Here's another interesting thing. I recently got one of the two books actually titled 97 Orchard. This one is about an Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in one New York tenement, and is connected with the Tenement House but it's a lot more.
In it we read about the Kosher food crisis at Ellis Island, and it was one. It includes the menus in the new Kosher kitchen there from 1914 and they are the earliest on record.
The young woman who wrote the book, Jane Ziegelman, is the new director of the "forthcoming program" of the new culinary program at the Tenement Museum." The cover shows two children holding bread loaves, one a ring, which are bigger than they are. I think this book will be marvelous and we MIGHT want to follow up some of the culinary leads on our text trip back to NYC (we ARE going back, right?) I mean it's a foodie paradise.
The book is full of recipes, very old ones. I say we should make this a focus for a new trip and each try one which suits us. I HOPE there's one for chopped chicken livers, have almost given up in getting good ones. I do see one for Cranberry Strudel, which actually looks super (what should we substitute for the "glass of fat?"). It might be the MOST fun to read this, try these old recipes, visit the Tenement Museum and see what their Culinary program is, and just...nosh our way thru NYC in 2011. We just missed the giant food expo there with all the famous TV chefs, maybe we could plan it to coincide next time?
Those of you who enjoyed Bruce Frankel, don't forget to write a short review of his book on Amazon, that's a nice way of paying him back for his lovely speech and that goes for MaryAlice too.
Happy Holidays!
