Shanah Tovah

I am always struck how the foods of the high holiday season are sweet, but not just sweet. The sweetness is overlayed with a bit of spice or sourness. Like life itself, like our memories it's all a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface.


I started our holiday cooking by getting the cabbage ready to stuff. This used to be a task that led to lots of cursing and torn cabbage leaves.  I finally, after maybe thirty years of making stuffed cabbage figured out that the secret to peeling cabbage leaves is to ruthlessly
core the cabbage. As you steam the cabbage keep cutting away at that core. The leaves will fall away with ease.

Stuffed cabbage needs a long slow cook.

You prepare the pan by adding the tough center ribs of the cabbage leaves to the bottom of the pot. it keeps your precious cabbage rolls from burning. This is also a dish where every bit of the cabbage gets used. There is no waste.

 After many hours of simmering in the oven you end up with this-- four gallons of stuffed cabbage that are just slightly sweet but also tart and pack a little bit of heat.

Right after Shabbat I began the task of making tzimmis.   My son in law is allergic to potatoes. I substituted cassava and yucca for the white potatoes.  There are also sweet potatoes, parsnips and carrots in the pot.  The meat element of the tzimmis is a rack of flanken ribs and two cubed brisket. I nearly forgot to mention the prunes and the lima beans.

The flavor profile is a slightly different sweet and sour than the cabbage. It just tastes darker with cinnamon and allspice and ginger along with lots of black pepper, sweet paprika and cayenne pepper.

Last night the tzimmis looked like this.

After spending all night in the oven, our giant pot was filled with this.

It's the complicated flavor of this season of memories.  I will probably serve this with little bowls of hot pastes, like harissa, and schug from the Middle east and gochujang from Korea. The mix of vegetables from the Carribean and Eastern Europe and spicy sauces from the middle east and Korea all meld together perfectly. the specifics may be nontraditional but it still captures the essential flavor of tzimmis.

My mother learned how to make these dishes from the excellent cooks in Halifax.  My dear friend who grew up in Halifax will be joining us on the second night of the holiday. She knows exactly who taught my mother these dishes.  Those cooks were just so skilled, so individual. These dishes take me back to my childhood. These dishes all originate from Lithuania, they hold old memories in their flavors.

Friday I baked challot. Most are stuffed and rolled before the loaves are formed.

I made a gingery apple cake today,

I also made a plum tart that reminded me of my Berlin born friends. Making and eating these plum tarts feels like a visit with my friends Herta, and Fanny who are no longer living.

These holiday meals always bring together our collective pasts. It's as if by eating these traditional foods we are bringing our memories to share, to fioll our bellies the same way that the melodies and the words of the season fill our souls.