Four Cookbooks and a Dinosaur: A Hanukkah Newsletter
Plus recipes for Pull-Apart Sufganiyot Cake and Kohlrabi and Carrot Fritters
Shalom from Israel,
Did you know there's a city that celebrates Hanukkah 365 days a year? Welcome to Modi'in, where I live, where our city symbol is literally a menorah and our main street - Hasmonean Boulevard - hosts the world's only Hasmonean museum. Turns out when you live where the whole Hanukkah story began, you really lean into the brand.
See, Modi'in is where Mattathias, a Jewish priest, kicked off the Maccabean revolt by refusing to worship Greek gods and doing what any reasonable person would do in that situation - starting a guerrilla war against one of the most powerful empires in history. These days, we're less about guerrilla warfare and more about being a comfortable bedroom community between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
I have to admit, telling you that I live in the birthplace of Hanukkah feels a bit like a humble brag - especially when I'm lighting my menorah with a view of the ancient Modi'in hills where it all began. While I can't claim this ancient connection influenced our decision to move here (the perfect location between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem might have had something to do with it), there's something pretty special about making latkes in the same place where the Maccabees once made theirs.1
This historic connection between the land and the people is what drew me to Israel in the first place. As Mark Twain noted in his travelogue of the Holy Land, "no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own." While Twain found this exhausting, as a Jew, I find it exhilarating and it’s what keeps me connected to the land and people of Israel. Every time I light the Hanukkah candles here, I'm not just celebrating a holiday - I'm part of a story that's been unfolding on these hills for thousands of years.
Four Cookbooks Worth Their Weight in Olive Oil
I’m sure you’ve been inundated with endless gift guides already this month, so I’ll spare you and briefly share with you four Jewish cookbooks whose pages are earning their accidental oil stains of good use. Two of which have been published this past year.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Let's start with what I consider the crown jewel of Jewish cookbooks: Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. If you're only going to own one book about Jewish cooking, this is it. It's part anthropology, part history, and part recipe collection. With over 800 recipes, every time I open this book, I find something new to learn, cook, or contemplate and much like Jewish history itself, it's a journey filled with fantastic food and occasional existential terror.
THE ROMAN HOLIDAY
Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen by Leah Koenig is a deep dive into the oldest continuous Jewish community in Europe - Rome's Jewish Quarter. This cookbook is an immersive experience, as we follow her from restaurants to home kitchens, collecting stories and recipes from Roman, Sephardi, and Libyan Jewish cooks along the way.
These aren’t recipes with over the top flavor profiles; there’s no culinary gymnastics or super rare ingredients. These are recipes that when you take one look at the ingredients, you can almost tell it’s going to taste. I find comfort in that. I can’t get enough of her recipe for Concia, silky marinated zucchini. A simple dish of grilled zucchini with the humble ingredients of olive oil, red vinegar, garlic, fresh mint and basil, it works equally as well as a side dish, a sandwich companion, or my personal favorite, straight from the fridge.
THE BREADMASTER
Uri Scheft's Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking is one of my go-to cookbooks for anything involving flour and yeast. Scheft is the owner of the Breads bakery chain in Israel and the United States and is single-handedly responsible for the Babka craze that took over New York just over ten years ago. His babka with brioche-like dough and nutella filling started a babka revolution whose influence resonates to this day. I swear by his challah recipe and his cross-pollination of babka and Yemenite kubaneh dough - it has truly changed my life. This cookbook also includes baked goods and breads from across the Israeli cultural spectrum.
THE NEW CLASSIC
Finally, The Jewish Holiday Table: A World of Recipes, Traditions & Stories to Celebrate All Year Long is like having a seasoned Jewish cook guiding you through the year. I'm completely obsessed with The Jewish Holiday Table: A World of Recipes, Traditions & Stories to Celebrate All Year Long, the first cookbook from the Jewish Food Society that just dropped in March 2024.
What makes this book truly special is how each recipe comes with a family's story of migration and adaptation. Dishes span from Ethiopia to Argentina, Hungary to India, and is a delicious reminder of the Jewish people’s culinary kaleidoscope. Whether you're a seasoned cook or just starting to explore Jewish cuisine, this book gets it right: it's not just about how to make the food, it's about understanding why these dishes matter and how they've kept Jewish families connected across continents and generations.
I’m sure any or all of these cookbooks will be wonderful holiday gifts for yourselves or your loved ones. And think of all the great dishes they can cook for you!
Big News from My Kitchen to Yours
Trading my cookbook reader hat for my recipe developer apron, I'm thrilled to share that my first recipe for The Nosher just dropped: a Pull-Apart Sufganiyot Cake that lets you feed a crowd without your home smelling like a falafel stand. Think of it as the lazy person's jelly donut (I mean that as a compliment). You can check out the full recipe here and watch me make it here:
Speaking of sharing Jewish food stories, I was also recently interviewed by Kenden Alfond over at Jewish Food Hero for a conversation that went way beyond just "what's your favorite thing to cook?" We dove into my personal story, what makes Israeli food markets unique, and the evolution of food in Israel. I also shared my recipe for kohlrabi and carrot fritters - because sometimes you need a break from regular latkes. You can read the full interview and snag the recipe here.
Beyond Dreidel: A Slightly Unhinged Hanukkah Playlist
And because no Jewish celebration is complete without the perfect soundtrack, I've spent the last decade curating what I call "Hanukkah Esoterica" - a 100-track playlist that ventures far beyond Adam Sandler territory. Think of it as the musical equivalent of that weird cousin who shows up to family events with fascinating but slightly concerning stories.
Since 2013, I've been scouring the weird corners of Spotify to bring you everything from klezmer punk to Hanukkah hip-hop. Some highlights include several tracks from Gods of Fire’s epic Hannuka Gone Metal, Sha Na Na’s The Rockin’ Dreidel Song, and Metronome’s indie pop love song Hanukkah Girl. This year, my ears have been blessed with the release of the epic story of Menorahsaurus Rex, a Jewish dinosaur, who is unspoken for, and cannot light the menorah due to his tiny arms.
Fair warning: while many tracks are kid-friendly, others might require you to explain to your children things you might not be prepared to explain to them yet. Listen here at your own risk. Much like reading the unedited version of biblical stories, parental discretion is advised.
Until next week,
Harry
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I’m well aware that the Maccabees didn’t make latkes given that potatoes wouldn't make it to this part of the world for another two millennia. But hey, I'm sure they would have loved them.
I had no idea klezmer punk was a thing and now I can’t wait to discover it. Thank you!
Thanks for such a hefty newsletter wirh so many goodies!