Flori Cooks

So, my brother called while I was on the way to the farmers market and asked if I thought he could use red snapper in a recipe that called for skate. The conversation wandered to the Bittman recipe for broiled asparagus with Parmesan and bread crumbs that he was going to make to go with it. Well, I went straight to Zuckerman’s and bought a beautiful bunch of fat purple asparagus.

I came home and put together a batch of brownies to take to work tomorrow and made a quick dinner. Riffing on the asparagus recipe I added a couple of quick soft-yolked eggs and I was good to go.

Technically not. I’ve been making carrot kugel for years.

My friend Deb was having a BBQ and when I asked what she wanted me to make she gave what I thought was the unlikeliest answer for a Scandinavian Goddess. She knew it was out of the blue too. “I don’t know why, but would you make noodle kugel?”

OK. Out came the cookbooks: from the very old standby Love and Knishes to the pretty new and truly fabulous Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden. Now, I don’t necessarily see recipes and more than a starting point even the first time, so I read through many and came up with my own hybrid. Lokshen kugel mitt Eppel (noodle pudding with apple)

As it turned out I was the only Jew in crowd. The food ranged from what you would expect at any good backyard party to fabulous homemade tamales (I’m a sucker for a good tamal) to that oddball kugel. Well, guess what one of the standouts in food conversation was? It engendered a great conversation and I had a ball holding forth about Jewish food, the diaspora and how our food culture has been influenced by all the places we’ve wanered as a people.

And Deb got to have the last bit of leftover for breakfast the next day!

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, treif is a food that is not kosher. For the last dinner of my trip to Washington last week I hit win, place and show at the Pearl Dive Oyster Palace! Well, it’s right there in the name: oysters! With a fabulous selection from up and down the east coast as well as some lovelies from the Northwest I was hard pressed to choose and so let my server make her suggestions. While I waited with my glass of Domaine de la quilla muscadet (grown on soil heavy with oyster shells) I played with the deck of oyster trivial cards and nibbled a wonderful salty, buttery dinner roll (recipe from he chef’s grandmother).

She was spot on and brought me two each of Paradise Coves (British Columbia), Battle Creeks (Virginia) and Salt Ponds (Rhode Island) along with two of their signature sauces (dive juice: cane sugar vinegar with jalapeno and cilantro and yuzu / mirin). I followed this with the special salad of the week which filled out the other two spots on my betting card: spinach salad with chewy, meaty lardons and fried oysters with a bit of cream in the dressing. SCORE! OK, we can go home now.