Cafe Liz

Latkes with leek, celery and baharat

It’s the first day of December, the weather is balmy, and it’s also the first night of Hanukkah. The winter festival of lights came as somewhat of a surprise this year — I knew it was approaching, and I saw the growing quantities of jelly donuts at all the bakeries, but for some reason I never internalized that Hanukkah was approaching. Possibly because it still feels like summer. In fact, if it weren’t starting to get dark by 4:15 p.m., then there would be no way to tell it’s not summer.

That said, I didn’t get around to planning anything too grand for the holiday. I knew I wanted potatoes to make latkes, but I kept forgetting to buy them. Fortunately, when I remembered a few hours in advance that it was the first night of Hanukkah, I had a few potatoes in the fridge already.

Planning or not, I managed to pull together a lovely batch of latkes that take their inspiration from the fried potato patties of the Middle East, rich in vegetables, herbs and spices. Turmeric gives them a lovely golden color that I think we should get used to seeing in latkes. Continue reading Latkes with leek, celery and baharat …

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Lentil vegetable soup

I’m back from my visit to the United States, back to the land of good, cheap vegetables. The first thing I did on the morning after we landed was to visit our neighborhood vegetable shop, the Ibn Gvirol Shook, where they had indeed noticed our absence (it’s nice to be missed, no?). In any case, I came home with an armful of fresh vegetables, for about half of what it would have cost me at that lovely grocery store on [...]

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