Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on December 10, 2014

Del Norte Triplicate illustration / Bryant Anderson

My dad usually takes care of the Thanksgiving pies. I wasnt with him this year, so I cheated and let Vita Cucina take care of the pumpkin pie.

I spent one Thanksgiving on a kibbutz in Israel. I had never made a pie from scratch, but I was missing home and asked if I could make an apple pie. The kitchen manager said yes, even though my poor Hebrew skills couldnt really explain why I wanted it. The next day, she came in all smiles she had seen the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade on the news and suddenly understood why I made the pie!

That year, I also learned more Hanukkah food traditions. I had grown up with an annual meal of latkes (potato pancakes traditionally served at Hanukkah), but in Israel I learned about the beautiful orange-scented doughnuts served everywhere there is access to a fryer and a variety of Sephardic Hanukkah foods.

At Christmas in my family, the challenge of filling gift tins with cookies and candies falls on everyone. Our standard creations include Mexican wedding cakes, pecan slices, cinnamon-nut meringues, brownies with mint-cream-cheese frosting (my mom pipes a Christmas tree on every one of hers), chocolate truffles, ginger snaps, rum balls, mint patties, decorated sugar cookies and (for some reason) peanut butter cookies.

When I was in graduate school, I made many hundreds of treats for our departments holiday party. One of my tricks for getting them all done was to focus on bars and candies that dont have to be made and formed individually. Thats when peppermint-chocolate bark got added to my list of must-haves, for instance. I also added a chocolate-chile refrigerator cookie that is easy to do in bulk.

Not everyone can eat these treats and none of us should eat too many, of course. Our tins are carefully packed for individual people and families to suit known favorites or meeting vegan, low-sugar, or gluten-free dietary needs.

Not everything can be made vegan and still taste good, but most cookies can be made with butter and egg substitutes with no extra effort. Ive made a vegan crme brulee using Silk Nog (a soy-based egg nog) as part of the base it was part of my dessert experimentation for my vegan brother-in-law who has a never-ending sweet tooth.

Candies like chocolate truffles, chocolate bark and a variety of nut brittles are a great option if youre making treats for someone with a gluten allergy. Many baked goods can be made with gluten-free flour mixes, but getting the texture right can be tricky. Its easier with baked goods that dont rise, so the air-trapping qualities of gluten arent needed. There are also a range of flourless cakes that either have no flour at all or use nut flours for a dense, delicious cake.

One food gift Im considering this year is vanilla salt. We can make beautiful flaky salt from our local corner of the Pacific. If I can make enough, a few lucky bakers in my life will be receiving half-pint jars of salt packed with a vanilla bean. (But shhhhhhplease dont tell them!)

See more here:

Grist for the Mill: Cooking up a Storm (Of Flour)

Category: Sephardic
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