Sour Cream: Just because it’s a classic doesn’t mean it’s the right decision. You’re probably pretentious AF and painfully stubborn about your opinions. You’re the Mom Friend, and you make sure everyone knows it.

Applesauce: Your sweet tooth is indicative of your childlike tendencies. You’re creative and fun, often called the funny one in your friend group. You love pop music, and you’re not afraid to show it. You like what everyone likes, and what’s wrong with that?

Plain: Why mess with perfection? Real recognizes real. Plain latke lovers don’t try to mask the taste of latke with extraneous, unnecessary toppings, and I love that for you. Either you aren’t American, or your parents weren’t, and you make a point to play the dreidel game annually. I just know.

Garlic Mayo: Ok, self-proclaimed ‘foodie,’ I see you. It’s a bold choice, but I can’t call you wrong. If you cook your own latkes, you have a secret ingredient you swear by, maybe caramelizing the onion before mixing it with the potato, or some elaborate potato-soaking process. You disregard others’ approval, either living life for yourself or actively trying to trigger them. Good.

Ketchup: This is what assimilation’s done to you?! Get help. Latkes are not hash browns. You’ve never made your own latkes, and you probably eat sufganiyot without filling.

BBQ Sauce: You’re definitely the Dad Friend of your friend group. You probably also do the Sufganiyah Challenge annually.

Chrein (Jewish horseradish-beet sauce): Topping latkes with chrein seems like it would be better than topping gefilte fish with it, but let’s not beat around the bush here; we know you eat gefilte fish. You probably also eat chopped liver. And cat food.

Vanilla Ice Cream: You pride yourself on being different. Quirky, one might say. It’s time to let go of the past, Vanilla. We get it, you were the weird kid on the playground and no one wanted to play with you and now you’re trying to reclaim your weirdness. Reassess, Vanilla. There are better (and less insane) ways to stand out.

Lox and Cream Cheese: Ok, grandpa, we get it. You’re very Ashkenazi, very New York, and very Old Jewish Man. It’s not Pesach, dude. You can just put that on a bagel.

Deli Meat: You’re just as Ashkenazi and as much of an old soul as Lox and Cream Cheese, but, like, quirkier. Not quirky in the try-hard, wannabe Vanilla Ice Cream way, though. You’re genuine as it comes, acting irrespective of others’ judgements.

Guac: You’re definitely a millennial, and painfully passionate about which Hogwarts house you’re in. (Hufflepuff, probably.) Get with the times. You do not need to put guac on everything… especially on a latke? Please stop. Enough.

Cheese: You’re hot. And probably lactose intolerant, so, um, maybe stop topping things with cheese.

All these factors considered, all the potential potato pancake toppings in mind, choosing a favorite should be a deeply personal decision. With that being said, though, I would argue that there’s only one correct latke topping:

The post What Your Favorite Latke Topping Says About You appeared first on Jewcy.

Happy Pride Month! Would you like to push your subversive queer agenda whilst enjoying traditional Jewish foods? Here are a few rainbow colored suggestions, but of course we didn’t include rainbow bagels because those are an abomination!

Rainbow challah is not an abomination (experiments tend to come from within the Jewish community, and not mess with the core concept), and is an increasingly popular Jewish treat, either for pride or not. But do you have any idea how many different pride flags there are? A whole lot, and you can try to make an appropriate challah for any of them. We recently published some pretty detailed instructions on how to make a challah resembling the trans pride flag, for example. And what about flags that have specific shapes or symbols? Consider our instructions on how to make poppy seed stencils (and tweet us your photos, of course!).

Rainbow cookies/cake (same food, different names) is not actually clear in its origins; it seems to be about as Jewish as it is Italian (though of course you can be both), a product of the overlapping immigrant communities in America. Regardless, it’s a kiddush staple, and the perfect treat to pass around as you discuss intersectionality in the Jewish community and how it can be more accommodating to queer folks.

Fruit slices may be a Passover treat, but there’s no reason you can’t eat them in June. Besides, you can be political all year, noshing on this dessert at your next seder as you politely explain that the orange on the seder plate actually originally referred to lesbians and gay men specifically, and not women as a whole.

Heck, it’s not rainbow, but eat an orange. Let’s reclaim it.

Rainbow latkes are another holiday dish good year round— and we have the recipe! Chew on the nuanced historical implications of eating these— a queer meaning juxtaposed with the a fun aesthetic twist on a traditional Chanukah food. But said food only dates back a few hundred years since potatoes are a New World food that through colonization became the central to many Ashkenazi communities’ diets— the original latke was actually fried cheese, and Italian.

Plus, Chanukah is a complicated celebration to begin with since it’s originally a military holiday for an arguably just rebellion that ultimately established a corrupt theocratic monarchy, only to have religious authorities later superimpose an ahistorical theology on it. Then, of course, ultimately to the whole thing was converted into a commercialized Christmas stand-in for American Jews, with all the various problematic aspects of capitalism coming into play.

That’s all a very queer thing to think about.

Finally, a shout out to my Facebook friends, who had some amazing responses to my question of what a “Jewish queer food” is, providing this bonus list:

“Ladies, just put two bagels on the same plate for a yonic delight. Make them Everything bagels to be sure you have pansexual representation.”

“Bacon wrapped shrimp because the best part of being queer is breaking taboos.”

“Kosher wine makes great sangria, which is pretty gay.”

“I feel like anything out of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book would do.”

“Vodka. Just vodka.”

Challah photo by Hannah Simpson. Rainbow cake photo via Wikimedia. Fruit slices photo by Tim Sackton, via Flickr.

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Kimchi latkes— exactly what they sound like. And they sound delicious.

I first got the idea years ago when I was living in Tel-Aviv. Word got around that a Korean restaurant had opened in town, albeit in some far-flung industrial area towards South Tel-Aviv.

One day while I happened to be in the area I went to check it out and ordered a scallion pancake as an appetizer. A lightbulb went off in my head: This is basically a latke! Why don’t I try and make these for Chanukah?

The problem was that in Tel-Aviv the Asian food stores (they do exist, particularly a notable on in the Shuk HaCarmel) didn’t carry kimchi so I attempted to make it myself. It sufficed in Israel because neither I nor my friends knew any better. Once I got back to New York and I was able to buy real kimchi, I got somewhat better at making latkes and a new Jewish tradition was born!

These amounts are an estimation, and I tend to make the recipe in an intuitive way. Trust your gut— it’s what’s about to receive the finished product here. If you insist on more exact proportions, Anh’s Food Blog has a similar, more scientific recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1lb of potatoes
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. of flour
• Approximately 2 – 3 cups of (vegan!) Kimchi from an Asian food store
  NOTE: Kimchi often comes with shrimp paste in it. Look carefully at the ingredients to be sure it does NOT have this. One can find kimchi without shrimp paste but it will be harder to find and possibly more expensive.
• Oil for frying

Directions: 

• Boil the potatoes and mash them (or grate them, if you have the patience) as if one is making mashed potatoes. Take the skins off after the potato is cooked.
• Add the eggs, flour and kimchi. What you want is to put in enough kimchi that it tastes like a Korean pancake and not spicy fries or hash browns. That said, given the heavy potatoes plus the eggs and flour I’d put in more kimchi than less as long as the latkes aren’t too red or runny.
• Form the potato – kimchi mixture into patties as if making hamburgers – not too think but maybe not super thin – and fry. Or, you could bake them if you want to be extra healthy, but these are latkes, after all.
• Dip in soy sauce! Forget the sour cream or applesauce here; it completely changes the attitude.

I hope you find these as delicious as I do! Enjoy!

Malaika Martin is a New York area Real Estate consultant who likes to add her own twist to Jewish tradition.

Image by Craig Nagy via Flickr.

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Who’s up for some Jewish-queer intersectionality? And how about if that intersection is the form of a Chanukah treat? That’s right, you can make latkes all colors of the rainbow, without getting too far away from traditional potato pancakes, and no, there’s no food coloring involved.

These are really easy, really pretty, and really flavorful. The base recipe (regardless of color) is:

Ingredients:

• (1) egg
• (1/4) onion
• (1) grated vegetable

Instructions:

Mix all in a bowl and form into patties before frying ’em up nice and crispy.

There’s no one way to get the color palette you want, but here are some tips on how to get started:

• Red: Beets
• Orange: Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, orange cauliflower
• Yellow: Potatoes, parsnip, jicima, sunchoke
• Green: Zucchini, broccoli, or if you really want to use kale, go ahead, but mix it with potato for structure
• Blue: If you’re a rainbow completist, my best suggestion is blue potatoes
• Purple: Purple carrot, purple cauliflower

And then tada! A stack of rainbowy, pridey potato pancakes! Allies are also welcome to enjoy!

Now, while they all taste delicious, some flavors mesh together better than others. I tasted the rainbow, if you will, the first time I made these and the beets and carrots didn’t really taste so great together. But taste is subjective, so maybe you like the combination. Feel free to experiment. Don’t be limited by certain latkes identities; it’s the 21st century.

Anyway, go forth and enjoy! And feel free to share your results with us on Twitter!

Image by Rachel Jacobs

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Last spring, when Dara Lynn Weiss wrote in Vogue about putting her 7-year-old daughter Bea on a strict diet, the media erupted in a volcanic froth. While childhood obesity is hardly an unpublicized topic, new debates raged over youths, dieting, and the seemingly extreme “Tiger Mom” approaches to weight loss. And I’m sure they’ll continue since Weiss’ new book, The Heavy, was published last month. Originally, I jumped on the bandwagon of criticism, but something in Weiss’ battles over weekly pizza days at her daughter’s school and 100-calorie snack packs rang true to my life. That’s because 15 years ago I was Bea, the fat girl in a group of privileged, skinny little girls.

Up until I was in second grade, I assumed I looked like all the other girls in my predominantly Jewish suburb, by which I mean thin. With nary an excess pound of flesh in sight in my svelte Hebrew school class, my girth was even more apparent, but I was blissfully ignorant. However, with each disappointed doctor’s check-up and Hanukkah party where teachers told me to stop taking so many latkes, I realized I was fat.

I stress the Jewishness of my upbringing not only because Jewish women have been shown to have higher rates of eating disorders, but because I believe there is a skinny subculture within the world of upper-middle-class Jewish American women. It’s difficult to articulate, but not for nothing did endless stereotypes emerge in post-war America about Jewish women loving Tab and jokes about their penchant for artificial sweeteners; look at Gilda Radnor’s JAP-py Rhonda Weiss singing about her love of Saccharin. There was a certain strain among us Jewish women obsessed with being thin. Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that eating has been a key part of Jewish life for centuries, I believe there exists a counter-current of Jewish women struggling to become skinny.

Overeating was a part of my personal Jewish identity. Some of my favorite moments were—and still are—noshing on chopped liver as I help my mother clean up after our behemoth and beautiful Rosh Hashanah meals. And it wasn’t just that I associated delicious foods with Jewish celebrations. I grew up identifying with overweight Jewish women both real and fictional, like TV’s Rhoda Morgenstern and playwright Wendy Wasserstein.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s purely coincidental that the founder of Weight Watchers, Jean Nidetch, was a Jewish American woman, a fact I discovered at my first meeting in June of 1997. Weiss noted that at age 7, her daughter Bea was 4-feet-4-inches and 93 pounds; I was 4-feet-8-inches and 99 pounds. I stood on a scale in a boardroom with posters of lean fish portioned to the size of a deck of cards and scoops of yogurt the size of tennis balls. Though surrounded by women, I was the only one who hadn’t hit menopause, aside from my mother who sat holding my hand.

Like Weiss, my mother had been warned by the pediatrician that her daughter’s weight threatened her health. My mother battled with her weight at different points in her life, as had her mother. I come from a line of Jewish women with a loving, but also problematic, relationship with food.

Unlike Weiss, my mother let me drop the Weight Watchers routine by the end of that first summer; I had only lost a frustratingly small four pounds from painstakingly counting breads and eating just grilled fish and egg whites. I don’t know whether she let me stop out of the logistical necessity of caring for two other children, including a newborn, or an active decision not to add dietary isolation to the social isolation I already experienced. Nothing makes it clearer to a little girl that she’s fat than putting her on a diet that separates her from eating with friends.

While Bea may have nipped her weight issues in the bud at age seven, I would continue to struggle for the next decade/to this day. Weiss stressed the medical justification for her daughter’s strict diet, but I’m sure she was also motivated by what every woman with weight issues knows: Life is easier when you’re thin, and the fact that you’re healthier and more likely to live longer are the least of it. You get invited to more bat mitzvahs and more dates. Your butt actually looks good in pastel-colored Juicy Couture tracksuits.

Able to enjoy these skinny social benefits, perhaps Bea won’t have the same insecurities I carry to this day at a mostly (depending on my margarita consumption) size 6. I found my own rhythm for weight loss and maintenance in my late teens and early 20s, but I still feel overly aware of my flesh and fat. I don’t blame Dara Lynn Weiss for wanting to spare her daughter this emotional baggage.

But I can’t help thinking that, at 23, Bea will still feel the same way I do. As melodramatic, superficial, and petty as it sounds, being called fat and realizing you’re not like the other little girls stays with you. You don’t easily shake off the memories and self-doubts even if you can shave off the weight. As Bea was quoted in her mother’s article, “Just because it’s in the past doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

In the end, when that loneliness and insecurity return because you’ve gained an ‘only noticeable to you’ three pounds over spring break or your favorite shul dress won’t zip because you gorged on challah and hummus (a comfort food of mine), reminding yourself that people don’t think of you as ‘fat’ anymore won’t make you feel better. Only turning to your mother, or someone else you know that has loved you through thick-and-thin waist, will help.

(image via Shutterstock)

***

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The post My Jewish Love/Hate Relationship with Food appeared first on Jewcy.

• There’s a food revolution happening in Poland, and it sounds pretty good. [Washington Post]

• Ramaz alum Leandra Medine—better known as her sartorial alter ego, Man Repeller—made the New York Post’s list of 13 Women to Watch Under 30. [NYP]

• Mila Kunis cooks Russian food. That is all. [Esquire]

• Meanwhile, when Carmelo Anthony was lurking by the Celtics bus the other night, he was “probably not there to to tell his opponents they could still get to Veselka and order the latkes.” [WSJ]

• Jeff Garlin is getting a podcast called “By The Way,” and comedy pals like Larry David and Judd Apatow will be stopping by. [HuffPo]

• Until then, here’s Apatow talking to Alex Baldwin on Baldwin’s similarly-named WNYC show, “Here’s the Thing:”

The post Daily Jewce: Mila Kunis’ Russian Cooking, Apatow and Baldwin Kibbitz appeared first on Jewcy.

• Twitter Book Club alum Doreen Carvajal discovers Spain’s offer of citizenship to Sephardic Jews is not as easily attainable as it seemed. [NYT]

• Some ideas for what to do with your leftover potatoes post-Hanukkah. [Times of Israel]

• What happens when you go to www.ThirdReich.com? You reach the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. [NYT]

• “If anything happened to Mandy Patinkin on Homeland, it would be like the Yankees trading Derek Jeter to the Jets.” [Grantland]

• Kosher-keeping New York Knick Amar’e Stoudemire married his longtime girlfriend after manning the phones at the Dec. 12 Hurricane Sandy fundraiser. [NYP]

• Sacha Baron Cohen won a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards, and, naturally, Ali G accepted. [Splitsider]

The post Daily Jewce: Sacha Baron Cohen’s Lifetime Achievement, Amar’e Gets Hitched appeared first on Jewcy.

The funny minds behind the High Holiday eCards (Yom Kippur? I hardly know her!) are back with Hanukkah eCards that will make even your grumpy uncle laugh.

One says Oy! Oy! Oy! and another features Andy Kaufman’s Latke character. Our favorite shows a man standing near a Prius saying, “With the mileage I get of course this fuel will last 8 days.”

Check out the rest and send one here.

Send a Hanukkah eCard [Tablet Magazine]

The post Send a Funny, Free Hanukkah eCard to Your Relatives Who Use Computers appeared first on Jewcy.

As the days seem to get shorter, the wait until Hanukkah seems to get longer. But I don’t cross the days off of my calendar just for the eight days of presents—I’m more excited about the eight days of latkes.

Like all good Jewish holidays, Hanukkah is deeply connected to its edible customs: the latke. History books (or the book of Macabees) will tell you that Hanukkah is all about commemorating the Hashmonaim’s successful rebellion, but the miracle everyone is eager to talk about is that a single days supply of oil was used to light the Menorah for eight days. In commemoration and celebration, every year since, we light menorahs in our own homes, and eat foods fried in oil, like latkes.

The term latke comes from Yiddish. (In Israel, these potato pancakes are referred to strictly as levivot.) Phyllis Glazer explains that latkes became popular in Eastern Europe because of the lack of options. One thing commonly found in Poland, Russia, and the many Eastern European countries where Jews lived, were potatoes. Jewish mothers were always Jewish mothers, so they were concerned about putting meat on their kids’ bones and were constantly inventing new potato recipes. Virgin olive oil was rare in the shtetls, so the original latkes were fried in chicken fat. Back then, much like today, kids listened greedily as the grated potatoes received their seer while their mothers warned them of the dangers of burning their tongues.

Despite the fact that the miracles of Hanukkah took place in Israel, there is something very American about sitting around the table and celebrating with deep fried foods. Growing up in a suburban community, with lawns lit with plastic reindeer and cheerful Santas, it was hard not to compare my winter holiday Christmas. Eight days vs. one morning of presents helped me feel like I came out ahead. Of course as Lemony Snicket points out in this quote from his classic Hanukkah novel, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, the essence of Hanukkah can be summed up in a single bite of latke:

The latke sighed. “Presents aren’t really a big part of Hanukkah,” it said in a voice hoarse from screaming. “There’s nothing wrong with giving gifts to loved ones, of course, but it’s more important to light the candles for eight consecutive nights, to commemorate the miracle in the Temple and the miracle of victory even when you are thoroughly outnumbered, so you shouldn’t give up hope.

Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and delicious on every side, the potato latke reminds us that the miracle of Hanukkah is about fighting for what’s right (and our heritage) with every greasy bite. And there is nothing more Jewish then celebrating something by eating a big meal with your family. But, while the latke is both symbolic and scrumptious (especially this one), eight days of anything can get tiresome. Everything in this universe is better when deep fried, but a simple potato can taste too simple after eating it fried time and time again. While the latke is a crowd pleaser, it’s not something you’d ideally serve to a dinner party sort of crowd. I got you covered.

With a few simple steps, these Indian-spiced latkes give the classic recipe a more modern and global spin. By throwing in some toasted spices, you make this dish seem more complex than the one most people are used to. but just as easy to make. Like most Indian recipes, these latkes have a nice little kick, but it’s contained so that the Ashkenazim among us can enjoy them too.

The apple chutney is optional, but not if you love your taste buds. It’s meant to replace the jar of applesauce most people plop on their Hanukkah table, and give it a classier and more exciting twist.

Not Your Bubbe’s Indian Spiced Latkes with Apple Chutney
Makes about 20

Ingredients:

Latkes
1 1\2 tbs curry powder
2 tsp mustard powder
1 tbsps cumin
3\4 tsp salt
1\2 tsp black pepper
2 1\2 lbs potatoes, peeled
6-7 large scallions, sliced as thinly as possible
2 large eggs
1 cup matzo meal
Lot of olive oil

Apple Chutney
1 tbs peanut oil
1 shallot, diced
1\2 cup sugar
1 1\4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup mint, diced and loosely packed
1/2 tbsps ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
4 green apples, peeled and chopped

Directions:

1. First, make your apple chutney by heating your peanut oil over medium heat in a medium sized pot.

2. Once your oil is hot, sauté your shallot until it becomes translucent, around 7 minutes.

3. Add your sugar, and stir it until it dissolves.

4. Raise the heat under the pot to medium high and pour in the rest of ingredients aside from the apples.

5. Allow your chutney to simmer for about 15 minutes, until it receives a syrupy consistency, and less than one-half of the liquid remains. Then add the apples to the pot and stir.

6. Cook the apples in the chutney for about 15 minutes, until they are soft but not mushy.

7. When the chutney is done cooking, pour it into a glass jar. Once it reaches room temperature put it in the refrigerator to thicken.

8. Start making your latkes by toasting your spices. Place all of your spices in a small sauce pan over a medium heat. Allow your spices to toast until they become fragrant, about five minutes.

9. Using either a grater or a food processer, grate your potatoes and then place them in a large strainer. Try to press as much liquid out of the potatoes as possible in order to prevent your latkes from being soggy or falling apart.

10. Once you have removed the liquid out of the grated potatoes, place them in a large glass bowl. Add the scallions and toss together.

11. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat, and pour 1\2 an inch of oil into it.

12. Mix the vegetables with your matza meal, spices, and eggs until they are combined but not clumpy.

13. Once your oil is hot, you are ready to fry latkes: Place about 2 tbsps of your latke mix in the palm of your hand—clamp your hand around the mix in order to make it a solid ball—and flatten it so that it is flat like a pancake. Place your latkes in the frying pan.

14. Fry for a few minutes on each side. You can fry them until they look done to you, according to your preference.

**Some people like their latkes burnt, others like them nearly raw, effecting the cooking time. Keep in mind the hotter the oil the more likely the outside will get very cooked and the inside not so much, so you may want to add oil in between batches.

15. While you wait for your latkes to fry, cover a baking dish with paper towels. When your latkes are done, place them there to remove the excess oil.

16. Serve immediately with the apple chutney.

Also try:

Not Your Bubbe’s Southern Chili Cholent

Not Your Bubbe’s Thanksgiving Turkey

Not Your Bubbe’s Stuffed Cabbage Kugel

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Recipe: Indian Spiced Latkes With Apple Chutney appeared first on Jewcy.

So this is the Bubala Please ‘Hanukkah Episode,’ which makes us think that there might be more videos like these in the future. We don’t really get it, but we’re suddenly in the mood for some latkes:

The post Hanukkah Video ‘Bubala Please’ Leaves Us Confused, Hungry for Latkes appeared first on Jewcy.