senior columnist
Rob Eshman
April 9, 2024
In January 2023, dozens of Joanne Nathan’s family and friends gather at her expansive Palm Springs home to cook for the renowned cookbook author and food journalist on her 80th birthday. did. A dozen or so of us worked around a central island stacked with produce, preparing dishes that aligned with the menu’s theme of Jewish Diaspora food.I made stuffed figs with chicken, onions and tamarind using a recipe I learned from a chef in Jerusalem. Moshe BassonJoan told me a long time ago to check it out when I was in town.
Nearby, Chez Panisse alumnus and author David Tanis was chopping fennel. glenn roberts, founder of the famous heirloom grain company Anson Mills, laced up his apron and washed the dishes. Former Spago pastry chef Shelley Yard arrived with a layered cake. Organizer Tara Lazar somehow orchestrated the ebb and flow of event staff while making phone calls to area restaurants she owns.
At that point I had known Joanne Nathan for over 20 years, and when I was assigned to interview her for her book in 2001, Israeli food today, It developed into a precious friendship. So it was no surprise to me that the woman best known for collecting recipes was really good at gathering friends.
her latest book, My life in recipes: food, family, memories, teeth It’s certainly about food, with 100 wide-ranging recipes. But more importantly, it poignantly reiterates what the food is. for: Bring joy, meaning, and strength to your family and friends.
“Who needs champagne?” cried Lazar.
Just then Jaune came in and looked around at the controlled chaos.
“This is exactly what I wanted,” she said.
At a time when Jewish life seems tenuous and confused, Joan’s memoir serves as a reminder that there is something enduring, powerful, and positive within our traditions and culture. I’ll give it to you. No matter how bleak the news, for centuries Jews have found respite in the way diverse communities come together and cook, keeping us grounded in uncertain times. Who would have thought that a cooking memoir would be the law we need right now?
Skylark became a profession
We all have Jewish food memories. Joan just happens to remember her well, look it up, and write about it. In the glossy pages of this memoir, she tells us through vivid color photographs and her clever recipes that she spent her childhood in New York and was always interested in food. I am. Her immigrant father’s German family’s sweet and sour carp, her assimilated mother’s whitefish salad and Parisian Pretzlach. Mangoes pickled in vanilla syrup while in Madagascar, a Jewish settlement.
“I realized that from my mother’s side of the family, I learned to love exploring the food world of New York,” Joan writes. ”
The expedition continued through the university and eventually reached Jerusalem. In 1971, Joan got a job working as foreign press secretary for Jerusalem’s charismatic mayor, Teddy Kollek.
Jerusalem was a graduate course studying Jewish food culture, and Joanne collected stories and recipes while exploring Jerusalem.
Eventually, Joan came up with the idea of a cookbook that would allow visitors to get to know the people of Jerusalem through recipes.
“We were doing this as a lark,” she writes, “and it became a profession for me.”
ambassador of jewish cuisine
taste of jerusalemCo-written with Judy Goldman, it was released in 1975 and was a hit. Joan’s profession led to classic works such as: jewish holiday dishes, american jewish food and king solomon’s table, not only helped to prepare the tables for generations of Jews, but also expanded our understanding of Jewish ethnicity and history.consider GarosaKula’s Jewish Carriage Setçao: A mash of dried fruit, nuts, spices, and sweet wine rolled into a ball, symbolizing the escape of the Sfaradic Jews from the Spanish Inquisition.
Though not mentioned in the Torah, charoset explains “more than any other food the wanderings of the Jewish people in the worldwide diaspora,” Joan writes.
This memoir reveals Joan’s energy, focus, and precision as a regular contributor. new york times In the food section, we research and write about recipes and the stories behind them.
I’ve seen it firsthand many times. One day last summer, Joanne and I walked into a Russian bakery in Los Angeles’ historically Jewish Fairfax neighborhood. Our first stop that afternoon was because Joan was worried that her search for the very spinach-stuffed Armenian pastry she remembered from the dinner party would be in vain. .
“That’s it!” Jaune pointed into the showcase with a twinkle in his eye.
That wasn’t it. Instead, it was a layered honey cake that Joan had also been researching for a long time.
She immediately asked the woman at the counter where she was from, if she was from Uzbekistan, and if she could come back and watch the baker make the cake.
“No,” said the woman.
“I’m a food journalist,” Joan said, explaining that most Jews think of honey cake as dry and uninspiring, but this one is similar to the Hungarian version. It’s soft, with a crumb and creamy layer that resembles a gingerbread cookie.
The woman’s resistance disappeared. “He’s not here now,” she said. “But it’s okay to come back.”
After a few weeks I new york times There was a story about Joan on the website. hungarian honey cake.
Recipes complicated by war
But some of those stories have become infinitely more difficult in the short time since Joan finished writing her memoir last year.
The optimistic post-1967 Israel that Joan first fell in love with has been shaken by the October 7 Hamas attack and tainted by Israel’s relentless response in the Gaza Strip.
“My heart is broken,” she said when I reached her by phone. “What else can I say? What happened to the Israelis, the Palestinians, is terrible.”
In 2018, Joan served as a consultant for a US State Department project to help Syrian, Afghan, Turkish, and Palestinian women start food businesses in Istanbul. She cooked with them, writing that they “shared each other’s humanity and built trust.”
Given the current climate where even hummus has become a social media rallying cry, it’s hard to imagine an event like this happening again anytime soon.
Later in the book, chef José Andrés appears. Andres, an old family friend, appears with a brown bowl of thick chicken soup when Joan’s husband returns home. Alan GarsonA prominent international lawyer has passed away from a rare disease. Later, during Allen’s shiva, Andres returns to Joan’s Washington, D.C., home, this time making him a comforting oxtail soup.
“I am grateful that this great, big-hearted man who is rushing to feed millions of people in crisis around the world helped me as just an everyday friend. I’ll never forget it,” Joan wrote.
Israel kills 7 aid workers A message from Andres’ charity World Central Kitchen on April 1 brought even more heartbreak and shock. The two are always in touch. “It destroyed him,” she said. “My heart broke for them and for him.”
The sadness of what is happening in Israel and the Jewish world today is my life in recipes More relevant, not less. Joan’s book makes clear that strength and survival come with tradition, food, and friends.
she sudden death of husband, is 74 years old and frames books. The two shared a life full of great food and adventure, but when Joan suddenly found herself stranded, it was up to three of her girlfriends to fill her kitchen with food. children, relatives, and friends. As she writes, her community “helped me slowly step out of myself and into the power of life.”
my life in recipes Turns out, it’s not really about the recipe, or just about the recipe. How her life with food helped Joan recover from grief, how her deep friendships she made in the world of food revived her spirit, and how her heritage This is the story of how a ritual and recipe brought her back to life.
They may just help us all return.
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