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129: Yosef Silver: Kosher Cooking and Barbecue

June 29, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Yosef Silver of This American Bite on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Kosher Cooking and Barbecue

This American Bite

Since starting This American Bite, Yosef has evolved into a Kansas City based kosher food blogger. On his blog is where he welcomes us into his kitchen, where he highlights flavor when cooking from scratch, seasoning a plate, and breaking bread. Yosef believes that though it is not always easy to express gratitude in person, a home cooked meal says it all.

I am so happy to have Yosef Silver of This American Bite joining me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Yosef’s.)

On Being Kosher:

Yosef Silver of This American Bite on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being Kosher.

My wife and I are Jewish, and we keep a kosher home. I didn’t really start off to be a kosher blogger in that niche, but inherently my recipes are kosher, and that means that we don’t mix dairy products with meat products. It means our meat is all certified kosher and I’m personally gluten-free and dairy-free completely. So there’s just a lot of synergy with kosher cooking when you’re already doing a dairy-free diet.

I’ve been eating kosher most of my life. I think about since four or five years old, we’ve been keeping kosher in my family.

One of the big no-no’s is mixing the dairy and the meat product. So there’s no biscuits and gravy if there’s butter involved. So I’ll cook with a lot of dairy alternatives. Kosher slaughter has a lot of rules around how the animals are treated while they’re alive and while they’re being slaughtered, as well as there being restrictions on which meat products we eat, and which fish we eat. There’s also humane treatment of the animals as well. So pork is out of the question, and a lot of shellfish is out of the question, lobster, things like that we don’t eat at all. But, I think there’s a lot of traditional brisket and roast chicken on Friday night for the Sabbath. So we don’t go hungry, I’ll tell you that.

I tend not to get overwhelmed with kosher. Produce, fruit, vegetables, beans, legumes, rice, that’s generally kosher. Fish and meat, primarily meat and chicken, there’s a certification. But in the United States it’s very easy. Most Trader Joe’s you’ll go into will carry kosher chicken, maybe kosher meat, depending on what region you’re in. And if you’ve ever been in a store and seen a little symbol, which is a “U” with a circle around it, that’s the kosher symbol.

On the Food Culture in Kansas City:

Yosef Silver of This American Bite on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the food culture in Kansas City.

Kansas City has an awesome food culture. There’s a lady called Jill Silva who writes for the Kansas City Star. And their food blog actually just won a national award for their coverage of the local food scene.

Our kosher barbecue festival brings people in every year from as far as New York, LA. We have the entire country covered. I have a very good friend from Northern California who isn’t Jewish, doesn’t keep kosher, and he flew in to be on my team. Friends of mine from Israel flew in and are on a team with us, and it’s such a culinary adventure. We’re very lucky that Simon Majumdar from the Food Network comes out every year to our barbecue festival, and he either emcees it or judges it. And if you read his book — I think it’s called Fed, White and Blue — he actually talked about a Friday night dinner that he had in our home, and then the weekend of the barbecue festival.

On Competing in the Barbecue Festival:

Yosef Silver of This American Bite on The Dinner Special podcast talking about competing in the Kansas City barbecue festival.

My goal at the barbecue festival really isn’t to win. We’re there to have a great time, and my teammates and I have really embodied that. You’re competing in an official Barbecue Society sanctioned competition, and they’re looking for something specific. They’re looking for the smoke rings. They’re looking for the flavor, the texture. And then you kind of got this rogue team brining turkeys. So our competition has a brisket round, a ribs round. I think it’s brisket, ribs, chicken, turkey; obviously no pork because it’s a kosher barbecue festival. To follow the laws of kosher, everyone’s meat is provided for them, which is very atypical.

Everyone has the same supplies. Everyone has the same ingredients list that you can request from. Everyone has the same smokers, same gloves. We have non-Jewish teams, non-kosher teams that participate, and it really does level up that playing field a lot. And the first year I competed, my buddy Chris and I made a terrible brisket. We fell asleep as the water pan ran out. It was disastrous. It wasn’t even good for jerky. And you know, we got better year on year.

Some of what I’ve learned from barbecue, I now apply in the home kitchen; the low and slow technique, using a dry rub, covering your meat. You can do that in an oven winter or summer.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love Chopped. I love the movie Chef and Burnt, and I really miss Iron Chef America.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I’m a big fan of Food52, Amy Kritzer of What Jew Wanna Eat, I think she’s been on your show; Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me. And two others that I really admire are Chanie Apfelbaum of Busy in Brooklyn, and Melinda Strauss of Kitchen Tested. And all those people I consider are friends of mine. They’re awesome people. Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry. Jewhungry the blog is an awesome blog, and her writing style is so cool, so much fun, and Jonathan Margolin of Toque & Scalpel. His photography is outstanding. I’m jealous of his photography skills.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

I know I have specific people on Instagram that I love, but I love exploring the hashtags on Instagram, and discovering other people cooking like me, who, you know…after I hashtag my own photo, I’ll go look at who else is using that hashtag.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My wife bought me this beautiful wine rack made out of an old wine barrel. And it’s just this beautiful arch cut out of a wine barrel. It’s the centrepiece of our table all the time. I love it.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Cilantro.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I mentioned Culinary Artistry before.

(Ottolenghi) I love his work. I also love that he’s an Israeli author, but he’s not exclusively kosher. I have hundreds of cookbooks.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

The soundtrack to Chef, and not to sound cliche but that movie and that soundtrack it’s on my Spotify, and it’s on Netflix all the time. It’s a great vibe, great upbeat, awesome music.

On Keeping Posted with Yosef:

Yosef Silver of This American Bite on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with Yosef.

I’m pretty active on Instagram. My Instagram name is Yosef Silver, and Facebook on ThisAmericanBite and Twitter as ysilver, I have not  dived into Snapchat yet. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my postings.

I would love to connect with everybody on Instagram, and I would love to answer questions and just connect. If you have recipes, ideas you’re not sure about, Instagram me, Facebook me, Tweet me, email me. And if you visit my website you can get emails for my new recipes as well.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Amy Kritzer, Busy in Brooklyn, Chanie Apfelbaum, Chef, Chopped, Culinary Artistry, Fed White and Blue, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food52, Iron Chef America, Jewhungry, Jill Silva, Kansas City, Kansas City Star, Kitchen Tested, kosher, Kosher Barbecue Festival, Kosher Like Me, Liz Rueven, Melinda Strauss, Ottolenghi, Simon Majumdar, This American Bite, Trader Joe's, What Jew Wanna Eat, Whitney Fisch, Yosef Silver

088: Liz Rueven: Celebrating Jewish Food and Holidays

October 26, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast.
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Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me The Dinner Special podcast talking about celebrating Jewish food and Holidays

Kosher Like Me

Liz keeps a Kosher kitchen at home and food truly excites her. She is always on the lookout for great restaurants, farmers markets, food festivals, and passionate food innovators. Liz spends much of her time researching and exploring extraordinary dining and food events. And today, we’re going to chat about the Jewish holidays and, of course, the food that surrounds them.

I am so happy to have Liz Rueven, editor and chief eater of Kosher Like Me, here today.

(*All photos below are Liz’s.)

On the Five Jewish Holidays Starting the Fall:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

So, we begin with Rosh Hashanah, which literally means, the head of the New Year and it’s the Jewish New Year. We eat foods that are symbolic of new beginnings and good luck. So we often eat sweet things. There’s an association most people know between apples and honey. Apples are an early fall fruit, and the honey is really part of the beginning of most meals where we dip the apple in honey, and we wish everyone a sweet New Year. A lot of the other foods are really about, bountiful, full wishes, for example, pomegranates.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

Pomegranates have many, many seeds. I know that you read my post and my recipe for pomegranate and honey glazed chicken on one of my favorite websites, a website I contribute to, called The Nosher. Pomegranates have like millions of gazillions of seeds, they’re very difficult to dislodge, as you know, because I gave a little technique that I borrowed from a fellow blogger, a blogger friend of mine. But, the pomegranate is so plentiful in the fruit that we use it as a symbolic food, wishing that all of the good omens and good wishes will be as plentiful as the number of seeds in that fruit.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

There are many other foods associated with Rosh Hashanah but, 10 days after that we go on to Yom Kippur, which is the most solemn day in the year, and there’s no food. So we fast for what turns out to be about 26/27 hours. But at the end of that fast, of course, there’s a feast, like in every culture after a fast. There are many traditional foods, that I don’t know are really symbolic, but we just tend to eat them. Different cultures eat different things, my background is Eastern European, I would say the most quintessential thing that we eat is a noodle pudding or kugel.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Yom Kippur.

On my blog, every year, I post a different recipe for noodle kugel. I have a very traditional one, and then last year I posted one with lemon and ricotta cheese. This year we’re posting a recipe for a noodle pudding or kugel with apple and fennel. It’s a great thing to eat because it’s very satisfying, and it’s very comforting, and it’s very filling. That’s what happens at the end of the fast.

And then, right after that, we have a harvest festival called Sukkot, and people erect temporary structures outside, and people who are really observant, live in those, eat all three meals in those, and sleep in those. They’re called a sukkah, and when, for those of us who don’t eat every meal in them, we often try to eat dinner in them.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Sukkot.

Invariably, it’s cold and rainy, all of a sudden the weather shifts in the northeast at that time, probably in Vancouver, too. And so the focus is really, not only on the harvest foods, but I always focus on the warming foods, so I start to integrate warming spices and dishes like soups and casseroles. It’s usually when I take out my slow cooker also. So this year, we’ll be posting a butternut squash soup, that should be really delicious. Butternut squash grows in the northeast at this time of year and it’s a great thing to just throw in the slow cooker and just have simmering.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Sukkot.

If you’re eating outside in your sukkah, you’re going to want something like that and warm foods. All of the sudden we shift from the salads to things like that.

Then, we have the next holiday, which is a celebration of the laws that were given to us in Sinai, and it’s called Simchat Torah, which really means the joy of Torah, which are the laws. And in general, people do stuffed foods for this holiday. Things that imply full bounty, so that there’s a lot of joy. And then, we end the five holidays with Hanukkah, which is always focused on oil, which we never really eat very much of.

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Simchat Torah.

We fry things, donuts, potato latkes, all variations of things fried in celebration of the miracle that occurred, historically, when a vessel of oil that was supposed to last only a few days, lasted a whole week. Which, was enough time to produce more oil. So the oil thing gets really big, and what’s really fun is making lots of different kinds of pancakes, wheat pancakes, potato pancakes, sweet potato pancakes, zucchini, or apple, all sorts of pancakes, deep-fried, so for those of us who are more health conscious, it’s like a time of year where we say, “What the heck, we’re eating fried, it’s Hanukkah.”

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Chanukah.

So, that’s the five holidays.

On Starting Kosher Like Me:

My home is strictly Kosher, and when we’re away from our home, we do exactly what my grandparents did. My grandparents were immigrants from Poland, they came to the lower east side of New York City, and they found that there were a lot of choices of things to eat. They just started eating fish and vegetarian when they were away from their Kosher home. Today, we have so many great choices of vegetarian and vegan restaurants that it’s really almost effortless. In those days, people would have a side order of string beans, because that was what was available if you didn’t want to eat chicken, or meat, or whatever was offered in a restaurant, so it’s completely different today.

My intention was really to be a resource for people who honor the rules like I do, because when I travel, I do a lot of research. Friends would say, “If I’m going to Aspen, where should I eat? Where do they have a lot of vegetarian choices?” But what’s happened is, I write so much about vegetarian and vegan, because I write so much about what I do outside of my kitchen, that I have a much broader base of followers than I ever expected. I have vegetarian, vegan, Jewish, not Jewish, Muslim, all sorts of people who are also just interested in healthy food. Because I really only eat and only write about things that are happening seasonally anyway. It’s a trend and people really are interested in it. For us, it’s just the way we always eat.

On the Best Part of Being Editor and Chief Eater of Kosher Like Me:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the best part of being the chief eater at Kosher Like Me.

I would say I love meeting with creative people who are either, small producers, for example, honey makers, who have small backyard apiaries, or people who are making inventive products like my friends at the Gefilteria in Brooklyn, who have revived the old tradition of making gefilte fish and they’re making it sustainable, interesting, healthy, hip again. I really love meeting with the makers and the farmers. I do a lot of work at farms, especially trying to support my Connecticut agricultural scene. I love meeting the farmers, and the growers, and the makers. I like that better than eating in restaurants and writing food reviews, actually.

When I started writing four or five years ago, the approach to reinventing traditional Jewish foods was not as vibrant as it is now. For example, I’m part of a kosher food bloggers network, and that’s what we call ourselves, The Kosher Food Bloggers Network, and we are all across the country, and there was so much interesting rethinking of traditional foods. Four or five years ago, it wasn’t as energetic or vibrant a community or a scene. I would say that has been a big and wonderful exciting surprise.

Whitney and Amy, from Jewhungry and What Jew Wanna Eat, as you know, I co-authored a book with them. Those are my friends. What was really exciting was that we brought such different perspectives to it, Amy coming from Connecticut originally but living in Austin, Texas, has a completely different view of things than I do here. Whitney was in Miami, she has since moved to LA, so now her view has changed again, but she was a southern girl. I have these roots deep in the New York area and there was one other, there were four of us who wrote the book, and we called the book, Four Bloggers Dish.

The other person who contributed was Sarah Lasry, and she comes from a much more observant background. She brought a whole different perspective, and she was the one who kept saying, “I think we need more meat in this book guys,” and the three of us are like, “I don’t know.” It was great, yeah, you’ve met some of the cream of the crop.

On Her Passion for Food:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her passion for food.

I went back recently and I read my first blog post, which was in 2011, and I wrote about my grandfather. My grandfather was a traditional Jewish baker, and he came from Poland, he had three or four years as a young teen, as an apprentice, where he was sent away from his family, and he learned how to bake bread. When he came to this country, he baked bread and lots of other things, and I grew up with my grandparents coming to my home every Sunday. He would bring things like the most delicious rye bread, and onion rolls, and challah, and jelly donuts. So, he was one of my inspirations, but I have to say that my grandmother was a brilliant baker in her own right.

So it was just interesting that even though he would bring stuff home from the bakery, she baked also. The reason she baked, this really blew me away when I really thought about it, is because so many members of my family had food allergies, so she baked at home in order to avoid using eggs and dairy. She was a vegan baker. She was born at the end of the 1800s and she developed all of these recipes, never wrote them down, she couldn’t read, she couldn’t write, she was illiterate. But she developed all of these recipes, and it turns out, as I thought about it, they were vegan.

It’s just crazy because half my cousins and my sister were allergic to eggs and dairy. So, I would say my grandparents are my greatest inspiration.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Well, there’s a new show about to launch, that I really am very excited about, it’s called Holy and Hungry, and it’s with Sherri Shepherd, and she goes to lots of different people who cook with an eye towards their religious background. She interviews people with Hindu perspectives and beliefs, and Muslim perspectives, and Orthodox Jewish perspectives, she goes to Christian cooks who are making foods from the Bible.

This show to me is super exciting, you have to look for it, it’s called Holy and Hungry. To me, that’s the most exciting.

I love Chopped, of course, because I really can’t get over the kinds of ingredients that they throw at these poor contestants. I really admire them for being so responsive and clever and being able to keep their wits about them. I would just have a total meltdown but, that’s why they’re competing. The opposite of that is Ina Garten because she’s so soothing and you want to be in her buttery arms, and they’re very, not her arms, but the food is so buttery. So I would say those would be three shows that I do love.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Well, I don’t know if you read The Kitchn, I really love The Kitchn, my daughter, who’s in her 20s, turned me on to it. It’s just such a huge resource. It covers so much and I love her how-tos, how to make a Caesar salad, how to handle winter squashes. I love what she does in that blog. I know she’s got a whole team.

I read and contribute to a blog called The Nosher, and so to nosh means to snack, so The Nosher really covers a ton of Jewish food trends, and edited by someone named Shannon Sarna, so her voice is very prominent in there, she’s like a master challah baker, she does all sorts of crazy and wacky challah recipes.

But of equal importance, she solicits posts from kosher and Jewish food bloggers who have very different perspectives on things. So there’s this great overview of what people are doing across the country and I love that. There’s a blog called, May I Have That Recipe, and it’s two sisters, I think they’re in Philly, and they write vegetarian, and vegan, and kosher, and their recipes are really inventive, and I’ve met them through my bloggers network. I really love what they’re doing. They’re smaller so props to them. They have a big readership, they really do. You can hear their voices in there, it’s really beautiful, and they act like such sisters, really fun.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

Okay. My favorite feed on Instagram is called, MyGarbage.

When you look at this, to me, it is the most beautiful feed on Instagram. He, I think it’s a he, shoots his rectangular, white, garbage pail with all of the scraps from a dish that he’s made, but he arranges them. They look incredibly gorgeous, and I think for me, there’s a little message about food waste, which is that we could be reducing and we could be reusing, well not reusing the waste, but using it differently because he doesn’t even post his recipes, he just posts the ingredients which you see in the garbage pail. All of his photos are identically set up. And it’s very rhythmic and interesting to see them.

I love, love, love him. I love David Lebovitz, who is in Paris. He’s got a very funny voice, and he writes all about baking and cooking as an American in Paris, and he’s a brilliant photographer, and he’s very funny. There’s another person from Philly, and her feed is called Food In Jars, and it’s all about her preserving, and conserving, and putting up ingredients that she loves, and I just find it fascinating to see what she’s doing. Food In Jars, it’s great.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

Well, I have a beautiful collection of ceramic handmade, plates, platters, bowls. I’m a really big sucker for big platters, big bowls. When I travel, I buy these things, which are really, really inconvenient and difficult to carry back. But I don’t care, I just feel like I’m bringing back the soul of an artist. I just get stuff, if you saw my kitchen right now, I have piles of tomatoes on a platter, and I have all sorts of things piled, like pears here in Connecticut in a big, deep, gorgeous hand-thrown ceramic bowl, so I would say, those are my most precious items.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I don’t know, there aren’t that many things that I’ve really converted to liking. I like most things, the one thing I don’t like and I haven’t gotten to like it at all is smoky profiles. I just feel like I’m licking an ashtray. I have no interest in that at all. So if people gift me smoky salts, whoever is around is really lucky because I’ll pass them on right away. So I can’t say that I started to like something that I didn’t like, I would just say that’s what I don’t like.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, by training, I’m an art historian, so I think that I really love to read food history. I took a fantastic class at the New School in New York City, the teacher was Andrew Smith, and he wrote an encyclopedic book called, The Oxford Companion to American Eating and Drinking. If it’s 4th of July, or I’m thinking about, I don’t know, avocados or something, whatever it is, I might turn to his book first and see what he has to say about it.

Parallel to that, and right next to it on my shelf, is an encyclopedia, it’s called, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Foods, by someone who unfortunately has passed away. His name was Gil Marks, and he was a brilliant inspiration and researcher to his community, and so when a holiday comes up, I always look to him first, and I get an overview and a refresher. He covers everything, he covers the meaning of the holiday and the meaning of a food. And you can also just look into his book, just look up an ingredient, so it could be something like peaches. And he’ll talk about peaches, or he’ll at least lead you to a recipe for peaches. But beyond the history, I really loved The Forest Feast.

I love her work. I love these hand drawings and the simplicity of her recipes. It helps me to get out of my head and just keep it really simple. Also, I love Beatrice Peltre, La Tartine Gourmande, her photographs I think are among the most beautiful food photographs I’ve ever seen, and when I look at her work, her blog, or her book, which I have, that’s really awe inspiring.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I really like hearing The Stones when I cook, The Rolling Stones. That’s real rock and roll and I’ll listen to anything The Stones have ever done and just be happy to play with that.

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Well, a lot of my readers are still turning to Facebook. Everything is @KosherLikeMe. I post probably numerous times a day on Instagram, and you can subscribe to my blog and see what I’m up to each week.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Andrew Smith, Chopped, David Lebovitz, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food in Jars, Four Bloggers Dish, Gefilteria, Gil Marks, Hanukkah, Holy and Hungry, Ina Garten, Jewhungry, Kosher food, Kosher Like Me, La Tartine Gourmande, Liz Rueven, May I Have That Recipe, MyGarbage, New School in New York CIty, Rosh Hashanah, Sarah Lasry, Simchat Torah, Sinai, sukkah, Sukkot, The Forest Feast, The Kitchn, The Nosher, The Rolling Stones, What Jew Wanna Eat

063: Whitney Fisch: Exploring Kosher Cuisine

July 29, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast
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Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Kosher cuisine.

Jewhungry

On her blog, Jewhungry, Whitney explores and tests the limits of traditional kosher food by mixing in her Southern non-kosher food and family history, and her travels. Her writing on motherhood and her recipes have appeared in The Huffington Post, The Times of Israel, and Cosmopolitan Magazine, just to name a few.

I am so thrilled to have Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry joining me here today.

(*All images below are Whitney’s.)

On Starting her Blog:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her food blog.

What got me interested in food was, I was living in Jerusalem. I was very close to The Shuk, which is the largest open air market in Jerusalem, called Mahane Yehuda Market. And I was 28 and blessed with free time, which I remember so well, yet don’t have anymore. But I had free time and access, and I just started as a hobby.

I remember my then-boyfriend, who’s now my husband, made roasted potatoes for me with onion soup mix, and thinking it was like a revelatory culinary experience. That’s how little I knew about food. So I just decided to experiment and it just evolved from making eggs. I mean, really, the knowledge of food that I had at that time was so minimal it’s almost laughable.

My experience and my time in that life was a recipe for, no pun intended, delving into what is now definitely the passion of mine.

Access to the freshness was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. There’s definitely a privilege in being able to walk and get your groceries for the day, and not having to . . . like now, I only have time to grocery shop once a week. So there’s a privilege in being able to A) afford that, and B) have the time to just walk and leisurely go through the markets and smell and taste and explore. I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for that year and that time.

I think it helps that I was falling in love with the man who I came to marry. He was open to eating anything. So thank God, he did not have a discerning palate and he was willing to be my guinea pig and very encouraging.

There was no TV in my apartment. There was nothing. So I had really just ample time. It was a hobby and we could share that together.

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about experimenting in the kitchen.

I kind of decided that every Sunday afternoon after she (daughter) wakes up from her nap, that’s when we, she and I, we bake together. So it’s been really fun. Some of the stuff has ended up on the blog. Some of it’s just ended up in my colleagues’ offices.

But you know, that time has been really crucial in upping the creativity. And then quite honestly it’s helpful that I do work on a school schedule, meaning I get holidays and I get winter breaks. That’s when I just go all out. My husband is visiting, and when he’s there, I just cook and I cook and I cook. That really unleashes the creativity.

On Kosher Food:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about kosher food.

Like most things in Jewish communities, most answers are like four days long. So I’ll give you the shortened version.

No mixing of meat and milk. Not only on the item itself. So no ham and cheese sandwiches and, of course, no ham. No shellfish. And there are certain food items that are just prohibited in general. But that means also in your prep. So I have separate meat dishes and separate dairy dishes and separate meat cookware and separate dairy, everything is separate.

The beautiful thing about kosher is that it depends on where you’re from. I have an Ashkenazi Eastern European background. So for me, a traditional kosher dish could be anything from what’s called cholent, which is an all-day stew that’s been cooking and getting delicious and gelatinous. It’s barley and meat and sweet potatoes. Real hearty. Great for a winter day. Now that I live in L.A. there’s this whole Persian kosher scene which I’m being exposed to, which is beautiful. When I was in Miami, there was a Latin kosher scene. There is no one thing that characterizes kosher, for anybody. Which is what I love about kosher.

On Exploring Kosher Food:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about learning about kosher food.

I was in a yeshiva, called the Pardes Institute of Judaic Studies and I was taking three foundational courses, just in Jewish Law. I just wanted more information about my own culture, community, religion, observance. I took a class on kashrut in Jewish Law. And as with anything, once you become educated, it makes sense, right? And it just so happened that I was creating a life with someone who grew up kosher.

So it just, for us, made perfect sense. Our household, we eat vegetarian outside the home. Which means that we do not eat non-kosher meat, but we’ll eat a cheese sandwich somewhere, something like that. And that can be controversial for some folks in the kosher world. Our main goal for our house is we want anyone to feel welcome and comfortable eating there. From the strictest of kosher to someone who doesn’t keep kosher and is not even Jewish.

On Online Resources for Learning About Kosher Food:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about some good online resources for learning about kosher food.

There are so many websites. There’s a really lovely community of kosher food bloggers out there doing amazing, amazing, creative work. And you forget that it’s kosher. You forget that at some point, I know, seen from the outside, a limitation, and I’m using air quotes. But I don’t see it as a limitation by any sense. But there’s really a lovely community of kosher food bloggers out there.

I would recommend anywhere from Joy of Kosher, Jamie Geller. And there’s Melinda Strauss, who does Kitchen Tested. There’s Busy in Brooklyn, there’s The Kosher Spoon. There are just so many beautiful kosher bloggers out there.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Definitely Top Chef. That is the cooking show I watch.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I want to give props to the smaller ones that not everyone really knows about.

There’s a blogger in the L.A. area, a Persian kosher blogger. Her name is Sina Mizrahi. She has a beautiful blog, kosher Persian food.

My beloved friends that I co-wrote a cookbook with, an online cookbook for Passover. What Jew Wanna to Eat, The Patchke Princess, and Kosher Like Me. Those are beautiful, beautiful blogs. But then there are the smaller blogs. Hola Jalapeño, I think is such a fun little blog. I hope that more people check her out.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

I follow a lot of crafty folks on Instagram. Handmade Charlotte is one that I follow. Oh Happy Day! Just beautiful, colorful. A lot of it’s kid-based stuff that makes me happy. There’s this wonderful blogger, or Instagram account, at least, called Girl With Curves. And she’s just literally, like, “I’m beautiful, I’m curvy. Check me out.” And I really appreciate that.

Instagram is my social media addiction 100%. I cannot tell a lie. My students know it. They know Miss Fisch is on it and rocking it. I also follow Lena Dunham and Beyonce, of course. I’m not immune. They make me happy. And The Fat Jewish, which is hilarious.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I have my grandfather’s on my dad’s side’s flour sifter. It’s really old. Up until the time he passed away in 2005, he made a cake a week. He loved cake and so when he passed away and we cleaned out the apartment, that was something that I claimed, and the family welcomed and supported me taking home. I use it every time I bake, to this day.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love. 

I’m coming around to zaatar. We’re not 100% in love yet, but we’re in like. It’s so much in Israeli, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern cuisine. I’m getting there. I used to really not, like, “Get it away.” But we’re dating, we’re getting there. We’re getting to know one another. It’s cool.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I just go online and look at blogs. But when I first started out, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and all the Mollie Katzen books were like my Torahs. I could not get enough of them. I’m sure every religious institution has the cookbook that their temple or their mosque or their church sends out. I have so many of those kosher temple cookbooks from Chabads, from whatever. I love those. Because they’re just filled with, like, “Here’s my bubbe’s recipe for Saturday chicken,” or whatever. And I love that stuff. Really, I peruse those often.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I listen to a lot of Band of Horses when I cook. And I listen to a lot of Erykah Badu and India.Arie. It’s a very random spectrum. I either really want to listen to Southern, rock-y, folksy music, or I really want to listen to some neo-soul. It depends on what I’m cooking, but those are the two.

Amy Sedaris. I remembered. Amy Sedaris, there it is, came out with a cookbook like eight, nine years ago, that is hilarious and delicious. So that’s my other cookbook.

On Keeping Posted with Whitney:

Whitney Fisch of Jewhungry on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep in touch with her.

Instagram is my bae. So definitely Instagram. And then secondarily I would say the Jewhungry Facebook page, for sure. And of course always the blog, jewhungrytheblog.com.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Amy Sedaris, Ashkenazi, Band of Horses, Beyonce, Busy in Brooklyn, Cosmopolitan, Erykah Badu, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Girl With Curves, Handmade Charlotte, Hola Jalapeño, India.Arie, Jamie Geller, Jewhungry, Joy of Kosher, kashrut, Kitchen Tested, kosher, Kosher Like Me, Lena Dunham, Melinda Strauss, Mom, Oh Happy Day, Pardes Institute of Judaic Studies, Parent, Sina Mizrahi, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, The Fat Jewish, the Huffington Post, The Kosher Spoon, The Patchke Princess, The Shuk, The Times of Israel, Top Chef, What Jew Wanna to Eat, Whitney Fisch

Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

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