The Katamon Kitchen
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28/04/2024
Every year for Pesach I get to make my Bubby’s sponge cake in her tube pan that is over 60 years old and we use her hand written recipe. Her 30th yartziet was, י״ג ניסן (erev erev Pesach). She passed away when I was four years old so I do not really have any memories of her. But I do have my siblings, parents, and cousins to tell me stories about her and I have her recipes to connect with her. Today, כ׳ ניסן is my Zaidie’s 20th yartzeit. I was very very close to my Zaidie, I always thought I had a special connection with him as I am his youngest grandchild and I am the first to be named for his mother. My Zaidie and I would make charoset together. He would cut the apple right in his hand not on a board and place the quartered apples in a solid wood bowl. We always had to ask my mother for another apple or two because my Zaidie and I would eat most of the apple before it made it into the bowl. We would hold the chopper (which belonged to my Bubby) together, breaking up the nuts and apples and mixing it with the wine and spices. I remember that we would keep tasting it until we got the flavor just right and then sneak a few more bites in before we put it away for the Seder. The sponge cake and the charoset are not about the actual dish, it is about what they represent; my connection to my grandparents, my way to remember them and honor their memory.
Continued in comments ⬇️
25/04/2023
Year after year these words still ring true. The only change from what I wrote from 7 years ago is that the number of fallen has risen to 24,213.
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟲
A day before we celebrate the birth of our State of Israel we remember the 23,447 brave men and women who have given their lives for our country.
It's a bit strange to share a picture of my cup of coffee when speaking about this solemn day, but this regular cup of joe has changed me.
I made Aliyah 3 and a half years ago, fulfilling my dream to come home.
There are some days that are difficult, like when dealing with bureaucratic issues, but today was not one of those days.
I walked into the coffee shop a few hours before the start of Yom Hazikaron and you were able to feel the intense mixed emotions of the coming days in the air.
The moment that really struck me is when the barista asked for my name. When I said it's Ahuva he didn't ask me to repeat it or how to spell it as they do in NY. (My name means beloved and I am named for my great-grandmother who was born in Jerusalem.)
I was handed my cup and the small square of chocolate that comes with each drink, but this week those chocolates are a bit different. Instead of being wrapped in its regular label each square is wrapped in an Israeli flag.
These few minutes in a coffee shop provided me with the strongest feeling of really being in the place that I belong than I have ever experienced in the past three years.
This evening I went to a ceremony commemorating lone soldiers who have fallen in battle. Men and women who came here on their own and served in the IDF not out of the obligation of draft, but out of a deep love of the homeland of the Jewish people.
After the ceremony I went to Jerusalem's town square and sang with over 1,000 people the following words that are still ringing in my ears אין לי ארץ אחרת...כאן הוא ביתי I have no other country...here is my home.
Remember the 23,447 who have died for the State of Israel and to quote Alon Bakal z"l who was murdered in a terror attack "let it be that by next Yom Hazikaron, not one name is added to the list of heroes that is already too long.
Continued in comments
Before Yom Kippur my great grandmother who I am named for would make kreplach for the whole family she taught, my Bubby who then taught my mother. My mother now makes over 150 of these every year to distribute to our extended family.
My first memory in the kitchen is making these kreplach with my mother when I was 5 years old. A Sunday near the end of the summer the kitchen becomes a kreplach production line. A very soft dough is made, my mother found a written dough recipe that is very similar to what my grandmother used to do so I can provide you with exact measurements for the dough.
This recipe comes from the Ratner’s cookbook - Ratner’s was an iconic dairy restaurant on the Lower East Side.
Circles of dough are filled with meat that has been cooked until it is fall-apart tender. The kreplach are boiled for a couple of minutes and placed on a towel to cool. My father then, packages them to freeze and they are then distributed to our family in the States and in Israel. My mother makes enough kreplach so that everyone in our extended family can continue the tradition of having them in their chicken soup before Yom Kippur (she also makes a few extra so that I can have some in my freezer all year).
This isn’t so much as a recipe as it is a technique as it is a very “Bubby Recipe” - a little of this a pinch of that, but I hope you take the time and try making your own kreplach, maybe you will even start a tradition for your own family. This recipe makes about 160-180 kreplach, but you can of course cut the amounts and it won’t take you much time at all to prepare kreplach for your family to enjoy before Yom Kippur.
Did you know that the singular form of kreplach is krepl, but when will you ever eat just one?
Like these kreplach may we be able to see the hidden brachot in our lives and be sealed in the book of good life!
The recipe is on the blog - http://thekatamonkitchen.blogspot.com/2021/09/kreplach.html
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