May the Hanukkah lights find you together with loved ones.
We had our first snowfall the other night. It made me wish to be a school child again – not for playing outside in it, but because school around here was canceled for two whole days. For a quarter inch of snow. Heavens to Betsy – there wasn’t even enough to scrape together a snowball, let alone a snowman. And then the sun came out. At least it stayed cold. We are inching toward winter. I’m planning a Hanukkah-adjacent supper for Sunday night. It will be a warm and cozy meal, with a crackling roasted chicken, and the comfort of candlelight. And we will count our blessings.
After the elaborate (and fraught ritual) of roasting a turkey for a multi-generational Thanksgiving, cooking a chicken seems delightfully simple. And yet, it took me years to end up here. It might be that my learning curve for the elemental is very steep – it took me about 20 years to master cooking rice, after all. No one is seeking Michelin stars for this roasted chicken, but it is a meal will nourish both body and soul. I am more in my element when it is a low stakes, low pressure meal – unlike all the meal coordination and varying cooking styles and the dietary restrictions that come with a large family get-together. It will be just the two of us.
Jessie Ware and her feisty mother, Lennie, host a delightful food podcast, Table Manners. Lennie is very proud of her Jewish roots and her traditional Sunday roast and veg. Most weeks they cook a meal for their celebrity guests, while consuming copious amounts of wine, and chattering and talking with their mouths full.
Table Manners
I love all the laughter that the Wares share in their cozy kitchen. We need more light-hearted moments these days. Maybe this Hanukkah there should be some amuse-bouche – how about some Torah hot dogs? You can never go wrong with these sausages. Just make sure you are using kosher hot dogs, please. The crowning touch is the star of David decoration – go rummage through your cookie cutters – you’ll be sure to unearth at least one.
Torah Hot Dogs
1. Hot Dogs
2. Puff Pastry
3. Egg
Wrap the dogs, place on parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, and brush with egg wash.
Bake at 400ºF for 15-20 min.
Here is the Instagram tutorial: Torah Hot Dogs
I found dozens of ideas for Hanukkah on Instagram this year, which is a good thing, because all my cookbooks are still packed in an impenetrable warren of boxes in the Wendell Extra Room Storage Unit. Instead of thumbing through my trusted and much-loved collection of books I got to spend some time, legitimately, for once, trolling through IG. It was easy to slide away from politics and window treatment videos to holiday cooking. Where else was I going to find instructions for constructing menorah-shaped challah bread?
Challah Menorah – Weinernorah
I always find it difficult to pull off latkes. I think it has been because I haven’t wrung enough moisture out of the potatoes, or even use the wrung-out potato starch. This was an eye-opening demonstration.
Latkes
What are ritual foods if they don’t make us time travel back to happy moments? Much has been written about the chic and delicate French madeleines, but what about the humble jelly doughnut? Every one of us who has ever eaten a jelly doughnut can remember oozed jelly on our shirtfronts – not exactly transformational epiphanies, but definitely universally undignified moments. Jelly doughnuts are the cosmic pratfall of sweets compared to the madeleine – not the stuff of French literature. The madeleine moment, as evoked by the taste of a delicate cake-like cookie, is fleeting. Jelly doughnuts bring to mind an entire holiday. It is a raucous family celebration. Jelly doughnuts cover us with powdered sugar joy.
Popular traditional foods for Hanukkah are brisket, latkes, kugel and jelly doughnuts, or sufganiyot. The doughnuts help us to remember the miracle of the oil that burned miraculously for eight nights – tributes to that single cruse of oil that lasted eight days.
Thank you, Instagram for these:
Easier Doughnuts
Happy Hanukkah!
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
—Leonard Cohen
Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.
