More Traveling Food, but No Adventure

The great adventure has been postponed. We are literally “sitting by the sea” (the ocean, in our case) “and waiting for the weather” (that’s an Odessa saying). So far only one of you, Beautiful People, has figured out my disappearing act. Well done, dear Carol of Retired? No one told me! One more beautiful and…

Magic Curried Mushrooms

Why did people in Ancient Egypt call mushrooms “the plant of immortality”? Did they truly believe that eating mushrooms would make them immune to human frailties, deceases, and ultimately, departing this world? Not really. They never had a chance to see for themselves because the pharaohs loved mushrooms so much that they declared it royal…

Popalik for a Poor Orphan

We do not cook on Shabbos. Food must be ready before sundown on Friday, and nothing could be cooked or even reheated until after sundown on Saturday. Yet the tradition demands hot food to be served both on Friday night and on Saturday afternoon. Friday night is relatively easy as you finish cooking or heating things…

Ponce de Leon, Diamond Lil, and the Secret of Eternal Youth

There is a quaint little town on the East Coast of Florida called St Augustine. It is considered the oldest continuous European settlement in the continental United States. But that’s not what makes it famous. Tourists flock to St Augustine because they are dying to stay young forever. According to the official Fountain of Youth…

Happy New Year to the Trees with More Pickled Veggies!

This is a re-post, Beautiful People. Tomorrow is Tu b’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees in the Hebrew Calendar, and I thought this post was worth repeating. We are celebrating yet another New Year – the New Year of the Trees. In the old times, in ancient Israel, this day, 15th of the month…

Stuffed Avocado

When you hear stuffed shirt, you get a mental image of a retrograde, an inflexible old-fashioned conservative, maybe an arrogant poseur with no substance. The latter is probably the closest to the truth, as the idiom was actually born as a literal description of a scarecrow, dressed in real person’s clothes and stuffed with whatever was…

Fireworks and Fish

Happy, healthy, and safe 2021, Beautiful People! Before all the festivities on Ocean Drive started (and ended up being cancelled anyway), we had escaped to our favorite Sunset Cove Resort on Key Largo. We have visited this place for years when we used to sail there, anchor the boat, and come ashore for a day…

Pollo Fritto Artistico

Before presenting to you, Beautiful People, a unique Chanukkah recipe originating in Italy and inspired by non-Jews, it is my great pleasure to share a lovely poem composed by a non-Jewish blogofriend Jonathan Coswell who chronicles every day events in limericks. Please click on the link to enjoy the poem and come back for the…

Bitten by a Chicken – Honey Chicken Bites

Have you ever been bitten by a chicken? No? Chicken don’t bite? Are you sure? What about figuratively, rather than literally, when a whole bunch of people, almost three million of them, got bitten, that is, obsessed, by the same idea? It happened about thirty three hundred years ago, and those people were by no…

My Grandmother’s Recipes: Part 3, Appetizers.

We are up to holiday appetizers and Part 3 of my story, Beautiful People (click for Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).   3. Hassidic Jews – from Hassidism, a religious movement originated in Southern Poland in 18th century 4. Reds – supporters of the Red (Bolshevik, later Communist)…

Hawaiian Snowballs

Are you, Beautiful People, watching your woods “fill up with snow”? A great American poet, with an appropriate last name Frost, had, and wrote about it: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening BY ROBERT FROST Whose woods these are I think I know.    His house is in the village though;    He will not see me…

Feeling That Is Danced! Gabriela Galette

Tango alert! Any of you, Beautiful People, who are not inflamed by this most famous Argentinian product, passion transformed into music, feeling that is danced, might as well scroll all the way down to the recipe.  But wait! Give it a try, won’t you? “You can dance love, rage, happiness, pleasure, every mood. The tango is not…