Monday, June 5th 2023   |

Food

With his New York restaurant Shmoné, Israeli chef Eyal Shani earns his first Michelin nod

By RISA DOHERTY

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani, who currently boasts 40 restaurants worldwide, became a sensation on these shores when he opened Miznon in 2018 at Chelsea Market. There, he introduced New Yorkers to a new style of Mediterranean street food that eclipsed the usual falafel, hummus and shawarma offerings. Locals and tourists alike lined up to devour Shani’s smashed potatoes, inventive...

He’Brew maker Shmaltz Brewing relaunches with new owner: a rabbinical student

By ANDREW LAPIN

(JTA) — It seemed like the last keg had been tapped for Shmaltz Brewing Company, until a rabbi-in-training stepped in for a Jewish renewal project.

The Jewish craft beer label, best known for its He’Brew: The Chosen Beer line of drinks, shut down last year after 25 years when its founder, Jeremy Cowan, said he wanted to focus on his other businesses. But now it’s been sold...

Trader Joe’s drops the ‘Israeli’ for its pearl couscous, citing change in supply chain

By ANDREW LAPIN

(JTA) – Couscous lovers who frequent the grocery store Trader Joe’s may have noticed a change in the grain aisle: The chain’s brightly colored purple boxes of “Israeli Couscous” are now simply known as “Pearl Couscous.”

The Nosher, a sister website to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, first reported the label change after word of it spread on the popular Facebook group Kosher Trader Joe’s.

The move raised...

The Impossible Dream: A Kosher Muffaletta

By ALAN SMASON, Special to the CCJN

For people living in New Orleans or visitors to the city, an Italian specialty, the muffaletta – a sandwich composed of various processed meats, cheese and olive salad layered upon a huge round loaf of sesame seeded Italian bread – has been both a staple for locals and a much ballyhooed treat to be sampled by tourists.

While kosher olive salads consisting of...

At University of Chicago’s 75th Latke-Hamantash Debate, a little bit of history and a lot of ‘noshalogical’ theories

By STEPHEN SILVER

(JTA) — Since its founding in 1890, the University of Chicago has been a hub of scholarship and rigorous debate on numerous contentious subjects, from economics to law to science. But since 1946, the school has also hosted a debate on another long-running disagreement: whether latkes or hamantaschen are the superior Jewish holiday food. 

Participants in the debate, hosted by the university’s Hillel chapter, have over the...

Meet the Jewish mustard maven who founded a museum for his favorite condiment

By RACHEL ROMÁN

(JTA) — The 16th-century kabbalist Moshe Cordovero and the Jewish philosopher Nachmanides both compared the universe to the size of a mustard seed. The biblical commentator Rashi – who lived 100 miles from Dijon, France – believed that Abraham served tongue with mustard to the three angels who visit him in the 18th chapter of Genesis.

Long before there were Jewish delis, mustard apparently was important to...

This Jewish family has been making honey wine for 150 years

By STACI PFEFFER

(JTA via Kveller) – Rachel Lipman cares deeply about preserving her Jewish family’s fifth-generation winemaking business, Loew Vineyards, but the 28-year-old is keeping an eye on the future, too. As one of the youngest winemakers in Maryland — if not the youngest — she’s pushing through boundaries in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

But that’s not all. Lipman is also educating customers about her family’s extraordinary legacy of...

Jewish motorcyclist to arrive here tomorrow on ‘Deli Schlepp’

By ALAN SMASON, Special to the CCJN

He may not be Peter Fonda or Dennis Hopper, but Steve Goode is advancing towards New Orleans on his motorcycle as part of his self-guided “Great American Deli Schlepp” tomorrow, Saturday, July 3 at 11:30 a.m. at Stein’s Deli, 2207 Magazine Street.

The Chicago area native is using the 16,000 mile motorcycle trek to 42 delicatessens across a variety of states to call...

Is Bonne Maman an anti-Nazi jam? The internet wants to think so.

(JTA) — The heartwarming story has been hard to miss: A law professor is shopping at his local grocery store when sees an elderly woman struggling to get her favorite jam from a high shelf. Why is it her favorite? “I am a Holocaust survivor,” she says. “During the war, the family that owns the company hid my family in Paris.”

Tens of thousands of people — at least — have shared the...

With fusion Emirati-Jewish dishes, a kosher chef blossoms in Dubai

By ASMA ALI ZAIN 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (JTA) — Last year, Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a treaty establishing diplomatic relations. But for more than a year earlier, diners in the UAE had already been finding their way to Jewish culture — via the home cooking of a South African expatriate.

Elli Kriel, a sociologist by training who moved here in 2013 when her husband was transferred...