A Fresh Farro Salad

A Fresh Farro Salad

A nutritional powerhouse, farro contains protein, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I was definitely born with a piece of marzipan in mine!  Traditional Moroccan sweets and desserts are delectable and oh so tempting. I start with one. I find it really hard to stop eating…

The Comfort of Sephardic Saffron Meatballs

The Comfort of Sephardic Saffron Meatballs

For Sephardic Jews, meatballs are rarely eaten with pasta. More often meatballs co-star with vegetables like potatoes, peas, zucchini, butternut squash, green beans and okra. For the extended Yaakovy family, Friday, October 6th was a joyful celebration of the festival of Simchat Torah at Kibbutz K’far Azza. At the end of the dinner, mother Sigal…

We Gobble in Gratitude

We Gobble in Gratitude

My family and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Palm Springs in 1973. We had arrived in Los Angeles from Casablanca, Morocco, just after the Yom Kippur war. My family and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Palm Springs in 1973. We had arrived in Los Angeles from Casablanca, Morocco, just after the Yom Kippur…

The Gift of Shabbat

The Gift of Shabbat

Adeena Sussman’s latest New York Times bestselling cookbook “Shabbat” is an intensely personal love letter. Adeena Sussman’s latest New York Times bestselling cookbook “Shabbat” is an intensely personal love letter. An ode to her grandmother Mildred, her mother Steffi and her older sister Sharon, as well as the “sacred bubble” that her parents created every…

The Flakiest Cheese and Spinach Bulemas Recipe

The Flakiest Cheese and Spinach Bulemas Recipe

These Sephardic pastries are crispy, savory, cheesy heaven. Bourekas, boyos and bulemas are flaky, savory pastries, and just might be the crowning jewel of the Sephardic kitchen. Potato or eggplant bourekas, cheese boyos or spinach and cheese bulemas are traditionally served as part of the Sabbath desayuno(Ladino for “breakfast,” and a tradition in communities of the…

Of Peace and Pasta

Of Peace and Pasta

It is especially customary to eat letrea as part of the meal before the fast of Yom Kippur. As a mother of three I have boiled hundreds of pots of pasta. Spaghetti with meatballs, rigatoni with olive oil, macaroni and cheese with a crispy topping, packaged Wacky Mac, spirals with butter, bowties with marinara sauce….

The Sweetness of Remembrance

The Sweetness of Remembrance

For many of our readers and followers, food transports them to the kitchens of their mothers and grandmothers.  The holiness of Rosh Hashanah permeates the air. The candles burn brightly. We are all dressed in white. The table is covered with a white tablecloth, bedecked with flowers, apples and pomegranates and set with my mother’s…