The Katamon Kitchen

Wishing you all a beautiful 5784 filled with health, bracha, simcha, clarity, peace, and of course lots delicious food!!
Like the many seeds of a pomegranate may we be blessed with all of these wonderful things in abundance!
I hope all of your tfillot be answered l’tova and may you be able to see them as tova.
Shana Tova and Ktiva v’chatima Tova! .
#שנהטובה

Pesach is a very special time. It is a time rich with tradition. It is a time filled with delicious food. It is a time to literally clean our homes and spiritually clean our souls. Most importantly it is a time to spend with family.

Every year I get to make my Bubby’s sponge cake in her tube pan that is over 60 years old and we use her hand written recipe. Her 29th yartziet was, י״ג ניסן (erev erev Pesach). She passed away when I was four years old so I do not really have any memories of her. But I do have my siblings, parents, and cousins to tell me stories about her and I have her recipes to connect with her. Tonight, כ׳ ניסן is my Zaidie’s 19th yartzeit. I was very close to my Zaidie, I always thought I had a special connection with him as I am his youngest grandchild. Every Pesach my Zaidie and I would make charoset together. He would cut the apple right in his hand not on a board and place the quarter apples in a solid wood bowl. We always had to ask my mother for another apple or two because my Zaidie and I would eat most of the apple before it made it into the bowl. We would hold the chopper (which belonged to my Bubby) together, breaking up the nuts and apples and mixing it with the wine and spices. I remember that we would keep tasting it until we got the seasoning just right and then sneak a few more bites in before we put it away for the Seder. The sponge cake and the charoset are not about the actual dish, it is about what they represent; my connection to my grandparents, my way to remember them and honor their memory.

We are constantly moving, attached to our phones and not really enjoying the things around us and those that we are with. Let us make this Pesach a time to stop and enjoy where we are, to hug those that we are close to, to listen to and appreciate one another, and to just be thankful for the life that we are fortunate to have.

Chag Kasher V’Sameach! Enjoy it

Today we celebrate 55 years of a reunified Jerusalem and I’m doing so by enjoying a dish that’s very popular in this holy city.
Sabich is served in a pita but I made a sabich plate with a big swoosh of creamy chummus as the base, topped with fried eggplant, fresh Israeli salad, amba spiced cauliflower, plenty of techina, a big handful of fresh herbs, sliced pickles, and a soft boiled egg instead of a the usual hard boiled. Some claim that the name for sabich is named after an Iraqi Jew who was the owner of the first sabich stand in Tel Aviv others say that it’s an acronym for the hebrew words salat (salad), beitsa (egg), yoteir chatzil (more eggplant). Regardless of its origin or what city it comes from, enjoying this tasty dish is a great way to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim.
My great grandmother, who I am named for was born in Jerusalem in 1897. She raised 3 children in Jerusalem in the 1920s, before the State of Israel was established. When I walk by the house that she raised my grandfather in, that stands just outside the shuk, I think about how lucky I am to live here in Yerushalayim freely and safely. It’s the city she lived in and that so many have dreamed of coming to and it’s the city I’m privileged to call home. Yom Yerushalayim Sameach!