Marlena Spieler wrote that she carried her signature green and white polkadot handbag “to most corners of the world.” (Roving Feast, Substack)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It was basically a small shtetl transplanted to San Francisco, with delis redolent of pickle barrels, bookshops that sold holy books and ritual items, shops full of used furniture and junk, and my favorite: the Ukraine Bakery, where we bought poppyseed studded Kaiser rolls, the air smelled heavenly of baked goods, and where flour-dusted women would grab me and kiss me, pinch my cheeks and stuff cookies into my hands and pockets when I went out and about with Papa.<\/p>\n
If that reads like the memory of a future food writer with a deep love of place, that is exactly what it is. Spieler wrote the Roving Feast recipe column for the San Francisco Chronicle from 2000 to 2010 and wrote or contributed to over 70 cookbooks during her career, including \u201cThe Jewish Heritage Cookbook\u201d (2001) and \u201cThe Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking\u201d (2011).<\/p>\n
\u201cShe would travel the world and bring back wonderful tales of food and adventure, and relate them all to what we were all eating and feeling here in Northern California,\u201d Miriam Morgan, former food editor at the Chronicle, told the newspaper. \u201cHer recipes sparkled with life and were incredibly popular with readers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spieler died July 6 at her home outside of London. She was 74. News of her death led to an outpouring on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was one of the people who opened my eyes to the excitement of food, flavor and cultures, ultimately leading me to a career in food and drink,\u201d wrote Jo Aspin, a step-niece and a marketing consultant for restaurants. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think of her, it\u2019s her sharing something delicious and giggling and laughing,\u201d wrote Steve Sando, founder of Rancho Gordo, the specialty bean business. \u201cI think her non-seriousness was off-putting to certain pedantic types. I think many people loved reading her columns, and the world has been better off with her in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spieler won numerous awards and was lauded both in California, where she was born and grew up, and in England, where she moved around 1990 and where she met her husband, Alan McLaughlan. She earned a James Beard Award in 1992 for \u201cFrom Pantry to Table: Creative Cooking from the Well-Stocked Kitchen,\u201d and was twice the recipient of the Guild of Food Writers Award, a top prize in the U.K. She won the International Cookbook Award for her 2000 book \u201cFeeding Friends.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 2007, she wrote another book titled \u201cYummy Potatoes\u201d; the next year she was invited as an ambassador to the United Nations\u2019 International Year of the Potato conference in Peru. <\/p>\n
She also worked as a caterer and book illustrator and contributed to her Substack newsletter until shortly before she passed away. <\/p>\n
Spieler was born in Sacramento on April 16, 1949. She wrote that her grandparents\u2019 generation were mostly Yiddish speakers who \u201cfled terrible things\u201d in Europe. Her grandfather\u2019s second wife was from a family active in the Jewish community in Harbin, China.<\/p>\n
Spieler attended California College of the Arts, then in Oakland. She lived in Israel for a year and was working as an artist in Greece when a publisher noticed the recipes she had included with her drawings of food. The subsequent book of recipes (minus the drawings) launched her career as a food writer, broadcaster and columnist.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Spieler lost her sense of smell and taste after suffering from a head injury in a car accident. She described her halting recovery in a New York Times essay, remembering the taste of \u201ca sardine sandwich at Brooklyn\u2019s Saltie [that] made me nearly cry with pleasure, as did the ripe peach I ate as I walked down the street.\u201d A friend remarked, \u201cEven damaged no one appreciates flavor the way you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking,\u201d Spieler traced the history of a British staple \u2014 fish and chips \u2014 to its roots in London\u2019s Jewish East End, and before that to the first Sephardic Jews to come back to England after the Jews\u2019 expulsion in the 13th century. <\/p>\n
The book also includes recipes from Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, India and Latin America. Spieler celebrated such culinary diversity in a recent column about Passover, writing, \u201cPesach is a holiday in which Jews from all over the world\u2026 bring their own traditions to the table. To me it says: we are all different, and yet we are all one.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is survived by her husband Alan, a daughter, grandson and step-daughter.<\/p>\n
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