Cafe Liz

Sfenj, Moroccan donuts

Sfenj are marvelous in the way that only freshly baked yeast pastries know how. This modest dessert had top American chefs waxing poetic over the wonders of traditional foods, and understandably so.

Back story: Four well-known American chefs were at an army base in the Golan, whipping up dinner for a few hundred soldiers. Four well-known chefs and one Ruhama Ben-David, mother of 10, grandmother of 32 and great-grandmother of several. Eight of those children had already been born when she immigrated from Morocco at age 22 in 1963. In fact, that was one of the first things she told me, I imagine because she realizes how much things have changed. Maybe because she thinks about it often.

Nowadays, she’s an event caterer, and there she was on base, making industrial quantities of sfenj. When family gatherings can mean hundreds of people, cooking for an army isn’t much different, she noted. Continue reading Sfenj, Moroccan donuts …

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Saluf, traditional Yemenite flatbread

Walking through the Yemenite quarter one Friday morning, I passed an open window advertising fresh lahoh. What more of an invitation do I need? But there was no one there. Peering inside, I couldn’t even see any bread — none of the telltale bags of stacked lahoh or saluf, full of condensation that keeps the flatbreads moist and fresh as they cool. Across the street there was another sign in a window advertising lahoh. Eitan’s lahoh, it said. I’d passed [...]

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