Around the Table

First Light 2009

First, I’m back. No explanations; no excuses. I have missed the therapeutic art of writing and the connection to my food family. I had the best summer and autumn of my life-picking wild blueberries, chatting it up by the fire pit overlooking the sea, devouring succulent lobster, planting and harvesting an organic garden, preserving the bounty, cooking up a storm, baking bread, meeting Maine chefs and authors, collecting sea glass down by the shore, making new friends and creating new memories. It’s been a blast.

But with the beginning of a new year, it’s time to get re-focused and energized. As I shared with you this time last year, First Light is a remarkable way to experience a new beginning and search for optimism, regardless of the previous year’s trials, tribulations, heartaches and struggles. By 5:45 am on January 1, 2009, a group of 14 hearty souls had gathered in our kitchen. The outside temperature was a bone chilling 1 degree and the wind was howling, sending tremors through the windows facing the shoreline. Yet, with the fire roaring in the fireplace, coffee brewing and the smell of bacon sizzling in the cast iron pan, our friends were content to hang out, chat and anticipate their inaugural First Light experience.

We sat perched on our kitchen stools and saw the first glimmer of light shortly after 6:00 am. The previous days brought snow, clouds and grey skies. But this morning, the first light of the first day of the new year, was filled with promise. A hint of orange and pink emerged over the Orrs Island shoreline and after what seemed like an eternity (a little after 7:00 am), the bright sun came forward to beckon us to greet the new day. With the sea smoke forming a blanket on the frigid bluish-grey water and the temperature warming up to a “balmy” five degrees, the gang stepped outside for a group shot. Memories were made, friendships were cemented and new traditions were initiated. May the first day of 2009 be a barometer for the year to come.

A Visit to Pocasset

There is a house on Cape Cod that my husband and I visit every year. It is quite large; it has a tennis court, a pool and a magnificent vista overlooking the calm waters of Buzzards Bay. The bright orange sunsets signal the end of wonderfully relaxing days and the chirping birds lull us to sleep at night with the comforting feeling that all is right with the world. I am sure you are thinking - this is no ordinary house! True, but that’s only half the story. This house is an extraordinary home. It is owned by friends of mine who have six children and 11 grandchildren. I like to say that I married into my friends when I had the good fortune of entering into the blessed union with my husband almost ten years ago.

When you first walk into Diane and Chester’s house, you feel as if you have come home. The physical surroundings convey a warm, comforting and supportive feeling and within a few short minutes, we always find ourselves in the kitchen, catching up on the goings-on in our lives. Our visit last month was no exception. We arrived on a Friday just in time for me to help with the preparation of Shabbat dinner. The smell of freshly baked Challah was unmistakable and our first task was to take it out of the oven. This Challah was a beauty!

Delightfully plump, golden brown and raisins slightly protruding out of the rounded humps. Without asking, I knew at once that Diane’s family tradition was different than mine. I only make a Challah with raisins for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) as the raisins symbolize the hope and optimism that the future will be sweet. It is only fitting that Diane makes the raisin Challah for her family all year round.

We proceeded to make the rest of the dinner for the evening-nothing complicated but certainly fresh and delicious. Diane reminded me that the meals in her family were designed with simplicity-certainly out of necessity while raising 6 kids, but truth be told, because it was the conversations that took place in the kitchen and then around the table that were most important. One of the many conversations that Diane and I had that serene Friday afternoon centered on the flowers we brought them for Shabbat-a beautiful arrangement of purple and yellow flowers with Gerber Daisies being most prominent.

Diane excitedly shared that the Gerber Daisy (named after the German naturalist, Traugott Gerber) was the “family flower”. Just as a state has a representative flower, so does the Black family. Next time you purchase a Gerber Daisy you will for sure notice the short plastic sleeve around the stem which is required for the flower to stand up straight. As Diane gently reminded me, everyone needs a little help and support now and then to manage the complexities of their lives.

Diane, many thanks for the conversations; the insights; the sharing of your family traditions and the support you have given us over the last ten years. To quote your words from a passage that you sent me with some great family recipes, “the smells wafting into the pores of our home said there’s always room at the table!” There certainly has been for us and I sincerely hope you know, there is a permanent place for you and Chester at ours.

Tsimmes: AKA A Big Deal

Tsimmes is a Yiddish word for a dish (sometimes served as a side and sometimes served as an entree with meat) of mixed, slightly sweetened cooked vegetables and fruits. Every good Jewish girl grows up with her family’s Tsimmes, served at holiday dinners including the Passover seder. Undoubtedly, there are as many recipes for Tsimmes as there are for an Italian spaghetti sauce.

My mother’s tsimmes was not very memorable (sorry Mom!) and she never made it with meat. I assumed that this was the case because flanken (also a Yiddish word, meaning flank) was one of the worst cuts of beef you could eat, but often was the only one which the Eastern European Jews could afford. Who would want to remind themselves of this condition? I never really liked Tsimmes, always finding it too sweet and mushy. But some 30 years ago, my former mother in law, Rita, introduced me to flanken tsimmes, which she made every Passover. I loved the combination of the sweet vegetables and the somewhat salty meat. I have been making it ever since, changing an ingredient or a part of the process every few years. I only make it on Passover, after my once a year trip to the kosher butcher to buy the flanken (more on that in another post) and proudly serve it to family and friends.

Historically, since making tsimmes took time and various mixings, the Yiddish word came to mean: a prolonged procedure, an involved business or a BIG DEAL. Often people will say; “Don’t make such a tsimmes out of it!”

SO WHAT’S A BIG DEAL?

A BIG DEAL is making a Passover seder for 31 people;

A BIG DEAL is when your high school friend and her husband come to visit from Indiana to experience their first seder and she is your cooking side kick and moral supporter for three straight days;

A BIG DEAL is when the tsimmes tastes so good that a proclaimed vegetarian for the past twenty five years is compelled to eat the flanken because the savory smells, the vibrant orange color of the carrots and sweet potatoes, and the wide strips of browned meat evoke such fond memories of his Jewish heritage and family traditions;

A BIG DEAL is when you are fortunate that even though you have so few relatives still living, your friends honor you with their presence and make you feel like you have a large family;

A BIG DEAL is honoring long standing traditions and creating new ones for the years to come.

The first night of Passover was this past Monday night but since Passover lasts an entire week, I am going to take the liberty of making a few more posts about this wonderful holiday-its meaning and its traditions. Check back in a couple of days!

FLANKEN TSIMMES

Yield: 1 large roasting pan full!

4 pounds carrots
8 large sweet potatoes
20 strips of bone in flanken
1 pound pitted prunes
1 cup orange juice
brown sugar, honey, maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Peel carrots and cut into 1 inch chunks. Peel potatoes and cut into 2 inch chunks. Set aside.
Place flanken in a large pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper. Cook covered on low for 25 minutes. Remove flanken and place in a large roasting pan.
Put sweet potato chunks into pot and cook covered on low for 10 minutes and add carrot chunks. Cook an additional 10 minutes.

Remove carrots and sweet potatoes with a slotted spoon and place in the roasting pan with the flanken. Reserve the liquid. Add prunes and drizzle with honey and maple syrup and sprinkle with brown sugar, all to taste. Add orange juice and a cup of the reserved liquid.
Cover the roasting pan and bake for three hours or until the meat falls off the bone. Be sure to turn the mixture every hour so that the meat becomes evenly browned.

Ronnie’s notes:

• Flanken can only be purchased from a kosher butcher but you could substitute beef short ribs if you don’t have a kosher butcher nearby.
• I have found that the enamel roasting pans (remember those blue and white speckled ones) work best as they brown the meat just perfectly.
• The quantities of maple syrup, honey and brown sugar is something you need to come up with on your own. Cooking is an art and not a science!

A Blessing of Bread

It is early Friday morning and I am happily and comfortably (in my PJs) downstairs in the kitchen preparing to make Challah - the bread deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. My green countertop can hardly be seen underneath the thin layer of white flour. Anyone who knows me well can attest that I am a messy cook and baker. The eggs are patiently sitting in a pink bowl, waiting to be cracked once they reach room temperature. I am sipping my first cup of coffee while I watch the sunlight shine on the Gulf of Mexico outside my living room window. All seems good with the world. It is too early for music, but later as the dough is rising, I will put on my favorite Jewish music CD – Shabbat Unplugged, sung and produced by a good friend of mine. This will help me further get in the mood to bring in the Sabbath. Shabbat (the Hebrew word for the Sabbath) is a wonderful time to relax, unwind and reflect on the prior week. It is also the premier opportunity to celebrate family. This Shabbat will be an especially sweet one, as my son, Jake is coming home for spring break. I miss him and it will be just wonderful to have his smiling face around for the next week.

I haul out my heavy (but sleek looking) Kitchen Aid which will do most of the work for me. Certainly my ancestors did not have the benefit of modern appliances and had to knead the dough by hand. In fact, some purists swear by the knead-by-hand method. But I have found that taste is not sacrificed and precious time is saved, if a Kitchen Aid mixer or food processor is used. As you will see from the recipe below, the initial part of the process is quite simple and within 10 minutes or so, a beautiful, slightly shiny and large round ball is ready to be placed in a bowl for its first rising.

Making challah on Fridays has become a labor of love for me. It gives me the opportunity to set the mood for Shabbat, continue the tradition that my ancestors started thousands of years ago and provide my family with a nourishing and nurturing environment. And besides it tastes great! I always make two loaves and I try to give one of them to a friend or a member of the community who is in need of a little love. Or if all of the family is home, we keep both loaves and use one for Challah French Toast on Saturday morning. You have never tasted anything so good!

My mother and grandmothers never tried to make challah from scratch and I am not sure why. They were all phenomenal bakers but on Friday afternoons, my brother or I would make the weekly run to Webber’s bakery in Port Washington to get a rye bread and a challah. The recipe below was given to me a few years ago by a friend of mine at one of our informal cooking club sessions and I have now made it my own. I love the idea that it is becoming a Weston family tradition and it is extremely gratifying to know that I am introducing this to the grandkids at a very early age. When they came for a visit, they loved baking challah with me and once back in Boston, they pleaded with their mom to call Mimi so she would come over and make challah for them. Could life be any sweeter?

Challah

Yields: 2 large challahs

1 heaping tablespoon Perfect Rise Dry Yeast (or 1 ¾ packages of Fleischmanns yeast)
1 ¾ cup warm water
¾ cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon salt
5 large eggs
3 ½ - 4 cups King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
5 cups King Arthur bread flour
sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

Mix the yeast in warm water until dissolved. Mix sugar and oil in bowl of mixer and add yeast once dissolved. Beat in 4 of the eggs, one at a time. Add salt. Mix in two cups of the all-purpose flour. Switch to the dough hook. Add the bread flour gradually, kneading and continue as the mixture gets thicker. Add the remaining all-purpose flour as needed to make a thick, round ball.

Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover with saran wrap. Let rise until twice the size. Remove from bowl, punch it down and then cover and let rise again.

Take half the dough and divide into six strands about 14 inches long. Braid. Place on oiled baking sheet. Repeat with other half. Let the loaves rise, uncovered, another hour.
Beat the remaining egg and brush the egg on the loaves. Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

To braid:
Pinch six strands together at the top.
•Outside right strand over 2 toward the middle
•2nd from left to far right
•Outside left over 2 toward middle
•Second from right to far left
Repeat until done and pinch ends together well.

Note: For someone who only raised boys, these braiding instructions come in handy!