It does taste better with friends!

So tonight will be my shortest entry to date as i’m pretty tired, cooking for about 30 hours in a 4×4 (feet, not metres) kitchen will do that! My attempt at a full-blown Rosh Hashanah meal for 8 people turned out pretty well, although there were a few hiccups along the way, namely some unevenly cooked matzoh balls and a roast that had to be coaxed along, but you learn and move on, right?

The dish I was most proud of was the honey cake…turned out great, I just have to buy a cake pan and not use a loaf pan that didn’t cook it quite as evenly as I would have liked.

Recipes and comments to follow during the week, including hopefully a guest appearance recipe for some delicious garlic mashed potatoes!

2 final thoughts

“How did my grandmothers (and my mother nowadays) make it look so easy?”

Thanks to my new Vancouver friends (and old London friend) for allowing me to cook for them this evening.

Say it with me…Challah

Although my plan is to cook/bake everything for my Rosh Hashanah dinner, I haven’t yet tackled the art of baking bread and I wouldn’t subject my friends to my first attempt!

So another traditional Jewish food is a sweet bread called Challah (pronounced Hallah, well, not quite how it’s pronounced, but for simplicity we’ll use this pronounciation) or sometimes referred to as egg bread. I’ll ask you to visualize while looking at the picture, the dough has initially been rolled out individually into long rolls then braided toegther before being baked. For Rosh Hashanah, the challah is typically round which signifies the cyclical nature of the year and how life is on-going. Like the apples with honey that I mentioned earlier, the sweet bread is symbolic to the sweet year that lies ahead and to really drive the point home, the bread is also eaten with honey for some extra sweetness!

So still learning my way around Vancouver, I did what anyone would do and did a google search for “Jewish bakeries in Vancouver” and I came across Sabras Kosher Bakery at 3844 Oak Street.  I gave them a quick call at (604) 733-4912 and placed my order for 2 challah’s, one with raisins (which is delicious un-toasted, toasted, with butter, with jam, with anything!) and the other with chocolate chips (which i’ve never had, but sweet bread with chocolate chips, come on!) Each was is $7.00, not a bad deal, it’s a huge loaf of bread!

My advice to you in Vancouver, Montreal, London or wherever you are nowadays, stop inside your local bakery and ask if they are baking challah bread (or egg bread) since it’s that time of year and treat yourself  to something different and definitely delicious!

Apples with Honey…Give it a shot!

So I’m thinking of trying my hand at cooking a full-0ut dinner this weekend for some friends to introduce them to Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and I’m beyond excited at the prospect of having apples with honey (among other dishes, which I will tell you about during the week). 

So simple, but it’s something you have to try, simply cut up some Granny Smith or some McIntonsh apples and pour yourself a little bowl of honey for dipping and go nuts! Mmmm, something about the sweetness of the honey with the tart taste of the apple, you’ll be wondering where this has been your whole life!

For the curious mind…the sweet honey represents the sweet year that people wish upon each other to begin a new year. On that sweet note, enjoy!