Cafe Liz

It’s a simple black bean soup, but with a citrus tang — from oranges, kumquats or both. I first encountered a similar recipe about 10 years ago, and while I’ve long since forgotten which cookbook it was in, the mix of flavors has etched itself a place in my mind. Most such recipes call for orange juice, but I see no reason not to throw in the whole fruit — the zest goes in during the cooking stage, then I [...]

This cheesecake has a fabulous, tangy flavor, thanks to the passion fruit, orange and lemon. It also almost ended in complete and total disaster due to my impatience. It’s been quite a while since I’ve made a cheesecake — about 51 weeks, right around last year’s Shavuot, to be precise — and I kind of forgot the importance of letting the cheesecake take its dear sweet time to cool down. In my haste, I removed the baking ring a few [...]

I don’t usually eat kumquats, but they look so cute that I’m occasionally tempted into buying some at the market (this happens quite frequently, and with quite a variety of different foods). Kumquats are known as “Chinese oranges” (תפוז סיני) in Hebrew, and I have to say I find this much more logical than the English name, as it actually tells you something about what it denotes. For instance, based on the English name, you would never know that kumquats [...]