A Year of Jewish Joy with Rebekah Lowin & Sophia Rossi
[0:00]But I've heard such wonderful things.
[0:02]And we're here with the Jewish Martha Stewart,
[0:06]which I love that compliment.
[0:09]But I also am like, you are the original.
[0:11]Oh my goodness.
[0:13]Thank you.
[0:14]Well, Martha is my former boss, and I've been joking on this tour.
[0:19]I've been name dropping her at every location, and I hope she never hears about it.
[0:25]Has she been?
[0:26]I never said I was the OG.
[0:28]You said it.
[0:29]Yeah, I said it, I said it.
[0:30]But has she been to a Shabbat?
[0:32]No, she has not.
[0:33]Martha does not know who I am, everybody, unless you make that happen.
[0:36]She does not know, but we did work together once.
[0:40]Well, I wanted to welcome everyone.
[0:41]I know we just finished a month of Jewish holidays.
[0:44]And so there have been a lot of meals, prepping, and a lot of gatherings.
[0:49]And today is still a new month.
[0:52]Happy Rosh Chodesh.
[0:53]So we are still in holidays.
[0:55]And I wanted to talk to Rebecca because she's been such a meaningful part of a lot of people's holidays in the highs and lows of life.
[1:03]And so I wanted to get a little bit of background and hear what your holidays were like this year.
[1:08]Did you do any of this?
[1:09]Yes.
[1:10]Well, I didn't do anything ultra creative for myself because I've been on this little tour.
[1:18]But I went to my sister's.
[1:20]It was lovely.
[1:22]This year, I am going all in on Hanukkah.
[1:25]And I've already been planning for Hanukkah.
[1:27]You've got to live up to the Jewish Martha Stewart label somehow.
[1:31]So I've been thinking about Hanukkah for months.
[1:33]But no, the high holidays were really low key.
[1:36]I was in Philly, in Boston, in New York, here.
[1:41]So I am only human and didn't go all out for those, I will say.
[1:47]Some of you are here because you're fans of Rebecca.
[1:49]Some of you are probably just fans of the book.
[1:51]But I'd love to hear a little bit about your background so we can sort of contextualize this event.
[1:57]Yes.
[1:58]So I think Martha is a good place to start.
[2:01]And then I'll rewind a bit from there.
[2:03]So I did work for Martha Stewart.
[2:05]See, can't stop name dropping her already multiple times.
[2:08]That was like 15 years ago.
[2:10]I worked in her headquarters at Martha Stewart Living.
[2:12]It was always a dream of mine because to rewind further, I grew up with a very creative mother who subscribed to Martha Stewart Living, the magazine, and I watched all the Martha TV shows.
[2:24]So I was just a big fan.
[2:27]My mother would make Jewish holidays very special, although she didn't cook or bake.
[2:32]So my grandmothers did.
[2:36]Shout out to grandmothers.
[2:37]Shout out to them.
[2:38]And so they helped me with the cooking, baking side of things.
[2:42]My mother was more, she was a painter, she was a former Broadway actress, very creative person.
[2:48]And then I promise we'll get back to the fun Martha story.
[2:51]More about my childhood.
[2:52]My father spoke Yiddish in our home, super religious.
[2:57]My mother was not so religious, but her mother was an Auschwitz survivor, and so there was still this constant sense of Jewishness was very important to us.
[3:07]But I loved that mix that I grew up with of religious and I don't know what to call what my mother was, just spiritual, whatever.
[3:17]And I got this nice, Mix of a reverence for tradition and also this desire to be a little creative.
[3:26]So anyway, I land at Martha Stewart and I was a lowly assistant back then.
[3:32]So I can't say that I was like, you know, brainstorming the entire magazine or anything, but I got to look into her world.
[3:42]I got to walk through the crafting rooms, which was a real thing.
[3:46]There were these rooms filled with pom-poms and yarn and like really everything that you imagine.
[3:54]The office was that.
[3:55]It was glamorous.
[3:56]It was so cool to be there.
[3:58]Every day I would walk through these test kitchens at Martha and made a lot of friends there who taught me a lot about cooking and baking.
[4:06]And that's where this seed of an idea of what if I married some of this Martha world that I've always loved with the Jewish world and the Jewish holidays, It took me a few more years before I actually launched my blog and everything, but that was sort of the beginning.
[4:23]And then I hopped around to different lifestyle magazines, and I'm actually still an editor, and I am taking time off to attend this event.
[4:31]So shout out to my boss, Dave, for that.
[4:34]I'm not kidding.
[4:34]Well, we thank him.
[4:35]We thank him.
[4:36]Well, I was thinking, too, right now Jewish food is pretty popular in culture, Israeli food.
[4:42]Things that in my childhood probably would have been nostalgic to see somewhere has now become in the mainstream,
[4:49]like PETA, or just certain things that you now see in main places.
[4:52]How did that feel to be at Martha Stewart?
[4:55]Were there recipes there that you felt were identified as Jewish?
[5:00]Yes.
[5:00]So I think, of course, I looked at the magazine that we'd produce every month, and I would think, especially in December, I would think there's something missing.
[5:11]But there was always, there is always that one Hanukkah spread, and this is true of a lot of lifestyle magazines and digital outlets too.
[5:20]There's always like some little placeholder for Hanukkah, and I felt like it was simply the color blue.
[5:28]And here's something that's probably for Christmas, but it's blue, so happy Hanukkah ornaments or whatever.
[5:34]And I personally actually appreciated that they tried.
[5:40]And I want to also give credit.
[5:41]There's a woman who worked at Martha Stewart with whom I did one of these book tour talks, Darcy Miller, who is credited with going to Martha 20 years ago and saying, you have nothing for Hanukkah.
[5:51]And so she got that little spread created in the first place.
[5:54]So I was always very grateful that that existed, but wanted to do more.
[5:59]And I thought, what if there's a whole world here?
[6:02]So I started this blog in 2019, which some of you might know about or follow, I hope.
[6:08]And that's where I sort of synthesized all of this and started crafting and baking and photographing and publishing ideas for Jewish holidays only, like all year.
[6:21]And it's been really fun.
[6:22]I love that.
[6:23]I was once told that And sadaka boxes that they call them beautiful because you should make a mitzvah beautiful.
[6:29]And I thought that was nice to be like, let's allow things to have cultural impact that are also beautiful.
[6:37]Things don't have to be vain if they're beautiful.
[6:38]So the beautiful Shabbos table or beautiful Gift
[6:41]for a shiva.
[6:43]It's still nice and beautiful.
[6:45]And I really love that.
[6:46]I personally do not have any aesthetic that I am proud of.
[6:49]But I appreciate it.
[6:52]And I think that it goes a really long way.
[6:55]And so I love the details in this book.
[6:57]And one thing I want to also mention, I have some friends who are not here today who have a cookbook club in my Chabad girls in Hancock Park.
[7:05]And they were very touched that you included the blessings.
[7:08]Oh, that makes me so happy.
[7:09]And I think that is a really big mitzvah, and I think that is really generous to do.
[7:15]And also, just also people who are not Jewish to learn what these mitzvahs mean to Jewish people.
[7:20]Yeah.
[7:21]And so I wanted to hear a little bit about why you included that and which ones mean what to you if anything comes to mind.
[7:28]Oh, that's such a beautiful comment.
[7:30]So thank you.
[7:32]There are certain things that I was hoping people would notice.
[7:36]Because I wanted this book to feel very inclusive.
[7:39]I wanted it to feel at home in a more religious person's home and also someone who's not Jewish and just admiring our customs or gifting it.
[7:49]And so I will also say from a personal perspective, My Jewishness has a lot of God in it, which is certainly not the case for maybe most people who pick up this book.
[8:01]But I wanted it to be authentic and from me.
[8:04]And so I felt that it was not possible to approach these holidays without two things, a little sprinkle of that Judaism religious part.
[8:16]And so I added those blessings and also an explanation of what the heck is even going on here.
[8:23]Which is why there are also 12 essays in the book that open each chapter and explain what each holiday is about.
[8:30]And so that made the book process a little painful because there was so much writing on top of recipes and crafts.
[8:39]But it was all worth it.
[8:41]I'm so happy that I got to include these explanations and celebrations of each holiday and things like the blessings.
[8:48]And I think that that all It really goes back to my childhood, having this father who was devoutly religious, and it gave me a respect for that, and I don't carry a lot of his traditions forward, some of the more extreme ones or the more orthodox things, but I always have a deep respect for them, and I wanted this book to be respectful at its core.
[9:16]So even when I do take a really creative turn, like there's 52 Shabbat theme ideas, for instance, which is not so traditional.
[9:25]There's like a paint and sip Shabbat, so you know.
[9:28]That was not outlined in Genesis or wherever, but, or was it?
[9:33]Open to interpretation.
[9:35]Tile and sips.
[9:37]Yes, yes.
[9:39]Tile and sips.
[9:40]So even when I went that route, I still wanted to Make sure that there's like a seriousness in the book.
[9:48]And also, I think that Jewishness is often reduced to a punchline.
[9:53]And whether or not you are religious, I hope you can agree that there's just so much more to us.
[10:00]I like to take life a little seriously.
[10:03]And I haven't found a book that did that.
[10:06]So I wanted to, a lifestyle book.
[10:08]So I really wanted to have a little bit of weight to this book.
[10:13]Well, I appreciate that.
[10:14]I mean, to me, like I was saying earlier, I feel like Jewish food is so much in the culture now.
[10:19]Obviously, I am Jewish in a Jewish world, but it feels like challahs are at every bakery.
[10:24]They're at Whole Foods.
[10:25]You wouldn't have seen that.
[10:26]Thank God they're at Whole Foods because I have to pick them up frequently.
[10:30]But that's so exciting, and I think I bless challah every week with my best friend, Miriam.
[10:35]She's here, and we do it in a group together because it's just, it's, It feels like bounty.
[10:41]When you have challah, it makes you want to give it to people.
[10:44]The blessing is for five pounds.
[10:45]That's a lot of challah.
[10:47]That's a lot to have to do.
[10:48]But it's nice to have to share that with community.
[10:53]And I wanted to know, do you often find yourself hosting because you're the best cook?
[11:00]Oh, what a question.
[11:01]I go to the people's houses that cook the best around
[11:03]the holidays.
[11:04]I do.
[11:06]I would say we host Shabbat most often because it's the one that comes around most often.
[11:12]And we always try to have friends at our table.
[11:15]But I think this is a really nice difference between us.
[11:19]You know, for me, I think, again, everything goes back to childhood.
[11:24]I think because I grew up without any other Jewish people around, I don't know if we've talked about, by the way, we just met.
[11:30]We have mutual friends.
[11:31]So I don't know what we've talked about, but not much.
[11:34]But when I was growing up in a little town in Connecticut, there were no Jewish people.
[11:38]That's not the case anymore in that town.
[11:42]So we couldn't make a minion on Friday nights.
[11:45]We had the security guard step in to our shul.
[11:49]So I think that Now as an adult and with kids I see the extraordinary benefits of using your Jewishness to build community and we need each other more than ever and yes.
[12:03]And also I think something interesting for people to hear is that it doesn't have to be that you're hosting even one person.
[12:12]It could be that you decide I'm gonna sit down tonight just me or me and my partner or me and my children, me and my dog and Bake a challah and have a beautiful table.
[12:23]And in fact, there are no pictures of people in the book, except for there's one of me and my grandmother.
[12:32]And my publisher had asked me if we wanted to do lifestyle shoots with a lot of people around a table.
[12:39]And I thought, on the one hand, that's such a beautiful illustration of what Jewishness can be and what Shabbat can be.
[12:45]And on the other hand, As someone who grew up without that community, I felt that that might be alienating to some to see like, okay, not only do you have to get the food right and the decor right, but you gotta have like five friends at the ready.
[12:59]So this is not to discount the beautiful things that you just said.
[13:02]And of course now I host and it's amazing and I like to have friends around the table, like who doesn't?
[13:09]But yeah, I really wanted it to feel like even if you're doing it just for you, you're lighting candles alone, That is a good enough excuse to make it beautiful, going back to your idea of that being a mitzvah.
[13:24]And in fact, maybe even more so, maybe even more, you could argue just to be alone and lighting candles for no other reason than this connection between you and God or just because you want to have that day set aside each week.
[13:42]I think that's very beautiful.
[13:43]So there's so many ways of thinking about this and none are right or wrong or whatever, but that was an interesting place I came from with it.
[13:50]I think a lot of people are intimidated to cook if you're not hosting and sort of these like weeknight dinners or meal prepping, like all these recipes here I feel like are conducive to however you should still set the table for yourself if you want to.
[14:05]Yeah, I think so.
[14:07]I often think about an Instagram comment I saw a long time ago.
[14:12]It was on someone else's page.
[14:15]It was someone who, like me, does little crafty food things.
[14:18]It's not worth getting into.
[14:19]I think in this case, they had made a toasted bagel, and they were carefully putting cream cheese and then a piece of salmon, and then cream cheese and a piece of salmon, making a beautiful design.
[14:29]And somebody commented, why would you do that?
[14:33]And this person commented back, why do anything at all?
[14:37]And I thought, yeah, that's like, why do we put on a nice outfit?
[14:43]Why do we do anything?
[14:44]Why do we care?
[14:46]And it's because things matter, the world matters.
[14:50]So yes, even if you're alone, there's a reason to light the candles, to set the table, get a nice napkin out.
[15:00]I think that it all matters or else none of it does.
[15:04]Yeah, I was also thinking that sometimes when you think of You know, holiday food or there's a little heavy and there's a lot of like healthy recipes here that I thought was really, and healthy means everything's something different, but sort of like just in general, but I'm saying, but just, I think I had experienced holidays as very traditional and I'm Moroccan.
[15:31]So there's always like sort of the same meal every week, which I appreciate.
[15:35]But I think there's a lot of variation in here, and I thought that that was a nice way.
[15:41]Speaking of Moroccan, there is a Moroccan spicy fish in there.
[15:45]It's not so spicy, mine, because I'm not Moroccan, so I couldn't handle it, I guess.
[15:51]But you can leave the jalapeno seeds in, and then it will become a little spicier.
[15:55]But anyway, I don't know if that's what you had, but yeah, the fish every week.
[16:00]So thank you for noticing the variety.
[16:02]I really tried to stretch outward from my own traditions and include as much as I could from the breadth of Jewish culture while still being authentic.
[16:15]So that spicy fish is just something that I, it's become very popular in WhatsApp groups and in the Jewish community.
[16:23]So I was introduced to it.
[16:24]Now I make it every week.
[16:25]So I put it in the book and I just try to be honest about That, you know, I'm not Moroccan, but this is... We'll let you have it.
[16:33]Let me have it.
[16:34]It's delicious.
[16:35]Yeah.
[16:36]And there's a few other things.
[16:36]There's like a Persian dish.
[16:38]There's...
[16:39]Yes.
[16:40]I can never figure out how to do it.
[16:41]I just... Well, now...
[16:42]I will do it.
[16:43]...Made it a little easier.
[16:44]Yeah.
[16:46]So there.
[16:47]I tried for that variety.
[16:49]And, yeah.
[16:51]Well, I also wanted to talk about in the book, and I know everyone has it here, is...
[16:56]Why, since you're like a digital creator, what was the reason to want a physical book?
[17:02]Because you have such an audience online that's like immediate, you know, what is the, and it's a little old school, but cookbooks are back, I am seeing.
[17:09]They're definitely back, that's for sure, and here we are.
[17:12]And so there's so many reasons.
[17:16]The first is that I love books, and I love cookbooks specifically, and so I There's just a thrill to it.
[17:26]In fact, when I worked at Martha, I worked both on the magazine and also in cookbooks.
[17:31]My boss was the head of cookbooks, so I was always in the cookbook photo shoot, so I got a taste of that world early on, and I really enjoyed it.
[17:39]So it was just fun.
[17:41]Who doesn't want to make a book?
[17:43]But the second, and there's three reasons.
[17:45]The second is I'm a writer first and foremost, and I wanted to write.
[17:48]So actually, when I got this book deal, I thought, I'm going to milk this for all that it's worth.
[17:52]I'm going to turn in a manuscript that's 100,000 words over the limit.
[17:56]I did.
[17:57]And write these 12 essays that nobody asked for.
[18:01]Or back to pictures.
[18:04]My editor handed it back.
[18:05]I was like, what is this?
[18:07]You have to cut 70,000 words.
[18:11]So those are the main reasons.
[18:13]But now that it's here, I mean, It's like a piece of Judaica, I want to believe.
[18:19]And I think that it's so important to have physical representations of your Jewishness around.
[18:27]I'm not comparing this book to a holy object, but it's similar to the idea of a mezuzah.
[18:34]There's a reason that we have some Judaica that sits out or a mezuzah that's always there.
[18:39]You remember your Jewishness often if you see something Physical that reminds you of it.
[18:45]And so I was very deliberate with the cover of the book.
[18:48]I wanted it to be something that you would want to leave out on a coffee table or wherever.
[18:57]And I mean, I have it on my coffee table, obviously.
[19:02]No, it's gorgeous.
[19:03]And I think it's, I tried to make it like neutral enough that it could sit out in anybody's home, but also like that obvious fun splash of color.
[19:13]And that just felt Jewish to me, like lively, colorful, every color of the rainbow.
[19:20]So I tried to do both, but I wanted it to be able to sit out in someone's home.
[19:25]So I guess now it has taken on this beautiful new meaning.
[19:32]A work of art, if I do say so myself.
[19:35]It is.
[19:35]That you can leave out and be proud of and that people might ask you about.
[19:39]Well, speaking of being proud of, I want to say you wear your Judaism very proudly.
[19:44]And I think that that's a very beautiful way to carry yourself because I think even calling it a year of Jewish joy, I think that that is such a nice way to approach being Jewish with joyful and there's a lot of literature around like serve Hashem with joy, like have it be a joyous thing and there's been a lot of A lot going on in the world, and I feel like baking and cooking and gathering and nourishing is truly one of the best ways to do that joy.
[20:15]But I wanted to ask, what makes you so comfortable in your Judaism?
[20:23]Because it's electric, you can see.
[20:25]You're so proud, and it makes other people comfortable.
[20:28]But where does, I know you said your father and your mother, where does that come from?
[20:31]And how important is joy to you, separate from this book, in your life?
[20:36]That's such a nice question.
[20:38]So I'm about to really take a left turn here.
[20:43]So I shared on Instagram earlier this year that I suffered from postpartum depression in the last three years.
[20:51]While I wrote this book over the last five years, I went through a lot.
[20:55]Postpartum depression, the world was doing some stuff collectively that was not so good for the psyche.
[21:02]We won't get into that.
[21:03]And I had two babies after getting this book deal, which is why it took a while for me to bring it to fruition.
[21:11]I felt just very disenchanted with the world.
[21:16]And I'd never really been depressed before.
[21:20]So on a personal level, Joy has never been more important to me and I now see Jewish joy as its own very specific lane of a mix of many different emotions.
[21:37]It's happiness and it's also sadness sometimes.
[21:44]It's just loving the world and sometimes the world or your personal circumstances are not as good And I thank God that I've gotten through that time.
[21:55]And I often now credit the book for that, not because it's some magical, like biblical thing, but because the process of writing it was like a thread that just, I had to meet these deadlines.
[22:11]There's a lot of money on the line when you write a book, so you cannot miss those things.
[22:16]There is no choice unless I was going to give back my advance.
[22:20]So I kept writing, even on these very dark days.
[22:24]And I think it helped me.
[22:28]I mean, I think having this creative project pulled me through.
[22:32]And so again, I am on the other side of that, and I'm so thankful.
[22:38]But life is life.
[22:39]It's always up and down.
[22:42]It gave me a whole different perspective on the importance of joy.
[22:46]Then there's a whole different conversation we could have about representing ourselves with joy at the forefront rather than always talking about Jewishness from the perspective of anti-Semitism.
[22:55]I know that conversation has happened before, but I think just in the simplest sense, on a personal level, you've got to almost force yourself into joy to pull yourself through.
[23:06]And I talk about that a little in the book about how I see that in a bris.
[23:13]When someone's hosting a bris, it's like I'd have two baby boys.
[23:17]It is so horrible because for many reasons, especially for the guest of honor.
[23:24]But it's really like you're so tired.
[23:26]I don't know.
[23:27]I'm not the savviest new mother.
[23:30]So it was just tough for me to put on those nice clothes and host people and all of that.
[23:36]And I still kept it very simple, but it was still hard.
[23:39]But it's like it pulls you through.
[23:42]And the same with a shiva.
[23:44]It forces you back to life.
[23:48]So yeah.
[23:48]And I would love to actually, if you're comfortable talking about it.
[23:52]I know you recently had a significant loss.
[23:55]And again, we just met, but we got pretty deep pretty quickly.
[23:59]But I know that you did.
[24:01]And I'm curious about you and how you find joy in both a Jewish sense and a general sense.
[24:09]I just heard this the other day around Simcha Torah through my Tanya teacher.
[24:15]I was saying, like, all these holidays, and it's the holiday of joy.
[24:18]You're supposed to be, like, dancing with the Torah.
[24:19]And I just lost my father, like, a month ago.
[24:22]And I was like, I'm not really feeling it.
[24:24]And she's like, there's a story of Rabbi Nachman that was, they were at the gathering of Simcha Torah, and someone is in the corner.
[24:33]He's feeling sad and sorrow.
[24:36]And the Rebbe says, come dance with sorrow.
[24:39]And it's really beautiful because you're supposed to also like to dance with sorrow is also joyful.
[24:46]It is.
[24:47]So I think about it.
[24:48]I'm holding your hand.
[24:50]No, I think about it all the time in the last few days.
[24:52]And I thought about it.
[24:54]Even in terms of a shiva, like so many people sent me food and I was like, at first I was like, this is, they kept people like, what do you want?
[25:01]What do you want?
[25:02]You should never ask anyone what they want.
[25:03]Like really just do it.
[25:04]Like, cause that is not a fun question to have to answer.
[25:08]But the friends who just did show up with food, I was like, I like ate off of those things and sort of like survived off of that.
[25:15]And I, and it brought me such joy because like when you are feeling sad and then there's just like a wave of, Joy that comes from having someone take care of you with a nice meal.
[25:28]And so I think that that is part of being Jewish and part of just the human experience is like holding both things is like dancing with sorrow and what you went through.
[25:37]Dancing with sorrow.
[25:38]I love that.
[25:39]Yeah.
[25:39]And so I think that joy is often like people think of it as like spiritually bypassing, like you must be happy, like you must do this or you must host and it has to be this beautiful event.
[25:52]And I think As I've gotten older and had many experiences, I've seen that the people who are the most present and the people who are the most able to meet you in those times actually bring you joy because you have connection.
[26:10]And a lot of my girlfriends make a Jewish, not even Jewish, they have a cookbook club.
[26:16]And I get the benefit of having, when I go to their house for meals, they've tried out all these recipes in their cookbook clubs.
[26:22]And so I'm always so grateful.
[26:24]And a lot of these times, there are cookbooks that aren't Jewish.
[26:28]And they're obviously enjoying it because it's a cookbook.
[26:32]But to have something that represents Jewish joy, I think, is such an honor.
[26:39]And I was also thinking that a lot of these recipes, if you are kosher in some way, they have to be parv.
[26:46]And I was like, there should have been a parv diet.
[26:49]That's so true.
[26:51]And I learned something else, that people are afraid.
[26:54]It's like fleshic-phobic.
[26:56]You're afraid to have meat and dairy.
[26:58]And so if you like to keep it.
[27:00]And so a lot of these recipes are just like, it's for everyone.
[27:02]It's for everyone.
[27:06]We'll move out of this other joy conversation back into some practical reality.
[27:12]Everything in here, of course, is kosher, but not so of course, I guess, because a lot of the books that I was looking at and getting inspired for this were not.
[27:21]A lot of substitutions.
[27:24]That's where I think my mixed background comes into play.
[27:28]I know to respect kashrut and the laws and It just felt wrong to put a book into someone's hands and they have to go find an ingredient that can't be found with a kosher certification.
[27:40]So I made sure that, of course, everything's kosher and any ingredient that I call for that's like a packaged product, you can find kosher.
[27:46]But yeah, and then, of course, no mixing of meat and dairy, the usual stuff.
[27:50]But that's not really something you can take for granted, I guess, when you buy a Jewish book these days.
[27:58]And I don't want us to be further divided as a people with Oh, well, I can't buy those books because that's for that type of Jewish person.
[28:05]It should just be that it's all accessible to anybody.
[28:09]I have a lot of non-Jewish friends who are always like, what can I make you?
[28:12]What can I do for the holiday and participate?
[28:15]And I feel like this is a good entry point to just participating in our culture.
[28:21]Yes, yes.
[28:22]Even in LA, there's a million different foods that we get to try all the time, and I'm seeing them at different tables.
[28:29]And flavors, like flavor has become so important.
[28:33]I didn't necessarily, I mean, yes,
[28:34]I grew up Moroccan, but I don't know that I, like, what is the main Jewish flavor?
[28:39]For me, Hungarian flavors, for sure.
[28:43]Okay, what's that?
[28:44]What's that?
[28:46]For me, it's like two ingredients, caraway and paprika.
[28:51]That's in so many of the recipes and at so many moments where it's probably uncalled for.
[28:57]Like, well, I don't know.
[28:59]Maybe there's other people who do this, but in our family's stuffed cabbage recipe that my grandmother would make, she always had caraway in it.
[29:05]What is caraway?
[29:06]It's like what's in rye bread.
[29:07]Oh, okay.
[29:08]And it's a very distinct thing.
[29:10]Is it hard to find?
[29:11]Actually, no.
[29:12]Oh, good.
[29:13]Great.
[29:13]But I guess it's, yeah.
[29:15]And so...
[29:16]They're these seeds, the seeds that you see in rye bread, you know, and they have like that distinct flavor.
[29:22]And I think it just adds, it's like, I can't imagine stuffed cabbage without it.
[29:27]It's my plug for the book.
[29:28]Yeah.
[29:28]So definitely a lot of my grandmother's touch.
[29:33]It's delicious.
[29:34]It just adds like a depth and aromatic.
[29:36]I don't know how to describe it.
[29:37]It does not taste like rye bread when it's mixed in with other things.
[29:40]And then, of course, lots of paprika.
[29:41]And there are 75 recipes in the book because...
[29:46]There should be more maybe.
[29:48]There could be a hundred, but I had to pare down a little because there's a lot of tablescapes.
[29:54]I wanted to show, here's not just the food, but here's everything around the food.
[30:00]Here's how to decorate for Hanukkah as well as what to put on the menu.
[30:04]Here's a sample of a party you could throw.
[30:06]The page count really matters.
[30:12]They tell me after I turned in my huge manuscript.
[30:15]Are you reusing these like tablescapes things?
[30:20]Are they like from real parties?
[30:21]No, I'm saying like, because I think about all the time when people have these like beautiful tables, I'm like, and they pull out, I'm like, where are they pulling out like fall?
[30:30]So that's where
[30:31]I do have a closet.
[30:33]Yeah.
[30:34]I guess they will carry Christmas decorations.
[30:35]That's like, I mean, I will say again, though, this is my passion in life.
[30:40]So, you know, I wrote a book about it.
[30:43]So I do have a little closet, but here's what I will say, and this is what I think Instagram skews when people are posting constantly, which I don't know how they have the time to do that.
[30:56]This book is about holidays, and one of those holidays is Shabbat, which comes every week, but for the most part, you're not doing this every day or even every week.
[31:08]You're doing Rosh Hashanah once a year.
[31:10]So like, for instance, in this Rosh Hashanah chapter in my book, there are little spray painted shofar place cards.
[31:17]And I have now reused them.
[31:21]You can just spray paint over the names and then write the name again.
[31:25]Or in my case, I went to my neighbor who has amazing handwriting.
[31:28]I have horrible handwriting.
[31:30]And she did it for me.
[31:31]Oh, that's so sweet.
[31:33]Did you invite her?
[31:35]You know, I did not invite her.
[31:39]I don't know.
[31:39]That's a horrible thing.
[31:40]Gosh, I don't know.
[31:42]Just put your nameplate down.
[31:44]She did not write her own name.
[31:46]I never realized how horrible that is.
[31:49]I got to invite her next year.
[31:50]But the point is, you can repurpose a lot of these things, but also, like, in a very realistic sense, you just don't have to do it all the time.
[31:58]You could do, like, maybe you go big for Hanukkah, as I am going to do this year, and then you...
[32:05]Don't do anything.
[32:06]You don't host.
[32:07]You go to someone else's house for all of 2027.
[32:11]So I think a book like this, I'm trying to offer all the ideas, but I think it's unrealistic to expect that every week, if you are hosting Shabbat every week, that you'd have different linens.
[32:21]I think that's a little crazy, even with my closet.
[32:24]Well, I love hearing that about aesthetic because I feel like it might just be me, but I don't know that Jewish people get enough credit for aesthetic, you know, or that as much as sort of like a, or not even credit, but that gives it enough importance.
[32:41]And I think that I'm seeing more and more of a shift of sort of allowing things to be Beautiful and bringing that old tradition from before.
[32:53]I mean, I know with my grandmother, like, I don't think making things beautiful was that important to her.
[32:59]It was like taking care of seven kids.
[33:00]Yes, of course.
[33:01]It wasn't not beautiful, but it was very much like sustaining the families.
[33:06]And I think that,
[33:07]I actually think that, like, we're moving more into, because we live much better lives than our ancestors.
[33:12]Because we can.
[33:13]And we can, that we're able to make things very beautiful and put in that time and those details and Yeah.
[33:20]I really feel like when I started writing the book, that wave hadn't come yet, and now it has, and it's sort of going into excess in some parts of the internet, I think.
[33:32]There's Shabbat tables that make me feel less than.
[33:35]Sukkahs were crazy.
[33:37]I saw the craziest sukkahs this year.
[33:38]I probably saw the same one.
[33:39]Yeah, like lounges.
[33:40]Oh, she's coming for us.
[33:41]Yeah.
[33:42]But yeah, I think anything can devolve into too muchness.
[33:48]And so I try to be... Well,
[33:52]we're going to take some questions, but I just want you to... We don't have
[33:53]time for that, so you'll never know.
[33:55]I do want to know, how would you describe your aesthetic?
[33:59]And do you think it is approachable?
[34:01]I'm going to use some complimentary adjectives now to describe my aesthetic.
[34:06]Well, I always say, because I had to pitch myself to all these book editors, So I described it as, this is a strange thing to say about yourself, sophisticated but whimsical.
[34:18]And I think that those two words actually also perfectly describe my reverence for tradition mixed with this desire to iterate or make things modern in some way.
[34:30]So whimsical sophistication, I have a perfect canned answer for that.
[34:35]Yeah, this feels it.
[34:37]That's what I'm trying to do.
[34:39]And yeah, that's my answer.
[34:42]I'm so happy to meet you in front
[34:43]of everyone.
[34:44]I know.
[34:46]So thank you.
[34:52]Feel free to ask our sophisticated, whimsical queen any questions.
[34:55]I believe I said that.
[34:56]Yeah.
[34:57]I think that sounds right.
[34:59]I think it's a perfect description.
[35:00]Thanks.
[35:02]Yeah.
[35:04]Anyone has any questions?
[35:06]I can say, I love your candy Taurus.
[35:10]Oh, yeah, the candy Taurus.
[35:12]Oh, my gosh.
[35:12]I thought that was so very whimsical.
[35:16]Thank you.
[35:16]And easy to do.
[35:18]Very sophisticated, you know.
[35:21]Thank you.
[35:23]Thank you.
[35:23]Well, that is definitely.
[35:25]As soon as I pick it up, I see what she does.
[35:28]There's some things where I didn't want to reinvent the wheel too much, like Candy Torres.
[35:32]They've been done.
[35:33]I know.
[35:34]I'm not the first.
[35:35]They have literally never heard of it.
[35:36]Oh, they're really cute.
[35:37]Okay, I'm going to.
[35:38]So there you go.
[35:39]But that was something that was not like the most original idea by me, but I changed it up.
[35:46]I did an all-chocolate version that's a bit larger than the little Smarties ones that you sometimes see.
[35:51]Or I got those Smarties ones at Hebrew school.
[35:54]Okay, great.
[35:55]Hold on.
[35:55]So.
[35:56]Oh, okay.
[35:58]And this was the first shot of the book.
[36:00]And I walked into the photo studio and I have the best creative team.
[36:05]But the photographer was not Jewish and the stylist was not Jewish.
[36:09]So they could understand almost every shot that I required.
[36:12]But this one, they were like, and you want to do what exactly?
[36:15]So this was the first day, first shot of the book.
[36:18]And I was like, everybody move aside.
[36:20]And I just crafted my way and cut the tassels.
[36:23]And I mean, I made a lot of what's in this book.
[36:26]But there's a food stylist usually and a prop stylist.
[36:29]And they were like, what do you need?
[36:30]We don't know what's going on.
[36:32]And I said, could I have some confetti?
[36:34]And they're like, we have some random rainbow confetti.
[36:36]Well, this is like when they throw candy when they look at the Torah.
[36:39]Yes, so I tried to make a little happy.
[36:41]I remember it because I was so nervous.
[36:42]I had just met the photographer, and I was like, could I have a wooden backdrop, I guess?
[36:46]I've never done this before.
[36:48]Do you think the second book will have an arc?
[36:52]That's a good question.
[36:55]The second book will have an arc, yes, and we'll decorate it.
[36:58]I love that.
[36:59]Yeah, there were some funny moments on set, like explaining things to the photographer, but most of it was pretty self-explanatory, you know, holla, stuff like that.
[37:12]Any other questions?
[37:13]Yes.
[37:14]I know you've written a book to just begin, but do you have advice for like a specific recipe and a specific So,
[37:28]and thank you for the question.
[37:32]Someone asked me this.
[37:34]I'm on a book tour.
[37:35]I'm professional at this now.
[37:37]So I recently had an event in Boston where somebody asked something similar.
[37:41]And I was like, oh, Shabbat, because you can pick up any time.
[37:45]Like, you want to just begin?
[37:46]Well, you could begin next Friday.
[37:48]But upon careful reflection, I actually think that is not a good place to start.
[37:54]I changed my answer.
[37:55]I think that Hanukkah is the one to start with.
[37:59]And here's why.
[38:02]Hanukkah or a break fast?
[38:04]A break fast, I think the stakes have never been lower because everybody's starving.
[38:10]It's true.
[38:11]You can buy some bagels.
[38:12]Nobody wants you to cook.
[38:14]So that's great.
[38:15]All you have to do is get your community together.
[38:18]That's one way.
[38:19]Yeah, get your community or by yourself.
[38:20]No one wants you to cook because they'll smell the food in the day.
[38:23]No one wants you to cook because you're starving too and they'll feel bad for you.
[38:26]I don't know.
[38:26]But it's just like they want bagels.
[38:28]In my Ashkenazi world, my husband is Brazilian and they don't do bagels, they do real food, which is like shocking to me.
[38:33]So anyway, but they also order it in.
[38:35]So like ordering in is the universal Jewish thing on a breakfast, I think.
[38:40]And you can make things ahead, but mostly you could just like grab things from the bagel guy, the bagel delivery guy's hands and feel proud.
[38:48]Everyone's gonna love it.
[38:49]So breakfast, secretly the best Jewish thing to host.
[38:52]But Hanukkah, I have come a long way from my Martha days where I was like, All they did was use the color blue.
[39:01]Now I'm like, no.
[39:03]Martha, you were onto something.
[39:05]There's a built-in color scheme.
[39:06]We're not totally sure who gave it to us.
[39:08]I don't think it was Hashem.
[39:10]But somebody at some point was like, blue and gold.
[39:15]And I find that helpful.
[39:16]You've got to be grateful for what you've got.
[39:19]And someone gave us blue.
[39:21]And I think that's helpful as a first-time host.
[39:23]It's like, okay, you want to host a cocktail party?
[39:25]You've got a great built-in theme, blue stuff.
[39:29]Like, that makes it easy.
[39:30]Whereas Passover Seder, besides having a million other rules and ritual objects that need to be on the table, also has no color scheme.
[39:39]It's difficult.
[39:41]So I'm going to say Hanukkah or a breakfast.
[39:44]You just have to wait a little.
[39:45]And now you have time to prepare.
[39:47]You don't have to do it next Friday.
[39:48]Do you have a latke tip for anyone here?
[39:51]OK. Well, my family, I do have a latke tip, like latkes.
[39:54]Yeah.
[39:55]OK.
[39:55]I didn't know if that was some slang.
[39:58]I'm in LA.
[39:59]I don't know what people are saying.
[40:01]No.
[40:02]In my family, we make like a Polish kind of latke that is soft and squishy.
[40:08]And it makes people, I know Sia got some faces.
[40:12]Not very polite faces.
[40:14]And they're like soft.
[40:18]Love them.
[40:18]And they're my family's way.
[40:20]So I can't imagine any other way.
[40:22]But I had to, because when I was hosting some Hanukkah parties like 10 years ago, 2017, was when I invented this, what I call the party latke.
[40:30]And that's what's in the book.
[40:31]And that's what my editor allowed in the book.
[40:33]Because she's like, nobody wants to hear about your floppy latkes.
[40:39]I get it.
[40:40]And the reason I invented this is because at a party, if you're a cocktail party, you don't want to be walking around holding the floppy latke.
[40:47]It's like oily and...
[40:49]Floppy.
[40:50]Floppy, yeah.
[40:51]So that's when I made these latkes that are engineered for crunch and crisp.
[40:57]And then I've been using those ever since because they don't make people as angry.
[41:03]But I love...
[41:05]I don't know how to pronounce the Polish word because nobody in my family ever used it.
[41:08]This is just what my grandmother did.
[41:10]But there's a name for it in there of what the name of this special Polish latke is called.
[41:16]I think it's amazing.
[41:17]You can fold it like a little taco.
[41:19]It doesn't break.
[41:20]You could swing it around.
[41:22]You can do so many fun things with it.
[41:25]But it's not made for a cocktail napkin.
[41:27]So yeah, that's my Lotka tip.
[41:29]Yes.
[41:36]You talked a little bit about Martha Stewart as inspiration, but I'm wondering if you could share if you have any other, what or who over the years as you've evolved, maybe still today, are inspirations?
[41:48]So no offense to Martha, but actually when I worked there, it was this woman, Darcy Miller, who was, I had a celebrity crush on this lady.
[42:00]But I also worked with her, so it got a little weird.
[42:03]And then, actually, on one of the first stops on my tour, I decided I was going to just reach out to her and say, would you like to interview me for this book tour in New York?
[42:14]She said yes.
[42:15]So then I found myself up on the stage with her in New York, and somebody asked that.
[42:20]And I was like,
[42:22]oh, god.
[42:22]It's you.
[42:23]It's you.
[42:23]Which I've told her, but I don't think she understood the depth of my romantic love for her.
[42:29]But she has a book called, she was Martha's, she still is Martha's friend.
[42:34]She's like a party planner extraordinaire.
[42:36]And her whole thing, she doesn't cook or bake.
[42:38]She plans parties that have the most cohesive, beautiful theme running through them.
[42:45]Hard to explain.
[42:46]I won't do it justice, but get her book.
[42:48]It's called Celebrate Everything.
[42:50]And when I set out to make this book, that was like a big inspiration for me.
[42:54]She has different chapters for different types of parties.
[42:58]And yeah, and then it kind of like took a big turn from there because the Lord was invoked in here.
[43:05]It's not invoked in Darcy's book.
[43:06]So like there was a lot of other information I had to throw in.
[43:09]But yeah, Darcy Miller is so amazing.
[43:12]And you should all follow her.
[43:14]She's great.
[43:15]I love Celebrate Everything.
[43:16]Yeah, it's a great book.
[43:18]Yeah.
[43:28]That sounds so good.
[43:29]It's like the applesauce a little bit.
[43:32]No, that's really nice.
[43:54]I'm going to add the sugar to my floppy latkes just to make everyone even more angry.
[44:00]Like, they're going to hate me.
[44:01]Another little story is that I wish your book was long, long time ago.
[44:06]But later on, I saw this puppet came.
[44:11]She's from England.
[44:21]Anyway, she came, she brought something plain, the dessert, and it was kind of a, I don't know, kind of like really something.
[44:30]And my daughter asked her at the end of the meal, have you made me, what are you putting in it?
[44:36]And she said, whatever eggs and stuff and lard.
[44:49]Ingredients is a big part of being Jewish.
[44:51]As a grandmother, always looking for ways to make festive meals accessible to children beyond just the taste.
[44:57]And so last year I came up with Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world.
[45:18]So why not think happy birthday to the world over the dessert?
[45:25]I love that so much.
[45:27]That's such a good point that a lot of these recipes are good because they can also attract kids because mostly Jewish food is for adults.
[45:35]I'm glad that you said that because when I put this all together, my personal complaint was there's nothing here for kids because I need to write another book.
[45:48]I just don't have a ton of experience.
[45:49]I got three years of experience with two babies.
[45:52]I got to get some more.
[45:54]What are they eating out
[45:55]of the book right now?
[45:56]They just eat whatever we eat.
[45:59]So I think my older son is starting to ask for his own craft and his own fun things.
[46:04]But I'm not yet an expert on children's stuff.
[46:07]So we need to talk.
[46:08]I love that idea.
[46:10]Yeah.
[46:11]Well, thank you.
[46:12]Thank you so much.
[46:14]Thank you for coming.
[46:14]Thank you.
[46:18]We're going to sign books now?
[46:22]Yeah.