Event: Federation’s Women’s Philanthropy Presents Nourish Your Soul: Featuring Michael Solomonov & Steven Cook, in conversation with Joan Nathan
Review: Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious, by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook
It’s déjà vu all over again. Another knockout cookbook from Solomonov and Cook, and another complementary event with Joan Nathan. This one had an extra added attraction: a variety of dishes prepared from recipes in the book, served buffet style.
The event was presented by The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s Women’s Philanthropy. About 400 folks came to the Washington Hebrew Congregation, ate, listened, and left well-nourished. During the interview, we learned some interesting things about Israel (“Nobody cares about carbohydrates in Israel”); Solomonov and Cook’s history together (the only two Jewish line cooks in Philadelphia); and the cuisine of Israel: it’s such a small country that the farm-to-table movement is a given. Vegetables travel no more than 100 miles to restaurants and markets.
What does Israeli soul mean to these cooks? There are immigrants from so many countries, and the cuisine is a mix of them all. Sort of like America.
On Stage: Joan Nathan, Michael Solomonov, Steven Cook
Now, about that food. The dishes were prepared by Carmel Caterers. I take it on faith that they were true to the book’s recipes (just in case, I prepared one in testing the book. My Matbucha and theirs seemed in sync. She said modestly.)
The Scene at the Soul
My Crowded Plate
The Bartender Shakes That Thang
Dessert!
A variety of salads, from Turkish to Radish-and-Zucchini to Cabbage-with-Sumac-and-Dill fought for space on my too-small plate with both Chicken and Lamb Shawarma. There was a signature cocktail, not included in the book, Limonanna. It was made with bourbon, but otherwise resembled a caipirinha.
For dessert, two from the book: Almond Basboosa Cake and Ma’amoul Cookies. They would have gone better with Turkish coffee, but alas, it was not on offer.
And about the book? It’s big, beautiful, full of color, with little character sketches of people, food venues, and places in Israel. It makes me want to go back and visit – and eat! I was there for a summer in 1969, when the food was not all that. Much like my sojourn in Philadelphia, I left just as the food renaissance was getting started.
And about the recipes, most are written clearly, in conventional style, with a list of ingredients and a set of instructions. The chapters on hummus toppings and salads, however, are done in straight-through conversational mode (“Chop 1 onion and cook in 1 tablespoon olive oil…add a pint of cherry tomatoes…”), which makes for totally unnecessary difficulty in assembling the mise en place for efficient cooking. As professional cooks, the authors should have resisted this stylistic tic.
At four pounds, three ounces, it’s slightly heavier than Zahav. Really, guys, is this a competition? But on the positive side, it totally avoids Dreaded Overleaf Fallacy. Even when a recipe is illustrated with multiple step-by-step illustrations, all the instructions are contained on a single page, so when using a book stand and cooking, no need to turn pages. Yay!
I decided to give the Five-Minute Hummus a whirl (in the food processor), and make some of the toppings for it. Also, some of these ingredients get stuffed into the Sabich, a sandwich in a pita which is sort of like a falafel sandwich with eggplant instead of falafel.
I have ranted in the past about many promised completion times for recipes (the New York Times is a notorious offender) not including prep time, so giving a false time frame, and by implication, misrepresenting the level of difficulty. The Five-Minute recipe is also guilty of this lacuna, but only a little – peeling the garlic clove, juicing the lemon, measuring out the ice water, and draining and rinsing the chickpeas all add more time. Twenty-Minute Hummus would be more accurate. That said, it makes darn good hummus.
I made two of the toppings: Matbucha with Egg, and Black-Eyed Peas. Both were synergistic with the hummus – way better together than each on its own.
Hummus Ingredients
Dried Limes and Turmeric for the Black-Eyed Peas
The Black-eyed Peas, Cooking
The Resulting Feast
The Haminados recipe is an interesting adaptation of a traditional slow-cooked Shabbat dish, in which the eggs are just one ingredient of a full meal cooked for many hours in a single pot. Tea, coffee, and onion peels stand in for meat juices to produce a simulation of the traditional dish (and reminded me of Chinese tea eggs, which are simmered for fewer hours but produce similar results). Was it worth baking overnight, then boiling away the liquid, to produce eggs with a creamy, but not outrageously unique, consistency? It was. Once.
Egg Baking Liquid
For the Sabich, we combined the Hummus, Haminados, Matbucha, some mango chutney to simulate Amba (a spicy mango sauce), celery to replace a tomato/cucumber mixture, and smoked eggplant for a sandwich we couldn’t eat without making a mess – but it was a delicious mess! Right in the spirit of the authentic Sabich, according to the book. And really tasty.
Sabich, Ready to Stuff
This book is so full of recipes using fresh produce that I regret not having had it on hand in the summer, but there are others, especially in the meat-oriented sections, that I look forward to fixing in the cold months ahead. Let the adventure continue!
Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious, by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2018.
