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As we say goodbye to 2023, I took a moment to look back through the year of recipes and newsletters to find my favorite gems. It was a lovely exercise. It reminded me of all the incredible conversations we have had this year, and all of the ways this community has held each other through the many difficult moments, and shared inspiration and good cheer. And gosh, it made me so grateful for each of you!
Here are my top 6 newsletters/recipes from 2023. If you have a favorite recipe from The Jewish Table that I missed, let us know in the comments.
And if you have been meaning to upgrade from a free subscription to paid, I would be honored if you ended 2023 with a commitment to The Jewish Table. I will do my best to deliver more inspiration, stories from around the Jewish food world, and tempting recipes each week. And you will help sustain my work and this community into the new year and beyond.
See you next week (and year) in 2024! And thank you for everything.
Majestic Boureka Pie
This recipe takes everything I love about spinach bourekas (flaky dough + earthy spinach + briny feta), and transforms it into a gorgeous, centerpiece-worthy pastry. It offers all the deliciousness, without the laborious work of filling and folding dozens of individual turnovers. The newsletter also shares the history of bourekas, and the prevalence of stuffed, savory pastries throughout Sephardi cuisine.
Poppy Seed Ice Cream
This ice cream was inspired by a photo my friend Devra took this past summer. She was traveling in the Balkans and kept a travelogue of every ice cream cone she ate. (Brilliant.) One cone she posted, which was piled with sour cherry chocolate chip gelato and a scoop of poppy seed gelato, stopped me in my tracks. I immediately had to have poppy seed ice cream! Since I couldn’t hop on a plane, I developed my own no-churn version of the beguiling flavor.
I am working on an updated version of this recipe for an ice cream maker that will appear in my next cookbook, The Dessert Table. But if you want quick, low-fuss, insanely yummy ice cream right now, this recipe delivers. The newsletter also shares info about poppy seeds, which have been cultivated for thousands of years, and explains their importance to Ashkenazi Jewish baking.
Crunchy Mushroom Reuben
I definitely did not make up the concept of a vegetarian reuben, but this version—which fries up strips of breadcrumb-encrusted portobellos and layers them with sauerkraut, cheese, and Russian dressing between slices of rye bread (or your favorite gluten-free bread)—makes a stellar vegetarian deli sandwich.
Miso Mushroom Barley Soup
This nourishing soup was the first recipe I shared in 2023, and I have made it several times since. It takes all the savory, comforting goodness of classic mushroom barley soup and amps up the umami factor with a couple of spoonfuls of white miso. As I wrote last January, “it tastes like a hug in a bowl and is just right for these slow and simple first days of the New Year.”
The newsletter also shares a meditation on writing an appreciation letter to your body (a practice worth repeating every year!), and gets into the history of barley-based soups, called krupnik, in Ashkenazi cuisine.
Wintry Fig and Lemon Granola
I have made a million granola recipes over the years, but this one stands above the rest. The mix of sunny lemon zest and jammy figs amidst the oats and nuts is a knockout. And the addition of a little flour (all-purpose, whole-wheat, or gluten free!) to the mixture gives the granola those deliciously crave-able crispy clusters.
Guatemalan Chicken Tagine
Guatemala’s Jewish community is very small (only about 1,000 people), but tightly knit. This newsletter shares their history and highlights the unique Adat Israel synagogue community, which was founded by a group of Guatemalans who converted to Judaism. The savory chicken tagine recipe, which was shared with me by a community member named Augusto de León, comes packed with pimento-stuffed olives, tomatoes, cilantro, and turmeric. It is one of my favorite things I made and ate all year!
1937 New Year's Poem
By: May Sarton
The earth feels old tonight
And we who live and stand on the cold rim
Face a new year.
It is raining everywhere
As if the rain were mercy,
As if the rain were peace,
Peace falling on our hair.
Open your hearts tonight, let them burn!
Let them light a way in the dark.
Let them one by one affirm there is hope for a staff:
I say it will flower in our hands,
We shall go garlanded.
There is the fine fresh stuff of faith for a coat:
We shall go warm.
We shall go on by the light of our hearts.
We shall burn mightily in the new year.
We shall go on together.
O you who stand alone on the rim of the earth and are cold,
I salute you here!
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recipes + stories from the world of jewish food, by leah koenig
Happy New Year, Leah, may 2024 be a blessed one for you and your family. Lovely poem, great recipes!
Great & lovely poem! Thank you for sharring, Leah!