It must have been some accident of birth: a food writer born without a chocolate-loving—or even liking—gene.

So, no, there are no products of the cacao bean working their seductive charms in my house come Valentine’s Day.

I prefer instead the potent aphrodisiac Jews have relied on for centuries: way before there was Viagra, there was garlic... more...

Potato chips rarely inspire me with anything--except guilt for eating way too many of them. But there were those barbeque-flavored ones that I crushed up as a luscious topping for a potato kugel.

And in a supermarket in the Charlevoix region outside of Quebec where we spent the New Year’s holidays with dear friends, I came across an unusual kind I’ve never seen in the States: Dill Pickle, or Cornichons  À L’Aneth, made by Lay’s and OU-certified kosher... more...

When my sister and I shared an apartment in Chelsea many years ago, we never shared our groceries when she was following her quick-weight-loss diet of choice. Known as Stillman’s, it involved only protein and fat—no carbohydrates at all.

So all the steak, lamb chops, even salami and eggs you wanted were fine, as long as you’d abstain from carrots and spinach. Coffee with heavy cream: uh huh; coffee with low-fat milk: no way. Yes to butter sauce, no to broccoli puree. Ketchup somehow had near vegetable status, though the diet predated the Reagan administration by several years.

So what would I cook in my newly remodeled kitchen?

We had recently returned from a trip to Miami, where I had tagged along for a conference my husband was attending. We’d thoroughly enjoyed the speakers’ dinner we organized at Señora Martinez, the restaurant that Michelle Bernstein was in the process of opening when I first interviewed her for a Jewish Woman magazine article on Latina-Jewish Passovers a couple years ago. Michelle’s flavors were beautifully orchestrated: even a simple appetizer of fried eggplant chips was impeccably seasoned, drizzled with local tupelo honey and sprinkled with sea salt... more...

What they buy is smoked salmon. more...

Terroir—the way climate, soil, topography, and the other unique characteristics of a region influence crops—often comes up in discussions of fine wines, teas, coffees, and lately, best-quality chocolates. But terroir can also affect the way far humbler ingredients taste: think of the russet (baking) potato from Idaho. And this is definitely true of apples as well... more...

Join Jayne and some of Manhattan’s most creative chefs and restaurateurs for a discussion about the inspired Jewish dishes that are turning up on their menus.

While gefilte fish isn’t quite the new sushi, around Jewish holidays these days you might find it prepared with spices from Kerala at an Indian restaurant or Veracruz-style at a Mexican one. For as readers of Beyond Brisket know signature Jewish foods and reimagined classics have been making their way into the culinary mainstream... more...

For years, corn sliced off the cob brought up some rather unpretty memories.

First, there was the year I had to eat my corn that way because my orthodontist attached yet another set of silvery squares to my already heavy-metal braces. And that, of course, always reminded me of Neil, my seventh grade nemesis, who hounded me daily with the brilliant words of wisdom, “Every time you smile, U.S. Steel goes up 30 points.” (Well, U.S. Steel and I have both radically changed since those days.) ...more...

It just may be in the DNA. After all, so many Jews seem to have a taste for the tangy and the sour. On the Ashkenazi side, there are sorrel-flavored schav, sour pickles, sour cream, dishes made with buttermilk, and so on. Sephardim make use of sour apricots and plums, tamarind, pomegranate molasses, and more. And of course, there’s the sweet-and-sour thread that runs through both... more...

Salts from various seas, honeys, assorted vinegars and oils, teas, dried mushrooms, nuts and condiments galore—it’s impossible for me to resist buying food souvenirs on trips away from home.

Yes, even though I could find nearly everything—and often have—in my own backyard, New York City. That exquisite pistachio oil from a tiny French mill sold at its outlet in Paris? I later discovered an identical bottle in the back of Kalustyan’s in Manhattan... more...

About this time every year, I am staring at several boxes of leftover, unopened matzoh and wondering “what was I thinking?” Standing right out in the open—yes, taking up valuable real estate on the counter because there’s no more room in my cramped Manhattan kitchen cabinets—they do mock my primal Jewish fear of not having more than enough... more...

Yes, I do love superior breads and excellent, thin-crusted pizza. A bowl of slow-cooked, steel-cut oatmeal, fluffy couscous, crepes and their cousins...more...

Sometimes I think that the real Fifth Question at the Seder is not “when do we eat,” but “why on this night do we always eat brisket?” Like many other families, we often have brisket on both the first night at my sister’s house and the second night at mine. Fortunately, because there are many of us at table on each night, the brisket is one of at least two main dishes...more...

I’m not much of a make-ahead cook. My freezer is usually filled with nuts, packages of green peas and artichoke hearts, chicken fat waiting to be rendered, vodka, ice, ice packs, and the occasional leftover.

But even with a few 36-hour-day cooking marathons just before the Seder, I cannot prepare the from-scratch Seder I host on the second night without some advance work. (In the first place, the day of the first Seder, I am cooking all day at my sister’s house for the Seder she hosts; since she is Orthodox, I cannot prepare anything at my house to take to her Seder.) more...

Purim means “lots,” and the description of the holiday as The Feast of Lots reveals typical Jewish irony: Haman drew lots to choose the day the Jews of Persia would be eliminated.

Faced with so many delicious filling entries in our hamantaschen contest, we decided to choose the winner by drawing lots too—or in this case, drawing the name from our “most” favorites... more...

By now the costumes and masks have been put away and, though lucky pastry lovers may still be savoring the few hamantaschen remaining in their cookie jars during the next few days, the last of these Purim treats have been baked. So while you may not still be baking, we decided to announce the winner of The Great Hamantaschen Filling contest on April 1st to give those of you who have been working out your recipes during the holiday enough time to submit them to us...more...

I realized it years ago on a sweltering July morning in one of those sandwich shops/fast food joints called a deli these days but light years away from old school Jewish delicatessens. It was far from my native New York—Maine, maybe, or northern California. There, along with the oversized chocolate chip cookies and melting brownies, were fist-sized hamantaschen filled with raspberry and apricot jams... more... 

For weeks my Greenwich Village neighborhood resembled the sooty tundra of a Soviet bloc border town in a bad, grainy movie. Not just too cold to walk out—too ugly.

It’s been a balmy 42 degrees for the past couple of days, and most of the snow is melted. But tomorrow more snow and freezing rain are forecast again.

Ugh! ...more...

When Alex and I went to Paris on a recent mother-daughter trip, much of our memorable takeaway had to do with food: glorious new combinations, recipe ideas, and ingredients gleaned from restaurant meals, markets, and local newspapers. And one was the discovery of a delicious French matzoh... more...

A few years ago, I enjoyed a special Passover soup at Tabla, a restaurant in the stunning former MetLife Building in Manhattan overlooking Madison Square Park: chicken soup with Indian-inflected matzoh balls. more...

On Christmas night this year, we did what thousands of Jews across the country have done for decades: we ate Chinese food. The stuff of countless comedians’ schticks and YouTube videos, the practice makes perfect sense, since Chinese restaurants are one of the few that are open, and Jews, well, just want to have fun on Christmas Day too... more...

Now in dreary December, when greens taste tired and tomatoes somnambulant, wintry fruits play fairy godmother with weary, graceless salads. Pomegranate seeds add dazzle and crunch, as do roasted pears teamed up with toasted pecans. And tangy citrus—grapefruit, oranges, kumquats, even chunks of lemon flesh—brings sparkle to a salad and a welcome foil to heavy winter menus. more...

I think of myself as a food lover, but truthfully, the foods I love include very few desserts. So when I was asked to talk about rugelach on the Morning Living show on Martha Stewart Living Radio on Tuesday, the day before Chanukah, I was relieved. more...

Following the lead of fancy-schmancy restaurant menus, my mother always called the sweet-fleshed orange tubers “yams.” Somehow, that name, derived from one denoting a much mealier—and completely unrelated—African vegetable more...

“It tastes like Chapstick. It’s like you rolled Chapstick all over the bread,” I’d tell my grandmother when she set a piece of corn-rye bread slathered with schmaltz (poultry fat) in front of me...more...

I’d been trying to figure out a way to eat at Fulemule (Nightengale) Restaurant ever since I interviewed the owner, Andras Singer, for an article I was writing about Jewish Budapest. And after reading Julie Orringer’s extraordinary first novel, The Invisible Bridge, this summer, I was eager to return to the city... more...

It’s not quite like the kitchen parade of leftover matzoh boxes after Passover, but by the end of the fall holidays, an army of half- and quarter-loaves of challah have overrun my freezer. You see, holiday and Shabbat dinners call for glorious full loaves to be blessed... more...

"What is this—a restaurant?” was a frequent refrain from my father when I was growing up, when at least once or twice a week, one of us three kids was served a different special dish at dinner. The foods that we refused to eat were simply ones we didn’t like—either the long-standing, stomach-roiling distasteful kind (tongue, for example) or a recently fallen-out-of-love variety (green beans)... more...

Every Jewish holiday has a special taste, and for many Jews, Simchat Torah, which comes at the close of Sukkot and celebrates the ending and beginning anew of the Torah annual reading cycle, tastes like stuffed cabbage... more...

Years ago, a comedian—Buddy Hackett, I think it was—revealed his mother’s strategy for coping with the Yom Kippur fast: fill up on her Magic Matzoh Balls, specially made so that they time-released as needed into the digestive tract... more...

Yes, a few brown crackly leaves have already fallen on my block. But for me, late August has always been the time to think about fresh starts and beginning anew... more...