White beans cooked in a tomato broth and served over rice are the quintessential Sephardic comfort food. And they are the perfect food to cook for these crisp, cool, short Autumn days. Domesticated in the New World, white beans soon became beloved staples in the Old World cuisines of the Mediterranean, North Africa and the…
Someone once said that rice is the food equivalent of khaki pants—it goes with anything. Anthropologists are divided over whether the popular Asian rice we consume today originated in China or India. Archaeologists working in East and Southeast Asia argue that the cultivation of rice began along the Yangtze River and spread from there to…
Every Friday morning, my phone would ring. “Boker Tov!” my grandmother would greet me. “You’re coming for dinner?” “Of course,” I would reply. “You’re making Shepherd’s Pie?” She would ask, knowing the answer. And every Friday night, I would have the honor of going to my grandparents home with my husband, my son Ariel, my…
Recently, when Rachel and I did a Zoom cooking demonstration for the young women of the Jewish Federation’s Emerging Philanthropists group, I was really embarrassed. Not because of how we performed on the Zoom: that was great and fun. But because my husband and kids couldn’t stop eating the soup that Rachel had made for…
If you lived in New York in the ’80s, you experienced a city on steroids. From the hit Broadway shows “Les Miserables,” “Dreamgirls” and “Phantom of the Opera” to some really cool and quirky off-Broadway productions; from blockbuster art exhibitions featuring the works of Van Gogh, Rembrandt and the Impressionists at the Metropolitan Museum of…
The highlight of the Sukkot holiday has always been nabbing an invite to the Sheff family’s sukkah party. Every year explored a new theme, ranging from “Mariachis and Margaritas” to “Western-Style Beers and Barbecue” to “Moroccan Cigars to Cuban Stogies,” not to mention the memorable night that famous Armenian singer John Bilezikjian brought his oud and we…
Sharon Gomperts: My family is visiting the apartment building in Israel where my uncles and their families live. I awake in the middle of the night and hear adult conversation in the living room. I jump out of bed to find my parents and my Uncle Naim and Aunt Dalia standing by the second-floor window, looking…
When Rebekah Sheff left for her freshman year at Chapman College, she took with her a special recipe book. Her Moroccan Spice Girl mom, Rachel, printed “Rebekah’s College Cookbook,” featuring all of her favorite recipes. Rebekah often baked while at home. Now that she’s away at college, she’s been cooking her way through the book. …
In an era when most marriages were arranged by parents, my grandparents were a romantic match. He was dashingly handsome; she was beautiful with dark, curly hair and ruby-red lips. He was from the bustling city of Baghdad, the son of a doctor; she was from the tiny village of Azair, the daughter of the…
Couscous, those small steamed balls of crushed semolina flour, is the staple food of the Maghreb. A food that originated among the Berbers of northern Algeria and Morocco, it had become a staple dish among Maghrebi cooks by the 12th century. A recipe for couscous from Marrakech is found in the Andalusian Muslim cookbook “Kitab…
A crisp bite of Moroccan galette with a steaming cup of fresh mint tea: This is the definition of a simple pleasure, a pick me up, an exercise in mindfulness, a meditative ritual. A staple of the North African kitchen, “tortitas” as the Spanish Moroccans affectionately call them, are thin, airy, crunchy cookies. A Moroccan host…
“I dream about your Asian noodle salad. Will you please share the recipe?” wrote Maayan, my cousin Rafi’s wife. I have lots of first cousins. Some live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Modi’in, like Rafi and Maayan; some in Sydney and Melbourne; and others in New York. Whenever any of them pass through Los…
There is no taste in the world more sublime than fried potato. Add meat to the mix and you definitely hit the flavor stratosphere. The meat-and-potato croquette is a staple street food found in countries as varied as Italy, Japan and Morocco, where makouda batata is enjoyed in hand or between layers of khobz (Moroccan…
The cliché is that the secret ingredient of good food is love. For us, there is one essential ingredient that takes food to epicurean heights: the humble onion. Sautéed, caramelized or even raw, the addition of onions uniquely enhances the flavor of any dish. Every roast, every chicken, every stew, every soup starts with onion….
It was a cold, gray, windy day in Fog City (San Francisco). We had just disembarked from the Alcatraz Island ferry, when our Australian friend shot off like a rocket. My aunt Rebecca and I looked at each other in confusion and a bit of panic. It was the prehistoric era — before cellphones —…
When Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s forces destroyed Solomon’s Temple when Jerusalem was conquered in 586 B.C.E., he forever changed the diets of Jews. For millennia, Jews have commemorated the destruction of the First Temple and Second Temple (by the Romans in 70 C.E.) with three weeks of mourning. It starts with the fast of the 17th…
Majestically perched at the northwest tip of Africa, Morocco is blessed with more than 1,000 miles of sparkling coastline and an expansive desert interior. Its proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Iberian Peninsula put it at the crossroads of ancient civilizations. The Berbers, Phoenicians, the Carthaginian state, the Romans, Muslims, Spanish,…
Christopher Columbus set sail in August 1492, three days after the deadline set by the Alhambra Decree for the expulsion or forced conversion of the Jews in Spain. This has fueled persistent, but unproven, rumors that Columbus was a Jew. However, there was one Jew who was instrumental among the crew: Luis de Torres, a…
Ambrosia is the food of the gods; we mere mortals are blessed with the sweet richness of baklava. The transcendent delights of a single bite include thin, flaky phyllo pastry layered with crushed almonds and walnuts delicately spiced with cinnamon and cardamom, doused in a rose water and lemon juice infused honey syrup. In the…
I was born in Casablanca, Morocco. Fearing rising anti-Semitism, my family moved to Los Angeles in 1973. I was 8 years old and I didn’t know any English; we spoke Spanish and French at home. I started school at Beverly Vista and graduated from Beverly Hills High School. My closest friends were a mini United…
Narrow streets choked with cars. Loud honking and thumping, exotic music. Littered sidewalks teeming with people of every age and ethnicity. Shady money-changing operations, Yemenite bakeries, tiny makolets with owners and friends sitting on cheap plastic chairs, barbershops with posters of Wella hair models on the walls, and little hole-in-the-wall stalls selling gold chains. And…
