgusting and mortifying—spit the sputum into the gutter and then lean over to give me a good-bye kiss. Yes, I will accept your pity.
Sure, I had some classmates who took family vacations, jetting off to the Caribbean in December and Vail in March, but it was never like the city emptied out and I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a play date—apparently a cause of great stress for the parents of school-age kids who tragically are spending their spring holiday home in New York City.
Unfortunately the presumed vacation isn’t a completely new phenomenon. One January when I was in the 4th grade, my homeroom teacher at my slightly snotty school asked all the kids in the class to report on what we’d done over Christmas. As we went around the room, many girls had exotic travels to share. As it got closer to my turn, my best friend Emily leaned over and whispered, “Don’t forget! You visited your cousins.” She was trying to protect me, which was very sweet, but isn’t it sad we were in an environment where she felt that she had to? So when we got to me I piped up, “We went to Dayton, Ohio!” triumphantly. (Okay, it wasn’t Round Hill but hey, I got to take a plane and sit in an Olde Timey fire truck in a shopping mall.) But if I hadn’t spent a long weekend with my family and grandparents at my aunt and uncle’s house, I would have easily filled up my days and probably wouldn’t have been disappointed. As it was, the trip to Ohio involved lots of hushed tensions among the grown-ups and my aunt’s surreptitious and passive-aggressive hiding of assorted pork products in almost every one of her gourmet meals. Not good when her father-in-law was going through a kosher phase.
Regardless, as the years passed I did have a few adventures over school breaks, none of them very successful. When I was ten I was sent to visit my mother’s father and step-mother in Palm Beach. They’d been married since my mom was 17 and Nanny was the only woman I ever knew to be married to Grandpa Sol. She really rolled out the welcome mat as any good Step-Grandmother would. As we walked around their building’s pool she introduced me to every face-lifted old biddy as, “Sol’s grand-daughter.” I couldn’t wait to go home. There was also the trip to Key West when I was the guest of the above mentioned Emily and her family. Let’s just say Em looked a lot better in a bathing suit than I did in the ninth grade and it didn’t take long for the boys on the beach to offer their sunscreen application services. She got an even tan and my back practically peeled off. Then there was my first trip to Mexico when I tagged along on a business trip with my mother. I temporarily lost the hearing in my right ear on the flight there (too bad I couldn’t recall that trick when I was at Citarella last week) and my mom was ready to kill me when my complete lack of participation in conversations with her colleague and his wife made every meal feel like there was a big black hole at my side of the table.
And so here we are and it’s spring break time all over again. Some of my friends and their kids have fled for the snow capped mountains out west, some are headed to the Bahamas, and some are staying put, finding ways to keep their children engaged and out of trouble. But a tropical idyll wasn’t an option for me and I have to say I couldn’t care less. The weather has been gorgeous, even if my allergies don’t appreciate the premature buds, and the abundant red stalks of rhubarb, my favorite spring fruit (actually, it’s a vegetable) are stacked high at Fairway. I made the most delicious pudding cake with it, taking the edge off its inherent sour with strawberries and blackberries. Seeing all the bright colors swirled together made me feel hopeful and excited for our next two warm seasons and I didn’t even need to leave town or go into credit card debt. That is the perfect spring vacation.
Rhubarb Strawberry Pudding Cake
Adapted from Gourmet, April 2007
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Ingredients
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup chopped fresh rhubarb stalks (no leaves)
1 cup blackberries, halved if large
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish. Set aside.
Stir together water, cornstarch, and 1/3 cup sugar in a small saucepan, then stir in rhubarb. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly, then simmer, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in strawberries.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl.
Whisk together egg, milk, butter, and vanilla in a large bowl, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.
Reserve 1/2 cup fruit mixture, then add remainder of fruit to baking dish and pour batter over it, spreading evenly. Drizzle reserved 1/2 cup fruit mixture over batter.
Bake until a wooden pick inserted into center of cake portion comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes before serving. (Pudding cake will still be warm and juicy, serve using a large spoon.)
Yield: 8 servings
I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence regarding religion in general and my own Judaism in particular. But this week has been, for lack of a better word, kind of Jewy. On Friday I saw Footnote, the Israeli contender for the past year’s foreign language Oscar. The story of father and son academics in Jerusalem, it had the oddest tone. The music was kind of jaunty/bouncy lending it a comedic vibe. And there were some scenes that rivaled that famous and pretty hilarious crazily crowded ocean liner scene from the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. I hate slapstick but you kind of have to watch this. I promise you’ll laugh.
But the thing was the music often didn’t match the story the movie was telling. The father and son had a strained relationship; I think the dad said about 10 words in the whole movie and seemed like one of those intensely cerebral and intellectually snobbish men who had never been as recognized as he felt he should have been. When he is mistakenly awarded a prize meant for his son, his son protects the father so fiercely that you sense he is compensating for the guilt he feels over having surpassed his dad professionally. Frankly, from what I could tell, his father didn’t deserve being treated with such sensitivity. The movie is really good, and I recommend it, but I was sort of struck by how un-Jewish the father seemed. He was resentful of his son’s success and basically looked at his work as somehow hack-ish (not a word but you get my point) whereas he clearly considered his own studies to be purer and more rigorous. “Aren’t Jewish parents always supposed to support their kids, even if it means sacrificing their own ambition?” I wondered. Then I thought, “Why should they? And where am I getting this from?” I was making assumptions based on a stereotype, a concept I totally resent.
The next day I was reading an article in the Sunday Times about Magic City, a new show on Starz about a group of Jewish gangsters in 1950’s Miami. At first I thought the show sounded kind of interesting and I was regretful that I don’t have that pay-network on my cable line-up. But as I read on I got so annoyed. None of the actors hired to play these fancy thugs is actually Jewish. One in fact is covered with a tattoo of a crucifix so large that he has to endure (and the production has to pay for) two hours in make-up to disguise it. That just doesn’t seem right. They couldn’t find one Jewish actor good enough and authentic enough to play a Jew? Then I caught myself. It’s called “acting” for a reason. Anyone should be able to portray anyone, right?
The next night I watched Mad Men and had a different kind of reaction. The viewer was introduced to a new copywriter vying for a job at the recently integrated ad agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This guy was a brash, obnoxious kid, last name Ginsberg, whom Roger Sterling, the WASP, boozy lech of a company president, referred to as “the Jew.” What made me uncomfortable was how Jew-ish this guy was. From his rapid-fire speech, Brooklyn (by way of the Borscht Belt) accent and uber-aggressiveness, I found myself kind of embarrassed by him. Never mind that the show’s creator is Jewish and therefore Mr. Ginsberg falls into that safe zone of “it’s okay to portray a Jew negatively if you’re a Jew yourself,” I still felt like if I knew him I’d have to apologize on my peoples’ behalf. Does that make sense? At the end of the show Ginsberg is shown arriving at the apartment he shares with his Yiddish-accented father, announcing that he “got the job.” The dad jumps up, starts to say a blessing in Hebrew and suggests they get “two girls” to celebrate. On the one hand, Father was so proud of Son, it felt more in keeping with the way Jewish parents should be, or so we’ve been told. But on the other, I kept wondering why he seemed so “off the boat” for 1966. By then my immigrant grandparents had been living here, and assimilating, for 60 years. My grandfather went to great lengths to lose his Eastern European accent and if you met him you would never know he’d skipped behind coffins during funeral processions in his Polish shtetl for fun. He would have found Papa Ginsberg mortifying. But why would he and why did I? It’s okay for me to want a hunky, tan Miami gangster to be played by a real Jew but I’m cringing at the depiction of one I deem as too-too real?
My conflict really crystallized when I embarked on a Passover project with Niece Two. After almost killing her with nut laden muffins last summer, we’ve both been tentative about “working” together. But with three hours to kill while she and my sister cooled their heels at my place (as Niece One watched the chorus kick theirs up at Anything Goes) I thought it might be a safe time to re-approach the joint creation of a sweet treat. Between watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on HBO On-Demand as well as demanding to use my computer, she showed no interest in making Chocolate Caramel Matzoh Crunch.
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