As Passover nears (quicker than you think), you may already be dreading matzo. But be not afraid; the holiday cracker doesn’t have to taste like cardboard. Ashley Albert and Kevin Rodriguez of The Matzo Project are so determined to reclaim the stuff that they’ve created an entire food line dedicated to turning matzo into a year-round snack (in fact, their products are kosher, but deliberately not kosher-for-Passover).

From “Cinnamon Bun Matzo Buttercrunch” ice cream, to cinnamon sugar matzo chips— any style of nosh you need, they got you.

But they need your help in deciding just what to schmear on their flat matzot this Passover season: The Matzo Project and Jewcy are teaming up for the #MatzoDipChallenge, a contest to concoct the perfect dip for their unusual matzot (Passover is all about dipping, after all).

Here’s what you can do:

The classic flats come in two flavors: “Salted” and “Everything Plus Two Other Things.” Pick one (or both), and submit your recipe/s for a dip that you think will go best with your flavor of choice. If you think you need more inspiration, think sea salt for Salted, and Everything is like the same sort of bagel, with a smidgen of paprika and chili.

Don’t be afraid to get weird with your submissions— want to do that marshmallow fluff/cream cheese blend? Go for it.

If you want to pick up a box to help get your creative juices flowing, they aren’t hard to come by.

The finalists will all receive a free box of Matzo Project matzo, and the Matzo Project and Jewcy team will bring the recipes to life (on video for posterity) and pick a grand prize winner (the grand prize is honor, but also a bag full of swag).  We’ll also be releasing a virtual recipe book of our top picks!

To enter, email gabriela@jewcy.com with the subject “Matzo Dip Challenge.” In the body of the email include your name, number, flavor choice, recipe, and anything else you’d like us to know.

The contest ends Wednesday, March 29th, at 5 p.m.

And of course, feel free to tweet (#MatzoDipChallenge) at either Jewcy or The Matzo Project with thoughts or kvetches.

Happy dipping!

Image courtesy of The Matzo Project

The post ANNOUNCING: ‘The Matzo Project’ Dip Contest! appeared first on Jewcy.

“See that God has given to y’all the Shabbat. Therefore God gives to y’all, on the sixth day bread, for two days.” (Exodus 16:29)

“Man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

I love fruit—mango season may be my favorite season—but if I had to choose only one food group for the rest of my life, it would be bread.  Bread is the universal staff of life onto which most cultures have held since the dawn of domesticated agriculture and civilizations. It’s also one of the few examples of foods that’s universally identified within the Jewish tradition as Jewish. (I am not saying all bread is Jewish, just that there are breads with unique or deep roots in Judaism.)

Case in point: matzah. “For seven days you will eat matzah [unleavened bread cakes]…” (Exodus 12: 15)

Matzah, the flatbread unique to Passover and kitschy Brooklyn startups, is described in the Torah, detailed over the ensuing millennia in various commentaries, and maintained as an annual ritual for Jews of all backgrounds and identities. There are different manifestations of matzah—some are more cracker-like while others tend towards a large, dry pita; but, the chemistry is the same: flour + water + hot, dry oven = kosher for Passover matzah in under 18 minutes.

Some other popular, historically Jewish breads include bagels (real bagels; don’t be fooled by the circular breads sold at McDonald’s, Einstein’s, and many other bakeries that are not boiled before baking), jachnun, and Moroccan mofleta (served at their post-Passover mimouna celebrations).

Aside from bagels, none of these are quite so famous or ubiquitous as challah.  This enriched bread is prepared for Shabbat and most other holidays (not Passover!). Recalling the showbreads in the temple, these loaves are historically grander and more refined than weekday breads. Furthermore, challah is presented in pairs, recalling the double portion of manna the Jews collected in the desert every Friday morning. For Shabbat evening in a traditional Jewish home, even if it’s a small gathering, the festive meal begins with a blessing over two loaves.

At a Shabbat meal I recently was welcomed to in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, one of the guests was so surprised to see two substantial challah loaves on the table. She asked why we needed two huge breads. Our host explained the tradition of remembering the commandment for Jews living in the land of Israel to tithe their bread (Numbers 15:20). The injunction to set aside a “challah” is the basis for the mitzvah of hafrashat challah, and a good reason for why the challah loaves for Shabbat are generally quite large. (Most orthodox rabbis hold that the dough must use between 3.66 and 5.5 lbs of flour to be eligible for a blessing.)   

I don’t make such large batches of challah, meaning that I don’t normally say the blessing. I still want to do something special with my challah. When I bring challah to a friend’s meal, or if I am hosting, I want people to take a moment to reflect on challah and Shabbat, which is how I came to make challah messages.

At the end of the day (or week), messages and bread sacrifices are simply proverbial cherries in my practice. Simply serving challah and matzah, the two core Jewish breads, makes that meal significant. A blessing over these breads, an explanation, or even a pause before eating, helps these cultural carbs create a link to a national history and communal identity.

These foods with their gluten (or not), bind me to Jews across history because at their very core, they are Hebrew breadstuffs derived from the Torah. From atheists to ultra-Orthodox, Zionist and not, using these Biblical Hebrew names reminds us that we are connected.

Jews are not a unified people—including in many aspects of cuisine— but we are brought together by our cultural breads. Hopefully we will always have a space to break bread with others, giving us a delicious space to share of ourselves, our history, and our tradition.

Image Credit: Pixabay

The post Man Does Not Live By Challah Alone appeared first on Jewcy.

I’m not an observant Jew. Maybe if I’d grown up in Montreal or New York or another Western capital, where WASPs drop “oys” like ice in scotch, and where being openly Jewish is a non-issue—maybe then I’d attend Kol Nidre or give up beer for Passover.

But back in the USSR, I knew next to nothing about Judaism. Religious practice as a whole was marginalized, and if you happened to be Jewish, keeping it to yourself was a survival skill. The sum total of my knowledge of 5,775 years of Judaism was equal to the contents of the cardboard box that landed on top of my dresser every spring. The box contained the spoils from my father’s clandestine run to the city’s old shul, which operated unofficially on some holidays. There, on Passover, a handful of resolute Jews lined up for boxes of matzoh to take home to their families. The matzoh sheets were stacked inside the boxes underneath pink paper napkins. As soon as one of those boxes arrived at our apartment, it was stuffed on top of the dresser to be accessed with caution, away from gentile eyes. To my non-Jewish friends, who sometimes spotted a renegade piece of matzoh lying around, I would nonchalantly offer said piece as a cracker. Frankly, that’s what it was to me anyway: a Jewish cracker.

We fled the USSR in 1988, when I was 16—thousands of Soviet Jewish refugees leaving in a modern-day Exodus. On our way to the States we were stationed in Ladispoli, a sleepy coastal town outside of Rome, where we waited for our U.S. visas. There, on the Mediterranean shore,we learned for the first time about Jews as a people. A Chabad mission was set up in town, headed by Rabbi Hirsch, who worked morning, noon, and night reaching out to every lapsed Soviet Jew. That spring, we sat down to our first seder inside an Etruscan castle. Hundred-foot tables were filled with families like ours, and we finally heard the story behind the matzoh we used to hide under the pink napkins. For many Soviet Jews, that first seder marked the beginning of their return to their lost faith. For me, it marked the beginning of a life-long love affair with jarred gefilte fish.

That year, I also heard the sound of the shofar for the first time. My main memory of that Rosh Hashanah was the rabbi talking about praying to be sealed in the book of life for another year, and the obligation to purge one’s pockets of ‘sins’ into the nearby canal. I had 2,000 liras in my jeans, which I lifted from my dad’s wallet earlier that day with the intent to buy licorice. Despite the Rabbi’s passionate sermon, there would be no purging on my end. I was not giving up my stolen licorice money, High Holidays be damned.

We finally made it to Chicago. No longer scared of being outed as Jews, we were now discovering what it meant to be Jewish. We settled in West Rogers Park, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood filled with synagogues and kosher pizza parlors. But there was so much more than Judaism for a curious a 17-year-old to explore: my daily existence was divided between running to painting classes at the School of the Art Institute in the morning, and running the cash register at Dog On It (a kosher wiener joint) in the afternoon. My classmates introduced me to their friends as “Inna, she’s from Russia.” There was no time to think about being Jewish: I was too busy trying to fit in as a Russian among non-Jewish, non-white, non-conformist art students.

I suppose the physical proximity to all things Jewish precipitated a gradual awakening of my Jewish identity. The Jewish holidays arrived in West Rogers Park with a bang; religious or not, you were greeted with a “Gut Yontif” at every turn. My first Yom Kippur in Chicago was appropriately bleak: my grandmother had just died in a Chicago hospital. She’d been ill for most of her life in the USSR, and arrived in the U.S. too late to benefit from Western medicine. Dog On It was closed for the holidays, so I spent my day shuffling around the neighborhood. I tried thinking about the meaning of Yom Kippur and my babushka being with God, but the concept felt as foreign to me as the rest of America did at the time. There was no God with her or me that day, just the bad weather and the reality of her death and—a combination that felt almost clichéd.

Then I went to Israel. In Ladispoli I’d met some Israelis who had come specifically to encourage the Soviet Jews to immigrate to the Holy Land. Some of those “ambassadors” were particularly good looking, and I decided that Israel was worth a visit. So, during my second year in Chicago, I saved my cashier money, enrolled in an overseas program at the Hebrew University, and flew to the land of milk and honey—and good-looking people.

In Israel, the divide between religious and secular Jews felt bigger than the divide between Jews and Arabs. A Jew like me would get frowned upon for wearing a sleeveless shirt on a bus full of religious Jews, while on her way to visit an Arab friend. Still, a measure of superstition infiltrated secular Israel on Yom Kippur: no one got behind the wheel that day, just in case there was a God, and He decided—God forbid—to punish you for driving. On the eve of Yom Kippur, crowds poured into the streets in every neighborhood and children skateboarded safely on car-free roads. People fasted because, you know, tradition. I fasted too, out of solidarity. God knows I didn’t do it out of faith.

I returned to Chicago a year later only to find that my family now kept kosher and went to shul on Friday nights. There was no picking up the phone or driving on the Sabbath. I didn’t get answers to how it happened—it just did. That’s when I first felt conflicted over competing definitions of Jewishness. I had just spent a year in Israel and felt more Jewish than ever; but I simply didn’t see how giving up the car on Saturdays would make me a better Jew. My parents eventually downgraded their religiousness and found a middle ground, which balanced their yearning for a Jewish identity with their modern-day needs. My brother continued on a religious path. Today he’s an Orthodox father of seven living a few blocks from our first home. He goes to the same shul, keeps kosher, and observes all Jewish holidays. As I write this, he’s probably saying selichot.

Perhaps the closest I came to the Jewish faith was during my return to the former USSR a few years ago. I came to Kiev to work as an advertising executive and went to shul on Yom Kippur to see for myself the state of post-Soviet Jews. They had come a long way from lining up for camouflaged matzoh; there was even jarred Manischewitz gefilte fish at break-fast. On that Yom Kippur, I felt thankful for their freedom and mine, though I still wasn’t sure who I was thanking.

On this Yom Kippur I’ll walk around my city as I often do, remembering past Yom Kippurs. I won’t be asking for forgiveness or praying to be sealed in the book of life. I will be thinking of that early Yom Kippur morning in Jerusalem, 20 years ago. I saw an old lady who seemed lost. She summoned me over and asked, “Is today Yom Kippur?” I said yes. “Oh good,” she said, “I’m glad I forgot to eat.”

I’d like to think God was good to her for another year.

Inna Gertsberg is an advertising writer. She lives in Toronto with her husband, two sons and a cat. You can follow her on Twitter at @twigstr.

(Main image: Yossi Gurvitz via Flickr)

The post Fasting Out of Solidarity, Not Faith appeared first on Jewcy.

One Direction star and perennial heartbreaker Harry Styles has been ranked 73rd in The Jewish Chronicle’s list of the 100 most influential figures shaping Jewish life in the U.K., ahead of 27 fully-fledged MOTs—including rabbis, philanthropists, and community leaders. Before you work yourself into a frenzy worthy of this hysterical mob, let’s make one thing clear: Styles isn’t Jewish. The Chronicle is aware of this, but decided to honor the singer anyway. “The One Direction star may not be Jewish,” they explain, “but he seems very much at ease with a Jewish lifestyle.”

Styles does appear to be pretty keen on the Jews, an affinity that many have attributed to the pop star’s friendship with Ben Winston, a Jewish music video director. Styles fasted on Yom Kippur, wore a Star of David necklace to last year’s Teen Choice Awards, and had his sister’s name tattooed on his arm in Hebrew lettering. As it turns out, Styles also looks pretty good in a kippah. According to the Chronicle, “millions of British teens have become familiar with Purim, Pesach, and schepping nachas,” thanks to Styles’ enthusiastic tweets about all things Jewish.

While tattoos, necklaces, and kippahs do not a Jew make, I for one am happy to see honorary tribal membership bestowed on anyone who publicly proclaims their love for “shmorreh matzah.” And now that Styles has been welcomed into the Jewish fold, Rolling Stone reports that the pop star has buried the hatchet with ex Taylor Swift. All is right in the world.

Brigit Katz is a graduate student at NYU’s Journalism Institute, and an intern at Tablet Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @brigitkatz. 

Related: One Direction’s Harry Styles Isn’t Jewish

The post Pop Star Harry Styles Lands on List of Britain’s Most Influential Jews appeared first on Jewcy.

No. More. Matzah.

Right about now you’ve reached your limit.  The novelty has worn off.  The crunch doesn’t thrill like it did on that first seder night. Your tastebuds are dangerously close to slipping into a coma. And your TMJ is flaring up again, due in no small part to the matzah grinding motion your jaw is fixed on. Dayenu! No more matzah… But wait a minute, what’s this? A roasted tomato fried-cheese matzah pizza? Hmmm…

You know I wouldn’t waste your time, or insult your good taste, on a standard slap-on-some-canned-tomato-sauce-sprinkle-some-shredded-cheese kind of kiddie fare. No, this is a matzah pizza that you invite friends over for. A matzah pizza to uncork a good bottle of wine over. A matzah pizza with a zesty zetz of flavor. A matzah pizza that renews your faith in Jewish holiday food.

Instead of using one-note canned tomato sauce, in this recipe fresh plum tomatoes are sliced thick and doused with olive oil, chopped garlic, and an invigorating splash of balsamic or red wine vinegar. And then it’s roasted to a sweet-savory full-flavored juiciness and toothsome suppleness.

Halloumi is a white cheese that’s mild in flavor and firm in texture. One of its exemplary qualities is that it is available kosher-for-Passover, and the other is that you can grill or fry it without melting it into a puddle of goo. To add even more pizzalicious flavor, the halloumi cubes are dredged in garlic power and gently sautéed to a warm and tasty goldenness. A scattering of watercress, arugula, spinach, or basil adds extra color and a nice herbal undertone.

Sharp parmesan shavings, spicy dashes of red pepper flakes, a smattering of earthy oregano, a few strategically placed salty olives would all be tasty add-ons to this mouthwatering matzah pizza. A matzah pizza that makes the bread of our affliction into a platform for fun flavor, pleasing color, and a variety of textures.

Roasted Tomato and Fried Halloumi Matzah Pizza

Ingredients

4 pieces of matzah
1 tablespoon olive oil
A few handfuls of fresh spinach, arugula, watercress, or basil
Shaved parmesan cheese
Optional add ons: red pepper flakes, dried oregano, olives, capers

Oven Roasted Tomatoes:
10-12 plum tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
3 garlic cloves, minced (1 tablespoon)
2 teaspoons sugar (if using balsamic vinegar scale sugar back to 1 tsp.)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Fried Halloumi Cheese:
7 oz. halloumi, cut into ½ “ cubes (approximately 1 ½ cups)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2-3 tablespoons safflower or grapeseed oil

Directions

Oven Roasted Tomatoes:

1. Place oven rack in top third of oven and Preheat to 450F.

2. Cut tomatoes across width-wise. Scoop out the core and seeds with a melon baller or a spoon. Then cut each half in half (width-wise again).

3. Place tomatoes on a parchment lined baking sheet in a single layer. Drizzle evenly with olive oil, vinegar. Sprinkle with minced garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. With a spatula give it a good stir.

4. Place in oven to roast for 30-35 mins. Remove 15 minutes into cook-time to stir tomatoes again. Once tomatoes are good ‘n roasted, remove from oven and allow to cool. Chop coarsely if you prefer a less chunky texture.

Fried Halloumi Cheese:

1. Dredge halloumi cheese cubes in garlic powder until completely coated.

2. Heat oil in frying pan until it shimmers. Place halloumi cubes in hot oil, making sure not to over-crowd the pan. Stir and saute until crispy golden brown. Drain cubes on paper towel.

To assemble Matzah Pizzas:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Brush olive oil over each piece of matzah. Scatter roasted tomatoes evenly over matzah. Then intersperse matzah with fried cheese cubes. Place a layer of greens over the tomatoes and cheese. Sprinkle with shaved parmesan and your add-ons of choice. Drizzle each matzah pizza with some of the seasoned oil from the roasted tomatoes.

2. Place matzah pizzas on a baking sheet and cook for approximately 8-10 minutes or until parmesan is melted, greens are wilted, and the matzah itself is deep golden brown.

For year-round eating, the roasted tomatoes and fried cheese would be excellent tossed with pasta, in a Panini sandwich, or as flatbread pizza toppings. Heck! They’re delicious even on their own.

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Passover: Roasted Tomato and Fried Halloumi Matzah Pizza appeared first on Jewcy.

After her passing, dividing her earthly belongings went about as smoothly as these things can go, except there was the matter of her recipe box. Several of us had submitted that as an item that we were interested in inheriting.  I had been granted some pots and pans but no instructions on how to make magic happen within them.  So I proposed to my Aunt Jeannie, who had also requested the recipe box, that we collaborate on publishing a cookbook of her recipes for the whole family to enjoy.  She agreed and got to work narrowing down the recipes to the ones she remembered my nonna cooking the most often.

I timed this project to last me the whole first year after her death.  It was a meaningful way for me to continue to interact with her memory and help me through my grieving process.  Sifting through old family photographs and reading her handwritten notes on her dozens of food stained index cards proved to be cathartic.  It made her feel less far away.  Even though I could no longer have her in person, I now had the means to keep the flavors she created alive in my own home.  I can fill my kitchen with the aromas of her food anytime I want.

One of my favorite recipes from the cookbook is for “Ciambelle di Pesach or “Matzah Nasirot”, a simple donut shaped cookie (recipe below). I know Passover isn’t exactly around the corner, but this is a cookie you should know about year round. They are the best I’ve eaten.  Every year just before Passover my nonna would send a box of these to everyone in the family.  I would have to fend off Jews and goyim alike in my college dorm to make sure the stash would last at least until Passover began.

My nonna described them growing up in Italy in the book:

The holiday I remember the most is Pesach (Passover).  Weeks in advance, all families would order from the synagogue two kinds of matzoh, one for eating and the other for cooking and shmurah flour to make the traditional sweets that we called matzoh nasirot.  All the women of the community would go to the synagogue’s kitchen to prepare and bake those wonderful cookies.  They would fill up sacks with them and share them with all the relatives, friends, schoolteachers, and Christian neighbors.

These are to be shared, so be sure to make a lot.

Ingredients:

20 eggs
5 lbs, 12 ounces flour
3 1/2 cups olive oil
3 cups sugar
2 tsp ammonium carbonate (can substitue baking soda)
2 tsp vanilla
3 tsp star anise crushed or liquid anise
1 tsp salt

Makes 226 “ciambelle” – ring shaped cookies.

Directions:

Put flour on pastry board, make large well in the middle. Break eggs and start beating them with a fork incorporating flour in them and adding all of the other ingredients as you incorporate the eggs and flour. Keep on beating with the fork until you have a soft dough that will not stick to the board. Roll the “ciambelle” – it helps to keep your hands oily. Bake at 350° to 400° for about 30 minutes.

The cookbook Cooking With Nonna is for sale HERE.  All profits go towards ALS research, the disease that took my grandfather Luciano’s life before I had a chance to meet him.

Daniel Saks is the front-man of DeLeon.  Their new album Casata out now on JDUB Records, is a re-imagining of ancient Sephardic melodies as indie rock.  Casata is also available for sale on Amazon, iTunes, and in the Jewcy Store for the special price of $8.99!

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