Russians had been drinking tea for fewer than 175 years when Klonimos Wolf Wissotzky founded the Wissotzky Tea Company in 1849 at the age of 25. His timing could not have been better. According to The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide by Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss, it was not until 1689 that a "measurable exchange of goods and materials, including Chinese tea, began to flow between China and Russia."

Prior to that Russians drank sbiten, a concoction of herbs and honey steeped in hot water. But by the late 19th century, tea was "hot" in Russia and Wissotzky-a young Russian Jew living in Moscow-quickly emerged as one of the country’s most prosperous tea distributors. Wissotzky’s was even named the exclusive tea supplier for the Emperor’s Court.

Moving Abroad

In the early 20th century, the company entered a significant and sustained period of transition, developing its own tea plantations in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to support the growing demand for the beverage in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. In 1904-the same year that founder, Klonimos Wissotzky, died-the company opened a branch in New York City to cater to Russian immigrants in America. The company continued to mushroom over the next decade, establishing new branches across Europe (including London, Poland, and Italy). By 1917 the Russian Revolution forced the company to shut down operations in Russia, and instead focus on international ventures.

Nineteen years later, in 1936, a descendent of the Wissotzky family named Shimon Zidler opened a tea plant in Palestine (now Israel), which eventually became the company’s primary headquarters. In addition to being known as a Torah scholar and tea merchant during his life, Klonimos Wissotzky had been a fervent supporter of Zionism. He regularly contributed money to development organizations and yeshivas in Palestine and, according to the company website, moving Wissotzky’s to Israel had been Klonimus’ hope and intention from the beginning.

The company settled quickly into its new home as evidenced by an article in a 1960s issue of Time magazine. The article describes a post-1967 war advertisement for the tea, which read:

The gallant fighters of the Tank Corps appreciate a good cup of tea as the most invigorating drink. That is why the designer of the famous British Centurion provided facilities for crew to brew tea inside their tanks. A good soldier will endure every hardship, but he will not give up his glass of tea. Wissotzky Tea, of course.

Wissotzky’s Today

Over the last forty years, Wissotzky’s has continued to grow, automating their facilities, adding new flavors and products to their line, and expanding their delivery fleet both within Israel and across the world. Now run by fifth generation family members, Wissotzky’s produces more than 200 different products (e.g. green and black teas, chais and herbal and fruit blends), and their wooden gift boxes (a.k.a. "magic tea chests") have become a ubiquitous take-home souvenir for tourists to Israeli.

In 2005, after an 80-year hiatus, they even began selling tea in Russia again, launching a line of premium black teas designed with a contemporary Russian consumer in mind. According to the Wissotzky website, the company now "leads the tea sector in Israel with a market share of about 78%"-though in March of 2009, it discontinued its iced tea product, Ice T due to low profits and steep competition from companies like Coca Cola-owned Nestea. Still, despite any minor setbacks, Wissotzky’s maintains an impressive track record and a fresh public image, especially considering that the company turned 160-years old in 2009. There must be something about that tea.

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Ironically, these two men are changing the landscape of kosher meat in New York City, offering high-quality, aged meats and a diverse selection that is virtually impossible to find in other kosher establishments.  I spoke with Courbe and Meirelles about their decidedly unorthodox career paths, the inspiration behind what they do, and the "meat alchemy" that goes into making a kosher filet mignon.  Read on. Jose, what was your inspiration to create an upscale kosher brasserie like Le Marais? Jose: I used to own a similar restaurant – that was not kosher – called Les Halles, and some of our clients began pushing us to open up a kosher version.  [Here, in New York] there were lots of situations where, at business meetings or family gatherings, someone in the group keeps kosher, or someone has started to take keeping kosher more seriously than before – and they had no place to go.  There weren’t really any good restaurant options – maybe a few delis, but nowhere they were proud to take their family or business associates.  So they said to us, "Why don’t you guys take this restaurant which is wonderful and do it kosher?"  At first we hesitated because, how can you make a cassoulet without pigs’ feet?  And of course you can’t do pork belly or oysters or any of these things.  A brasserie without oysters, you know, scandal! So why did you decide to move forward?  Jose: We consulted with a rabbi to guide us through the rules of what it takes to open a kosher restaurant.  At the time, the kosher meat available was very tough and not good quality.  But we realized the reason that kosher beef was tough was because no one was aging the meat.  Once we found out that there was nothing in kosher law that prevented someone from aging beef, we went to a couple of butcher shops, bought some prime ribs and aged it ourselves in our own refrigerator at Les Halles.  At the end of four weeks of aging, the meat was as good as non-kosher. Why don’t kosher distributors age their meat? Jose: On the non-kosher market, every single seller has an aging room and they sell their meat aged.  On the kosher market, it is not there.  I guess it might be for economic reasons – it takes [a significant investment of] money.  Still today, any kosher restaurant that wants to have aged beef, needs to do it themselves. That requires refrigerator space, and especially in New York City, that is difficult.
Tell me a little bit about your backgrounds – long before you ever even considered working in the kosher world.

Dominique:  My father was a butcher, so I learned with him.  I started when I was [almost] 12.  It was summertime and my father went like this [makes a beckoning gesture with his hand] and said, "I need you."  I remember my dad used to kill [the animals] himself.  Myself, I’ve only ever killed rabbits.  [As kids] we used to watch the killing – you know, bloody stuff.  It is kind of gross, but as a kid [it is fascinating]. I trained in Normandy then went to Paris for a couple of years.  Then I went to Djibouti and Switzerland where I worked in the meat department of a supermarket, and then I came here.  I worked at a meat purveyor in DC before I came to New York in 1992.  I started working over at Les Halles, the non-kosher restaurant.  Then when Jose opened Le Marais, I came here. Along the way, did you ever think about another line of work? Dominique: At first I was studying to be a banker, but it didn’t work! Jose: That makes two of us!  I grew up in Portugal and went to business school and worked in a bank.  Then I decided to come in the United States and spend a sabbatical year to travel.  I wanted to buy a car, do Route 66, the whole thing.  In the meantime, I started to get odd jobs cooking because I needed to make money to go from city A to city B.  I realized that my function in life, my calling, was cooking – even though I never cooked in Portugal and had never dreamed of being a chef.  After I went to the French Culinary Institute, I started working in different restaurants in New York.  At one point, I was working at a very popular restaurant that wanted to offer something that, in France and Portugal is very popular – the steak frite.  Just a simple steak with fries, nothing else.  After work, [my coworkers and I] wanted to go to a place like this, and there wasn’t one.  There were plenty of great steakhouses, but it was not the kind of meat you wanted to eat at one in the morning.  So that’s why I came up with the idea of opening Les Halles with a butcher shop in front – like a bistro or brasserie menu, which in Paris focuses on shellfish and oysters, but with meat. How does the relationship between your butcher shop and your restaurant work?  Jose: We have the best of both worlds.  We can have a beautiful display of meats in the butcher shop and also sell it in the restaurant through specials.  I also learn a lot with Dominique because he knows his meats.  My point of view is as a cook, but sometimes we get questions or requests from customers that, if I did not have a butcher like Dominique around, I could not do it – or at least not as well. What percentage of revenue comes from the butcher shop versus the restaurant? Dominique: 1 percent to 99 percent. Jose: No! [laughs] It is about 15 percent from the butcher shop.  It is fairly good revenue – the butcher shop works very well.  Dominique: The popular cuts here are the rib eye and the butcher’s cut is also very popular.  And we offer Wagyu beef – it goes for about $90/pound for the rib eye, which is a good deal.  The Wagyu hamburger meat at the butcher shop is about $8/pound.
Are there other butchers that work here with you? Dominique: I have two guys downstairs. Jose: But Dominique is the master butcher!  As a French butcher, he has a different training then an American butcher.  French training is really much more meticulous about the cut – they have the ability to go muscle by muscle to deconstruct a very large piece of meat.  Each one has different textures and flavors.  The American butchers tend to use much simpler cuts.  At Les Halles, which also used to have a butcher shop, the business was always very little.  People never realized that the meat case or the butcher was there.  They never said, "Let me go to Les Halles to buy meat."  Here it is different because it is kosher.  There are not all that many options for good quality kosher meat, so people come here to order. Le Marais is known for offering several types of meat that are hard to find kosher.  Besides well-aged meat, what do you offer and where do you get it? Dominique: Our 5-6 different purveyors are all in NYC.  The meat mostly comes from the Middle West.  They are all exclusively kosher purveyors. [editor’s note: Le Marais rarely sourced meat from Agriprocessors, so the raid last spring and eventual closing of the plant did not significantly impact their work.] Jose: [Pointing to a large piece of meat] This is the mother cut – the rib eye.  Most of the cuts we offer come from that. Dominique is able to take away the fat and creates this [points to another piece of very lean looking, rare red meat]. There is no real filet mignon in the kosher world because kosher butchers can only use meat from the rib to the neck [of the animal].  So we needed to create a cut that resembled the filet.
One of the things that is very well known, that everyone raves about, is the beef jerky.  Do you make that here?  How? Dominique: We use a type of meat like brisket.  We smoke the meat here – we have a smoker upstairs [at the restaurant].  Then we freeze and slice it and marinate it in spices.  Then we dry it and air-dry it.  It is about a three-day process.  Do you miss anything from your days working in the non-kosher world? Dominique:  I miss eating pork, but I do not like to work with it – the texture of the meat is not great.  I prefer beef or lamb.  [In terms of technique], we work in the French way, so the technique for cutting the meat is pretty much the same.  If you cut a rib eye here or in France, it is the same. Jose: For someone who is not Jewish, [working here] is great because there is incredible time off.  I have most of the weekend off – that is unheard of!  Even though I did not work seven days a week at Les Halles – you have days off – the restaurant would still be open, so my mind was always there.  So now, for me, in the spring and summer time, we are only open on Sunday. There is a different piece of mind.  Is there a growing sense of interest in good quality kosher meat? Jose: Absolutely.  I see the suppliers are getting better and better – they are stepping up to the plate more than they used to.  In the beginning it was a disaster.  We used to send back half of the order sometimes because they would send you terrible things. There was no quality control.  Now, it is rarer and rarer for us to send something back.  They are sending much better quality meats – bigger animals, better marbleized animals.  Some suppliers now try to sell only specialized and good quality meat. I think there was once a mentality from the suppliers that thought, "Well the kosher market is going to eat kosher no matter what – they don’t eat anything else, so why bother?  They don’t have a choice."  That has changed. 
Are people willing to pay for better quality meat? Jose:  I don’t know much about the market from before when I started this business about 14 years ago.  But back then, people were paying more money for kosher meat without the quality.  So now, they are paying more or less what the non-kosher market pays, but getting better quality.  A lot of people now who keep kosher did not grow up keeping kosher.  So they know what good meat should taste like.  That segment of the market is pushing for a much higher quality of meat, and also everything else.   If you know what a good steak tastes like, then you know what to expect. ——- Le Marais 150 W. 46th Street New York, NY       

The post A “Rare” Find: The Good Kosher Steakhouse appeared first on Jewcy.

Watching Chef Sandy Stollar cook is kind of like having front row seats at the Daytona 500. Born in Queens to a Colombian-Argentinean Jewish family, Stollar embodies all the fast-paced energy of a native New Yorker, and all the credentials to make it in the big city.

Unlike most (ahem, all?) kosher chefs, Stollar trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and shined her knives at some of the best non-kosher restaurants in New York City (the Russian Tea Room, Osteria del Circo, etc.) More recently, she started her own private chef business called The Kosher Tomato, which caters to Jewish individuals and families across New York and New Jersey. She also teaches cooking classes at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts in Brooklyn – a school which houses the first accredited kosher culinary training program in America.

Stollar, who was recently featured in the “Heeb 100,” is undoubtedly one to watch in the coming years. Below, she shares which foods she misses most from her pre-kashrut days, her thoughts on why kosher cuisine has such a sketchy reputation, and her favorite ways to make a nice piece of chicken.

You’ve said that you’re so passionate about food that you even get excited about tomatoes. Where does that passion come from for you?

That is really a hard question, believe it or not. I don’t want to say it’s because I am good at it, because in the beginning I probably wasn’t. But as far back as I can remember, I always had an unquenchable thirst for anything food-related. I believe it has to do with the fact that cooking is an art that uses all of our senses. It’s like the old adage "the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach"- I think this applies to anyone.

You got your culinary training at the CIA-essentially the butter and bacon capital of the world. When/why did you decide to go kosher?

CIA is known as the Harvard of culinary schools. At the time, I was not strictly kosher, and I knew I would get the best education there. About 2 years after graduating, I met someone (now an ex-boyfriend) who influenced my thinking about keeping kosher and Judaism. He basically said, “If you’re not even home on Shabbat [to celebrate], how will you continue your traditions and teach them to your children? That was enough to make me want to start changing [and become more observant]. I was really into him and in a way, I suppose, I wanted to do it for him.

I made the transition [into the kosher world] by working at Levana, a kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side of New York, and knew that this is what I needed to continue doing. A couple years down the line, I started The Kosher Tomato, Inc.

What do you miss most from your pre-kosher days?

I miss working with all those great chefs and having the opportunity to learn from them. Not to say that there aren’t any great kosher chefs, but I think that notion is relatively new, now that Jews are becoming more interested gourmet food.I also miss using exotic ingredients from around the world – like Thai fish sauce, sirloin steak, curry pastes without certification, gelatin, etc. – things that we cannot use because of kosher restrictions.

Are there any ingredients that you consistently have a hard time finding with a hekhsher?

I have not found mascarpone cheese yet. Other than that, I do pretty well.

Kosher cuisine has gained a reputation as being sub-par to other cuisines. Why do you think that is? Do you think there is any truth in that critique?

Honestly, somewhat! I believe that as a culture, we have had too much happen in our history to focus on food! Also, as other cultures did, we used ingredients that were abundant where we lived, but we are also limited by that, as well as by our dietary laws. In other words – if you have a lot of potatoes growing nearby, your cuisine will revolve around potatoes. You can only be so creative!

However, I definitely think this is changing with great kosher restaurants opening – places like Prime Grill, Solo, Le Marais, Park East, and Abigael’s in Manhattan – and a growing interest in good, kosher cuisine.

What is your opinion on using standard (but often unhealthy) kosher "substitutes" like margarine and non-dairy whip?

I think there are good reasons why [in the kashrut system] we are meant not to eat certain ingredients, and also certain ingredients together. I think we should keep it that way! Healthy and natural.

Most of my clients do not have a problem with this – in general, they don’t want to mess around with fresh, simple cuisine. In fact, I have a weekly client that I wanted to use soymilk for once for a cream soup (which I don’t personally think is as bad), but she was not into that idea at all.

What is your personal mission/vision as a chef?

I think that it’s pretty simple – I want to offer affordable and practical chef services of all kinds to the Jewish community.

I focus on the Jewish community because I am part of that community – I know the culture and have found my niche. There aren’t many personal chefs focusing only on kosher food preparation, so I think I have an advantage there. Ultimately, I want to [positively] influence the way the Jewish community eats. I’m not sure how that will happen yet – all I know is that I would like to make a difference.

What foods do you personally cook/eat most often? What do you eat most when you’re on the run?

I love chicken, so I eat that a lot – chicken glazed with pomegranate is excellent and coconut lemongrass chicken with citrus dressing and chicken with mango salsa are some of my favorites. When I am on the run, I usually grab either a sandwich, yogurt, a snack bar or fruit.

How is the current economy affecting your business? Are you finding people more reluctant to hire a personal chef? Or are people looking for more opportunities to eat at home?

Ironically, our current economic situation is not impacting me as much as I thought. Maybe it’s like you suggested – people are looking for more opportunities to eat at home. Plus, people always want to eat healthier than they do, and my services help them. Overall, I think people hire me for the practicality.

If you could cook for anyone in the world (past or present) – who would it be and why?

If I could cook for anyone, I think it would be Chef Gray Kunz. He is an amazing chef, mentor, and person in general who I worked with for a short while at Spice Market.

The post Cooking Storm: An Interview with Chef Sandy Stollar appeared first on Jewcy.

The Assignment: Get creative as you green your Rosh Hashanah dinner table!

The Requirements: A description of your sustainable  ideas, tips and techniques, accompanying photo(s), and any/all recipes you make.  Don’t forget to include information about who you are!

The Details: Email your submissions by October 3, 2008 to editor [@] jcarrot.org

First prize winner will receive a copy of Aromas of Aleppo – a stunning, hardcover cookbook of Syrian Jewish cuisine by Poopa Dweck. Second prize winner will receive a copy of The Weekend Baker – a collection of delicious, stress-free baked good recipes. The top three submissions will be featured (with much fanfare) on The Jew & The Carrot.

More details at The Jew & The Carrot.

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Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right – you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.

Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love from fans (Pollan for President?), and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a New York Times bestseller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.

Like any effective leader – Martin Luther King included – he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think – or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?

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“An author today sued Jerry Seinfeld’s wife for allegedly plagiarizing a cookbook she wrote and also accused the comedian of defaming her as a “wacko” during an interview with David Letterman. In a federal lawsuit, Missy Chase Lapine alleges that Jessica Seinfeld “brazenly plagiarized” from her 2007 book “The Sneaky Chef” in the writing of Seinfeld’s own cookbook (both volumes focused on how to prepare healthy meals for finicky young eaters).

When news stories appeared detailing similarities in the two books, Jerry Seinfeld launched a “malicious, premeditated, and knowingly false and defamatory attack” on Lapine, the complaint charges. As part of that campaign, Seinfeld went on Letterman’s show and described Lapine as “angry” and “hysterical.” He then compared her to the kind of “wackos” that had previously stalked Letterman. The comedian then added that Lapine was a “three-name woman” and “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins.”

Perhaps Jerry should have shoved one of Jessica’s spinach-laced brownies into his mouth before going on Letterman? Seriously, though, how sad that all of this is happening over the noble act of convincing (okay, tricking) picky eaters into consuming more vegetables.

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Bonnie over at Ethicurean created a fascinating infographic for Wired that overlays the price per calorie of various foods with their energy payoff and sugar content.  It depicts what Adam Drewnowski researched and Michael Pollan wrote about for the New York Times: 1. The cheapest available food is often the most fattening.  2. The most calorie-dense foods (usually processed and frozen convenience items) tend to be concentrated in the center shelves of supermarkets.   

This supermarket setup seems pretty pervasive – it even holds true at my idealistic, non-profit Food Coop where I spent my monthly shift last night ringing up fancy cheese and (expensive) mixed-drink ephemera like limes and mint for people's New Year's celebrations.  Check out Bonnie's graphic above and, when shopping in the "middle aisles" of your grocery store, don't forget Rambam's "middle way" – moderation.

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Jewish Grandmas are known for their special gift for feeding – and over feeding – their loved ones. But for Jill Ginsberg (second from right), her Grandma Rose not only filled her belly with chicken soup, rugelach, and blintzes – she also sparked Jill’s entrepreneurial spirit.

In 2005, Ginsberg founded Thou Shall Snack – a line of kosher snacks products that recreate traditional Jewish recipes, while giving them a decidedly contemporary twist (they’re kosher as well as baked, free of trans fats and genetically modified ingredients, and made with 70% organic ingredients). Read an interview with Jill below.

LK: How did you come up with the original idea for Thou Shall Snack?

JG: The first time I got the idea for Latke Crisps was after I heard of my friend’s Jewish beer company, HeBrew Beer. I thought, someone better make some latke crisps to go with that beer! It was really more of a lark in the moment, but it ended up becoming our first product.

[I also realized] there were a lot of other ethnic-inspired snack foods out there, which got me thinking about the Jewish foods I grew up eating. I began to wonder why no one had done something like this before.

LK: How do you generate new product ideas?

JG: There are a few commonalities between Latke Crisps, Babka Bites, and the third product I’m working on, which is a secret right now. They have to be a Jewish food that most people [including non-Jews] are going to recognize. They tend to be foods that are heavier and provide a little bit of guilt if you eat too much of it. And the third things is that these foods are difficult too make in the kitchen – they’re laborious. [These commonalities] have defined how we’ve marketed the products. You can have access to traditional tasting foods and flavors without having to do all the work, and also without feeling too guilty about it.

LK: It’s great that you are taking traditional, heavy Jewish foods and updating them. But when you get down to it, snacking is snacking – there’s always going to be a sense of indulgence. How do you strike the balance between a delicious product and a healthy product?

JG: I try to remind myself that we are not setting out to create the world’s healthiest product. I want my products to be as healthy as they can, while still maintaining the integrity of the original recipes. If we can’t get them to taste authentic, it wouldn’t be a product I’d put out there. At the same time, I want it to be a product I’d eat myself and one I’d feed my kids.

LK: Your kids must love it when you test recipes in the kitchen!

They do! [I started developing] Latke Crisps by making really flat latkes and baking them in the oven. The Babka Bites was more of an R&D process. I bought babkas from the supermarket and from a great kosher deli around here, and I taste tested the version we were working on at the manufacturing plant versus the actual babkas.

LK: Did you have a culinary background before starting Thou Shall Snack?

JG: I’ve always enjoyed cooking, and I come from a family where cooking was a big thing, but I didn’t have any experience in the food industry. I have a business degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – and this work perfectly combines my interests in marketing and business. I’ve probably done the majority of my cooking in the last three years.

JG: What has surprised you the most along the journey of being a food entrepreneur?

I think the most surprising thing is that it takes so much energy to make everyone happy. In the food business, it’s not just like you’re a retailer selling to your customer – you’re selling to multiple people and you have to make them happy along the way. It’s really a challenging, exhausting process, but it’s something I take very seriously. I have a little bit of understanding about how reading something bad about yourself in a tabloid might feel. I want everyone to love our product and that’s just not going to happen!

[Still] I feel incredibly fulfilled and content with what I’m doing. Instead draining me creatively, I feel this work brings out all the creativity in me. I’ve also been surprised by the amount of interest and acceptance we’ve received from a wider breadth of people than I would have expected. I’d sure hope we’d get attention by the Jewish community – and we have – but there’s a larger group of people that are taking notice because they think [our products are] unique and also because they’re low fat and all natural.

LK: As a Jewish food entrepreneur, what recent trends have you noticed in the Jewish food world.

JG: There’s definitely a trend towards all-natural and organic food. You hear a lot of people talking about the convergence of kosher and organic. It’s happening because kosher and organic [certification] make people think that foods are safer, healthier, cleaner – so there’s just some natural overlap there. But I think that the biggest trends are really more health related. There are lots of foods out there now that are fortified with vitamins. When people are having a snack, they want to feel like they’re doing something healthy.

LK: Is there a Jewish food you’d never consider for a Thou Shall Snack product?

JG: I joke around with people that we’re going to make a gefilte fish popsicle. There are the consummate Jewish foods that people love, and then there are the ones where people feel sorry for us for being Jewish. I think gefilte fish is one of those, though I happen to like it – especially when people make their own.

LK: What does your Grandma Rose think of Thou Shall Snack?

We were featured in the Every Day with Rachel Ray magazine, and I mentioned how the products were inspired by Grandma Rose. I sent her a copy of the magazine and she was so excited! I really don’t think she knew who Rachel Ray was, but she was very proud. Though, my grandma would be proud of anything that I did.

She also seems to genuinely love our products. I sent her a bunch of bags of Latke Crisps, and she called me the other day and said, “You know – I had one bag for lunch, and I already know I’m having a sandwich for dinner, do I’m going to have another bag to go with it!

Find out more about Thou Shall Snack here.

(x-posted at The Jew & The Carrot)

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Thanksgiving is done and Black Friday is upon us along with a fridge full of delicious leftovers. Unfortunately, another glorious meal – Shabbat dinner – is now just a few hours away, while your desire to cook dwindled away sometime between burning yesterday's green bean casserole and washing gravy off your 25 guests' plates. To help get you back in the mood, here are the Top 5 suggestions for easy, Jewish-inspired leftover goodies.

	Leftovers: What leftovers? Little Joshie looked much too thin – that shiksa mother of his doesn't feed him enough. Better he should take home a little of my stuffing than have it – God forbid – sitting on my zaftig hips for years to come.
	Turkey Soup with Noodles: Ok, so it isn't exactly bubbe's famous chicken soup recipe. But oy! the extra turkey! Besides, what do noodles know from a little turkey in place of chicken broth?
	Mashed Potatoes: There's not much you can do with leftover mashed potatoes – but you wise mamaleh, you thought ahead and bought the ten-pound sack of Yukon gold's at the supermarket knowing that Chanukah (and golden fried latkes) are just two weeks away.
	Cranberry Sauce: Canned, fresh – whatever. Just add prunes (ahem, dried plums), apricots, and a little sugar, heat and stir. Easiest tzimmes you ever made. Convincing people to eat it is the tough part.
	Pumpkin Pie: Chances are, with Aunt Minnie around, the pumpkin pie disappeared slowly but steadily over the course of Thanksgiving eve. If you're lucky enough to have salvaged a piece from her mouth (or the pieces she stuffed in her purse for later), it makes a better breakfast than even the sweetest babka.

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