Over at Vulture, there’s a revealing, intimate profile of fun. guitarist and songwriter-to-the-pop-stars Jack Antonoff—AKA Mr. Lena Dunham—that’s well worth your time.

Antonoff—who rose to fame in 2012 on the back of fun.’s sweeping, exuberant pop hit “We Are Young“—talks openly about the death of his 13-year-old sister when he was 18, right before 9/11, and how the two tragedies shaped his psyche, his creative life, his germ-phobia (he wipes down airplane seats with anti-bacterial wipes before traveling), and his songwriting ethos. What emerges is a frank portrait of a sensitive, neurotic, likable thirty-going-on-sixty-year-old with a penchant for crazy socks and sweaters. Writes Jada Yuan:

Sarah lost her lifelong battle with brain cancer when she was 13 and Antonoff was a senior in high school, but his adolescence might have been marked even more profoundly by his family’s struggle than her dying, by those memories of hospitals and growing up in constant fear. “It’s not groundbreaking psychological stuff,” says Antonoff of his “germ issues.” “It’s coming from a very obvious place. You know, the scarring on the lung is not a big fucking deal. It’s just that in the context of my life, it just stresses me out. My real sickness is how I deal with it psychologically.” He’s seeing a psychopharmacologist and really needs to find a new therapist, but he gets stressed out thinking about starting over—not because he has a problem bringing up painful things but because of “the boredom of catching someone up.” He laughs. “Anyway, long answer to your question about why I drink tea. You realize that’s how this started, right?” We’ve been talking for only ten minutes.

We also learn that Antonoff can pull off “vaguely Nazi looks,” like a shaved head, because his face is “so Jewish.” His mom still buys him lunch, even though he’s a platinum-selling artist. And at his parents’ place in New Jersey he has a walk-in closet filled with Star Wars tchotchkes, which spill “out of three full bookcases and guarded by life-size cardboard cutouts of a Storm Trooper and Obi-Wan Kenobi.” His bar mitzvah, not surprisingly, was Star Wars-themed. It’s a credit to Antonoff that this detail is neither tragically nerdy nor annoyingly twee—it’s just endearing, like he is.

Image: Mat Hayward / Shutterstock.com

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A school in New Jersey recently removed a Holocaust-themed poster created by its sixth grade students, after a Jewish staffer took offense at the content and filed a complaint with Fairview Superintendent Louis DeLisio.

The Lincoln School students created a series of posters in response to Lois Lowry’s classic Holocaust novel Number the Stars, which tells the story of a friendship between two Danish girls—one Jewish, one Christian—during World War Two. The offending poster featured “a swastika interlocked with the Star of David, red droplets on the Israeli flag that appear to be blood, photographs of Jewish children with Xs through their faces, magazine cut-outs of a number of prohibited foods.” It’s not exactly a sophisticated or historically accurate response, but it is sincere and well-intentioned—so, pretty much what you’d expect from a group of sixth graders.

The staff member, who is not a full-time employee of the district, spoke to NJ.com on the condition of anonymity, because she was concerned that her complaint might lead to her being “targeted” at work. She said that the poster had been hung in a hallway that many students passed, without any contextualizing information. “It’s highly offensive to anybody, especially someone who is Jewish and whose family members were survivors of the Holocaust.”

Principal Lea Turro, who initially heard the complaint, informed the staffer that the poster would not be removed until Wednesday, when the curriculum was scheduled to change. DeLisio made the decision to remove the poster on Tuesday, after speaking with all the relevant parties.

“I run across this every once in a while, where one sector of our population is offended, and we always try to compromise,” he told NJ.com. “We’re not trying to offend anyone… my true feeling is they (the students) did not have any ill-intention with this poster… I think it’s a learning process for everyone.”

Do you think the school was right to remove the poster?

(Image: NJ.com)

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When people hear I grew up in Deal, N.J., I’m often met with shock: “You don’t look Syrian.” It’s true, I’m about as Syrian as Albert Einstein (after all, we both have roots in Germany and the same hair style in the morning). While I may not be Syrian, like anyone who’s spent a chunk of their childhood in Deal, I know what a good kibbeh tastes like.

Kibbeh, sambusak (the Middle Eastern answer to a calzone), and lachmagine (a sweet Middle Eastern meat pizza) earned their own food group in Deal. They’re like tiny heart attacks that fit in the palm of your hand and make your whole body quiver with delight. One bite and you’re sinking your teeth through the crisp bulgur based dough and into the delicious ground beef hidden inside. As a friend to kibbeh-eating professionals, I even knew the secret of squeezing a bit of lemon juice to throw the flavors over the top.

A legendary cookbook from my old hometown, Aromas of Allepo by Poopa Dwek, describes the classic Syrian dish as a good way to judge a cook’s true culinary skills. Poopa writes that the women of Aleppo were known throughout the Middle East for their kibbeh-making prowess and hostesses would be judged by their nimble and mystical “kibbeh finger,” which showed their ability to create the perfect meat-filled torpedo.

The thing is, the kibbeh I just described is good, but despite the intense amount of work put into them, they aren’t great. The flavor of most kibbehs are pretty simplistic and have difficulty overcoming the taste of the oil they’re fried in. Worse, most kibbeh come from your local supermarket. Pale as albino ghosts (remember, we’re not actually Syrian), when my family served kibbeh we didn’t have a bubbe to call for the recipe; instead, we headed for the frozen food aisle. Those kibbehs, tightly wrapped and lovingly made by a machine, were like dog food wrapped in thick dough. A glorified corn dog, shove a stick in it and people might walk around Coney Island munching on them. Instead of taking you and your taste buds for ride, it makes you want to tug on someone’s sleeve and ask when you’re leaving. Most people end up serving these tasteless frozen kibbehs and many don’t know what they are supposed to taste like.

This recipe is nothing like store bought kibbeh—for one thing, its flavor profile belongs in the Far East not the Middle East. Instead of wrapping up some bland meat in simplistic dough seasoned by a deep freeze, I ramped up the meat’s flavor and covered it in sushi rice. In this recipe you don’t taste oil, you taste the wonders of Japanese cuisine. For a nice twist, I coated it in panko breadcrumbs so you get the ever-so-yummy crunch that fresh kibbeh is known for.

There are really three elements to the dish, the rice, the meat, and the dipping sauce. They balance themselves out, so don’t skip any part of them. Agemono means fried foods in Japanese and there is no lack of them. This fresh take on kibbeh is based on Japanese cuisine as it flirts with the heavily fried classic Syrian dish. Creating this delicacy is no small feat and is a bit of work, but you won’t have any difficulty making them disappear.

Not Your Bubbe’s Kibbeh
Makes about 30

Ingredients:

Rice:
2 cups of sushi rice
2 cups of water
2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Filling:
1 lb ground beef
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup cilantro, diced
1/4 scallions, diced
1/2 tbsp ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

Coating:
3 eggs
Panko bread crumbs
Ginger
Oil

Sauce:
3/4 cup sake
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
3/4 tbsp ginger
1 1/2 tbsp corn flour

Equipment

3 medium bowls
1 large bowl
1 frying pan
1 large Pyrex

Directions:

1. Boil 2 cups of water over a medium high heat.

2. Add the rice and cover it, allowing it to cook for 20 minutes.

3. Once it’s cooked, let it sit off the flame with its cover for 10 minutes. Once the rice is cool, toss it with the rest of the rice ingredients.

4. While you wait for your rice to cool, combine the filling ingredients in a large bowl.

5. Now start working on forming your kibbeh agemono. Fill one bowl with water, this water will help prevent the sticky sushi rice from staying on your hand. Fill a second bowl with your eggs and beat them. In a third bowl, place 1/2 tbsp of ginger with a cup of panko breadcrumbs. You will need to refill your breadcrumbs bowl, and when you do, be sure to keep the ginger to panko bread crumbs ratio. I recommend setting up your bowls in a row in order to keep things neat.

6. Make a train of bowls. Start with the water, then the rice, the meat filling, eggs, and then the breadcrumb mixture. This way you will have an easier and quicker process when shaping your kibbeh agemono.

7. Dip your hands into the bowl of water.

8. Cover the palm of your hand and part of your fingers with a flat and cohesive layer of rice. It should almost look like your hand is covered with a carpet of sushi rice.

9. In the middle of your rice, place a small ball of your filling.

10. Close your hand, as if you are making a fist. By doing so, you should be covering the filling with rice. You may need to pinch the ends slightly. Squeeze the kibbeh slightly to make sure it’s secure.

11. Dip your freshly shaped kibbeh into the eggs, and then coat it generously in Panko bread crumbs. Set each kibbeh aside until you are done making all your kibbeh.

12. Repeat these last few steps until you run out of filling or rice. Make sure to always stick your hands in the water because if you don’t, your sushi rice will stick to you and not the meat. Don’t worry if the first few look a bit sloppy, there’s a small learning curve with these. You need to find a way that’s comfortable for you to operate in order for them to be shaped nicely.

13. Fill a large frying pan with oil over a medium high heat.

14. Once the oil is hot, fry your kibbeh until they are golden brown on each side.

15. While you wait for the oil to heal, cover a Pyrex with paper towels. These will soak up some of the unnecessary oil.

16. Next, make your dipping sauce: Start by heating a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Place all of the sauce’s ingredients into the pan except for the corn flour.

17. Gradually whisk the corn flour into the sauce. Be sure to do this carefully in order to prevent it from clumping together. Continue to whisk the sauce until it simmers and thickens, which should take about ten minutes.

18. Serve the sauce and kibbeh hot, and watch people happily burn their tongues on them.

Also try:

Not Your Bubbe’s Borscht Salad

Not Your Bubbe’s Deconstructed Baba Ghanoush

Not Your Bubbe’s Pistachio Mandel Bread

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Recipe: Kibbeh Agemono appeared first on Jewcy.

Doors open at 7:30pm, show starts at 8:00pm.

Buy tickets online for $10, $15 at the door. Ticket prices include one drink!

Visit http://www.HobokenIsraelParty.com/ and click where it says “Buy Tickets Online” and you will be taken to the registration page.

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