You’ve heard the proverb: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”
In that spirit, as you contemplate your list of last-minute holiday gifts—as well as host and hostess gifts for holiday parties—sidestep the impulse to second guess what bottle of wine your recipient might like. Instead, why not offer a window into the world of wine?
Any one of this trio of wine and recipe books will do the job quite nicely. Read More
Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking
by Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg
The title says it all: in this evocative volume, Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg tell the story of Jewish baking and its migration from Eastern Europe to New York. It follows its translation from the home kitchen to Jewish bakeries, and its eventual demise into mass production of puffy white bread orbs and fluffed-up, plastic-wrapped white bread flavored with a hint of rye and a sprinkling of stale caraway seeds. If the latter are the only Jewish breads you know, this book will be a revelation. Read More
Best wishes to you and yours for a sweet and peaceful New Year, from Farmers’ Market Desserts!
Apples at Wicker Park Farmers' Market in Chicago
This cake is perfect for the Jewish New Year, when apples are traditionally dipped into a bowl of honey to augur a sweet year. Read More
I’ve been continuing to refine my bread technique recently chronicled here and today I was sufficiently pleased with the result to share a more complete recipe. Read More
It’s been 10 days coming, but today I pulled from the oven my first loaf of naturally leavened whole wheat-rye bread, loosely based on the 28-page recipe from Chad Robertson in his book, Tartine Bread. Actually, that recipe is supplemented by another 18 pages of supporting information. It’s a lot to wade through. But that’s not the whole reason it took so long to turn flour and water into bread. Read More
