On Traif

So a friend graciously pointed out that there is a problem with the glossary. She told me that traif, which means not-kosher, is a noun. Not an adjective. In my heart of hearts I knew that, but I guess I'd wanted to simplify things by saying it was only one or the other. Urban Dictionary calls it a noun; it's only right to go with a source that has not one but two definitions for Designated Texter. Who knew? Frankly, where I teach, all students are "designated texters."

That said, I'd also like to add that traif can be used as a verb.

I.e., "If you rub pork on my counter, you'll traif up my kitchen!"

Food-related grammatical mistakes: No. 1

West Berlin, June 26, 1963. The Berlin Wall's been up for less than 12 months. JFK's opportunity to inspire the West - and make up for that whole Bay of Pigs thing.

"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
Ich bin ein Berliner!"

Translation: I am a jelly donut.

Who knew that JFK was such a fan of sufganiyot? You'd think he'd have been totally put off of the Jews and kosher food by that whole rabbi's curse on the house of Kennedy.

Sufganiyot are delicious, so I guess he was willing to overlook it. Or maybe there was someone in the White House who bade him look the other way.

Berlin, by the way, is packed with ein berliner-themed souvenirs.
I brought home a million bumper stickers of jelly donuts saying, Ich bin ein berliner! They look like turds, and they get funnier with time.

Check out Eddie Izzard's hilarious take on this here.

Parve BBQ + delicious potato salad

A good friend of mine from college once told me that her grandmother made the world's best potato salad. Her secret? After frying up the bacon, she poured the grease from the pan INTO the salad - instead of pouring it down the drain or whatever it is bacon-eaters do to be rid of the stuff.

Amazing, no? Especially when used in addition to mayo?


Kind of stretches the definition of salad. But I hear it's delicious. *By the way, that's bacon, not an anchovy.

Anyway, the Barefoot Contessa has some great suggestions on how to make a non-mayo, non-baconified salad, which was apparently influenced by Julia Child. You can bring it to a totally kosher bbq, because the version below is parve (though Barefoot Contessa's is fleishich). I've modified it for taste, fatness, and budgetary constraints. If you prefer a more-tangy recipe, up the mustard and the white wine. Also, if you don't have champagne vinegar on hand, feel free to skip, and substitute lemon juice or more wine. By the way, this is a great way to use up any Tishbi or Baron Herzog you have lying around -- or to get rid of the bottle your mother-in-law brought over for Shabbos, because you'd rather drink (traif) Sancerre.

• A few pounds red potatos (the regular-sized ones are fine)
• 2 tbs Champagne vinegar
• 2 tbs vegetable stock - try Osem or any other brand
• 3 tbs dry white wine
• 2 tbs mustard
• Bunch of fresh dill
• Basil, if you have a fresh bunch on hand
• 10 tbs good olive oil
• one bunch scallions
• a couple handfuls snap peas

Boil the potatoes, but not within an inch of their life. Chop roughly. Toss with white wine and vegetable stock while the potatoes are still warm. Osem is not the most delicious, but it's way cheaper than Pacific or Imagine. And it comes in a powder form, so you don't have to worry about using up the quart left over from a recipe that calls for only two tablespoons of stock.

Mix the remaining wet ingredients as you would any dressing; pour over the potatoes. Chop up the scallions, snap peas (these are delicious raw), dill, and basil, if you have it. Add salt and pepper to taste.

OMG, I can't stop with the ghee

Ghee is clarified butter, and it is fundamental to delicious Indian food. It gives everything - rice, veggies, whatever - the aromatic smell and flavor that you get walking into an Indian restaurant. It's available in cow-based (traif) and veggie versions, though the vegetarian stuff doesn't have a hekscher - at least not at Kalustyans, where I do my Indian shopping. I have a good friend in India, a journalist, so for those of you who won't cook without a heksher - or who are interested in preparing the ultimate loophole-busting dish (chicken tikka masala!) for your most observant friends - stay tuned for what she turns up about kosher ghee.

In the meantime, a delicious recipe adapted from Heaven's Banquet,

4 tbs ghee OR ANY NEUTRAL OIL - like canola oil (if this needs to be hekshered)
2 tbs fresh ginger, fresh
2 tsp cumin
1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into cubes
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
salt
2 tsp turmeric
4 chopped tomatoes
2 cans (16 oz each) chickpeas
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

In a saucepan, heat the ghee, then add the ginger and cumin. Add the tomatoes, then the eggplant and potatoes. Saute for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the salt and turmeric. Cook for anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours - depending on the size of the cubed potatoes, which take awhile to cook. I'm pretty lazy about this (more of a rough chopper than a fine dicer), but this dish is really delicious the longer it cooks, so that the eggplant almost caramelizes. Even people who hate eggplant will enjoy.
Before you serve, add the chickpeas and clinatro. Serve with yogurt.

Why Ashkenazis hate Sephardim

Just returned from Being Jewish in France, which debuted in the U.S. back in January as part of the Jewish Film Festival but was so popular it's having a New York reprise. Directed by Yves Jeuland (not a fake name, though the similarity of Jeu and Juif/Jew is pleasing), the film tours French anti-Semitism from the Dreyfus Affair to the contemporary Jew-hating going on in the bainlieues. (Which, by the way, I witnessed firsthand back in 2003, when I was studying in Paris - but that's another story, for another post.)

The upshot? Jews are the canary in the goldmine of democracy. When things start to go south, in a democratic sense, the Jews get it. So I guess we're screwed.

The film also touched - briefly - on the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardic cooking. The Ashkenazis, declares one (Ashkenazi) woman, have so few recipes they can barely fill a book: gefilte fish, kneidlach (called kreplach in our house, i.e., they taste like krep/crap), and dried fruit. I would add to that list tuna casserole, which I think that I mentioned previously my mother used to threaten us with, and also carrot tzimmis, the smell of which I considered my own private nightmare. Also, how could I forget? Cholent, derma, and marrow -- the latter one eats by poking out the meat from the vertebrae and then smearing it onto challah.


Really, we are gourmands.

Sephardics, by contrast - these people eat merguez sausage, they use cumin, chili peppers. No wonder the Ashkenazis hate them. Yekkes are biologically incapable of digesting this stuff.

Shalom Bombay, + kosher restaurants tend to suck

So last night we went to Shalom Bombay, the new fleishik (meat) Indian restaurant in Teaneck. Jews and vegetarian Indian food is already a documented thing , and a number of milchik Indian restaurants exist. (The history of the Jews in India's a long thing; supposedly one of the lost tribes shipwrecked there; Sadia Shephard's recent documentary deals with it in a pretty touching way.) But Teaneck's Shalom Bombay, which opened a few months ago, is the first kosher Indian fleishik place I've ever heard of.

The food was decent, although, to be honest, it didn't compare to nonkosher Indian food (meat and vegetarian) that I've had. The mixed kebab appetizer was probably the best of the meats we tried. The lamb rogan josh, chicken vindaloo, chicken jalfrezi, spinach chicken, and chicken tikka masala ranged from OK to ehh, and generally not spicy enough.

Still, it's exciting that this stuff exists, especially under such strict kosher supervision -- that even the most Orthodox among us are making use of those soy and nondairy products developed for vegans and the lactose-intolerant. And why not? Why, if we have the ability to make it, should anyone miss out on beef stroganoff (for the uninitiated, that's beef and sour cream) or chicken tikka masala -- the latter which, according to the Independent, has apparently been upseated by Peking duck as the U.K. national dish. Martin Hickman writes:

In a poll, 83 per cent of adults liked eating tangy Chinese, ahead of the 71 per cent who favoured highly-spiced Indian food. When eating out, Britons also prefer Peking duck to a lamb balti – almost a third of people have visited a Chinese restaurant in the past 12 months compared with 30 per cent who have been to a curry house.

Whatever, they just like the taste of former colonies. To wit: "more than a third reckoned their curries tasted just as good as a takeaway." Typically imperialist.

But Shalom Bombay still falls prey to the typical letdowns of most kosher restaurants. The waitstaff was rude, service was terrible, the decor hideous - and not in that way that's intentionally over the top, like Panna II Garden, the BYOB Indian place on the corner of 1st Avenue that's covered in contact paper and chili lights, that in spite of the name has no outdoor space, and that specializes in people's "birthdays."

The quality of the lamb was pretty sub-par -- very fatty. The restaurant was also terribly loud. In spite of the prices ($20 for an entree), it was more Mr. Broadway than Tabla, Floyd Cardoz's so-called New Indian venture, which operates at the same price-point. (To be fair, because it isn't serving kosher meat, its overhead is much lower; though the rent it must pay for its Union Square location has got to be a lot more than whatever Shalom Bombay pays in Teaneck).

So what's the deal? We love eating - have a reputation for it. But our restaurants, at least in the States, and even in and around New York, pretty much suck . I don't get it.