Food made with love always tastes better. To celebrate Mother’s Day, here are some food memories and recipes that are perfect for Mother’s Day.
Rachel Narins’ mother grew up across the street from a meat market in Pittsburgh. “She grew up on a steady diet of rich German-influenced food, local specialties, and lots of pies,” says the trained chef and cookbook author. Narins, who is also a cooking speaker, told the Journal.
When Nalins’ mother fled the city, she visited relatives who had farms in the countryside and ate fresh vegetables, nuts, and even pie. “She was never much of a baker, and neither was I. But sometimes we’d get ambitious and we’d put on aprons and bake her great-grandmother’s grape pie, laughing the whole time.” ,” Nalins said. “It’s a dark purple mess and really fun to eat.”
Since I’ve never seen it on a menu, Nalins considers this “grape jelly tart” to be the ultimate home-baked treat. “It’s easy to make if you look for really ripe Concord grapes with slip skins,” she said. “Right now, when I find Kyoho grapes, I like to make them using them.”
“I don’t recommend making this with local muscadine grapes,” said Nalins, who is based in Los Angeles and whose mother happily retired to Florida.
grape pie
Use your favorite all-butter pie crust for this deep-dish pie.
About stuffing:
10 cups large, seasonal Concord grapes
Add 2 teaspoons to 1 cup of water
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Milk, for glazing
Divide the pie dough into two and roll out. He wraps up one disk of dough and stores it in the refrigerator for later use. Line the bottom of a 10-inch metal deep-dish pie pan with the other disk of dough, cover, and store in the refrigerator while you make the filling.
Separate the skin and pulp of the grapes. Discard the skin.
Add 1 cup of water and white sugar to a saucepan over medium-low heat and gently simmer the grape pulp for about 20 minutes. Mash, stirring frequently to avoid sticking or burning.
While still warm, strain the grape pulp and remove the seeds. Let cool.
Mix the remaining 1/4 cup water and cornstarch to form a slurry and add it to the cooled grapes along with the lemon juice.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Fill the puff pastry with grapes, then cover with a second piece of pastry and crimp the edges. Poke several times with a fork to release gas.
Brush milk over the top.
Place the pie on a baking sheet and place it on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
Let cool completely before eating.
Lulu Fairman’s mother, Seema Levi, was born and raised in Calcutta, India, and loved to cook.
“She was never an active person, but she showed her love for my brother and me by cooking for us Sephardic Jewish dishes typical of Indian kitchens.” Fairman, chairman of ChaiVillageLA’s Caring Connections, told this newspaper. “Until a year ago, her mother, now 98 and having to move into a nursing home, lovingly cooked meals for her brother and me when we visited. It was nostalgic.”
Fairman is passing on the recipe, but said it’s not the same as her cooking. “This is a little tribute to her on Mother’s Day,” she said.
Hari kabab
(Indian spice chicken and potatoes)
1 whole chicken
2 teaspoons fresh ginger (chopped)
2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
3 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
bay leaf couple
1/2 cup vegetable or corn oil
12 small potatoes
3 cups of water
Cut the whole chicken into 8 equal pieces. Remove fat and loose skin. Wash thoroughly with cold water. (Add salt to taste if you like. She never cooked with salt!)
In a small bowl, combine ginger, garlic, turmeric, and garam masala. Set aside. Note: If desired, you can use ground spices in place of ginger and garlic. Just use about half the amount.
Whisk half of the spice mix into the chicken. Mix well and marinate for about 1 hour. (You can also make it the night before. I’ve also made it last minute without marinating.)
Peel the potatoes, wash them and soak them in a pot of water with salt (to taste) for an hour. (I poke holes in the potatoes with a fork.)
Add the remaining spice mix and bay leaf and bring the water to a boil. Maintains moderate heat. Continue cooking until potatoes are tender. Approximately 15-20 minutes. Carefully remove the potatoes and transfer to another plate.
Add the chicken to the pot with the potato gravy and stir well. Brown the chicken over medium heat. Add a small amount of water to the chicken and simmer over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes.
Return potatoes to pot with chicken. Stir gently and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes or until chicken and potatoes are cooked through. Stir and turn occasionally to brown. Eventually the water should evaporate and everything should be absorbed by the potatoes, chicken, and spices. Remove bay leaves before serving.
Serve with island rice with peas (cooked with turmeric, bay leaves, cardamom pods and a few cloves) and a Jewish salad. Cut the cucumber, celery, red pepper, tomato, and baby carrot into small pieces. Chop the coriander and parsley and mix everything together. Add fresh lemon juice and a little salt.
“I love my mom’s cooking. I know I probably don’t have to say it out loud, but I would love it if she read it.” – Jeff Freimer
“I “I’m an aspiring chef, but more importantly, I’m the son of a mother who is a chef, but I’m not the traditional restaurant manager kind of person,” Jeff Frymer told the Journal. “My mother Madeleine prepares meals that are not only nutritious (her mother’s top priority), but also delicious,” he added. “I love her mother’s cooking. She may not have to say it outright, but she would be happy if she read it.” 
Jeff Frymer is a full-time certified marriage and family therapist, certified inner bonding facility, and part-time chef for family, friends, and occasional soirees and exotic catamaran adventures. .
As a preteen or teenager, Frymer remembers feeling guilty when her friends would comment on her mother’s cooking, asking, “Is this how you always eat it?” He usually replies, “Yeah,” or nods to the side in agreement. “At dinner, I always had salad, soup, meat, chicken, fish, and vegetables. Appetizers and dessert were rare,” he said. “And if you hear my description and think, “It’s very European,” you’re right.
His family is a blend of Eastern European, French, and Sephardic (Turkish) traditions. “There’s a lot of alchemy in my family’s culinary magic, and I try to carry that apron with me. With the exception of my mom’s chicken soup, I carry an apron with me quite a bit,” Freimer says. said. “I take great pride in my bouillon-making abilities, imitating and reenacting every motion of shaking salt, skimming fat off a chicken in a boiling pot, and standing on my mother’s shoulders. I tried to imitate it.
“I’m as close to it as I’ve ever been, but again, I’m no slouch. My dear wife tells me, ‘You’re not as good as your mom,'” he says. “And I humbly have to agree.”
Chef Jeff’s Mom’s Chicken Soup
1 chicken with internal organs (liver, kidneys, etc.) removed and trimmed, or 3 chickens of the same size with just the back, neck, and splits.
1 whole green onion, thoroughly washed and coarsely chopped
1 large yellow onion, peeled and quartered
2 large carrots (peeled, cut and sliced)
1 medium parsnip, peeled, trimmed and quartered
1 medium turnip (peeled, cut and quartered)
1 medium tomato (cut into quarters)
2 leaves of celery (small, soft inside)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 heaped teaspoon of salt (optional)
“Sometimes we add lamb shanks, beef bones, parsley, coriander and radish,” my mother says. I think this is what I mean by “you can’t go wrong.” Ah, now that takes the pressure off.
Add ingredients (vegetables first, then chicken) to a large 8-quart stockpot. Fill with water to about 1 inch from the top. Once it boils, cover and simmer for 2-3 hours. Depending on how full the pot is and how high the simmer is, you may need to leave it uncovered at first or leave some space to prevent it from boiling over. Remove the foamy scum on the surface as needed (2-3 times) and you’re done.
Let the soup cool enough to safely handle it (fill it with ice water in the sink to cool it down quickly), then strain and set aside any cooked vegetables, chicken, bones, etc. Once cool enough, store everything in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, there is a thin layer of hardened fat (schmaltz) on top of the broth, which is removed, leaving only a golden-brown soup. Carefully separate the pureed vegetables and chicken from the bone pieces and add them back to the broth, make a chicken salad, or use them to make a completely different soup. You are now ready to reheat the chicken soup and adjust the saltiness. You can also serve it with noodles, matzah balls, potatoes, kreplach, leftover vegetables or chicken.
So even if you follow your mother’s recipe perfectly, it will never be as delicious as hers. I will always be missing an important element that I cannot add more to: my mother’s love.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom!
