A Seder Table fit for any Spring Celebration

 

My sister in law Ricki invited 8 friends to a Seder on Friday evening. Here's a detail with Haggadah from her always spectacular Passover table.

                                                                        

                                                             Or could it be an Easter table?

                      As usual she seamlessly blended the two Spring holidays in one riotous setting

  Before we left for San Francisco on April 15th, she texted me a preview of the table that awaited us, so I knew beforehand that this was another masterpiece

The last time we all met for this annual event was in 2019, before the pandemic forced us to cancel the next two. I recorded the details of that lovely party HERE.  You can observe the very different table  below set with French china and decorated with centerpieces of pastel roses and pink lilies

One of the blooming centerpieces on the 2019 Seder. table

  This year she mixed Italian plates from Deruta with Provencal Pierre Deux napkins, charming paper placemats with lemons and dyed egg 'place cards' with names written on each one. 

  The centerpieces consisted of vases of hyacinths, daffodils and hydrangeas among other spring flowers

Here's Ricki's seat marked by a dyed aqua egg in front of the traditional Seder Plate. The bowl on the right is filled with her dynamite charoset along with symbolic maror (horseradish),  a bitter herb (parsley,)  and a lamb shank .

                                                                 THE MENU

Our Seder meal was traditional but simplified to suit the guests' preferences. Our preference is to indulge in Ricki's awesome Matzo Ball Soup and her tasty apple and cinnamon Charoset spooned onto matzoh, and not have to save room for a main course that always follows. She makes her broth ahead of time with one chicken for every 2 people. This ratio results in a rich, tasty broth with plenty of chicken to add to the soup along with her masterful matzo balls. She learned the technique for light flavorful balls in her mother's kitchen in Walnut Creek.

Matzo ball soup isn't very photogenic, but boy is it good. This year we all ate our fill and then enjoyed side dishes that the hostess had assigned.

Sande prepared perfectly simmered asparagus that she bought at the Marin Farmers Market, from Fiddler's Green  situated in Yolo County.

I brought my first noodle kugel, since that's what she requested. Some years ago a guest ordered one from Zabar's, the well known Jewish Deli in New York, but kugels are simple to put together so I made one from a recipe in Bon Appetit. It turned out really well,  better than Zabar's, so  I plan to make another one next year.

Lots of good red and white wine spurred bursts of hilarity during the often solemn reading of the Haggadah.  We broke for dinner halfway through and thoroughly enjoyed our Passover meal. Then we finished the reading and drank more wine with Ricki's homemade Almond Macaroons and my  Lemon Bars.  We finally parted at midnight, looking forward, as always, to next years celebration at Ricki's.

Bette's Harira

I was astonished to read that Bette Kroening, owner of the beloved Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley, had died in February. She was only 71. I got to know Bette when I worked at Sur La Table on Fourth Street, across the street from her diner and Bette's To Go. I was a good customer and we would chat there and at Sur La table when she came in for supplies. We were the same age and had followed similar paths into the California food scene. We both arrived in Berkeley in 1971. She first worked in social services in Contra Costa County, while I found a job in rare books at John Howell-Books in San Francisco. She opened Bette's Oceanview Diner in 1982 while I had opened Cookbook Corner in '77. I started frequenting Fourth street when Mark Miller, an avid cookbook collector, restaurateur and anthropologist, opened Fourth Street Grill, the first business on the now thriving street. Bette was working there as the lunchtime kitchen manager. We didn't meet until 1996 when I helped open Sur La Table on Fourth Street and Bette's Oceanview Diner was a breakfast destination and her take out lunch spot was famous for pizza by the slice, sandwiches, soups, salads and pastries.  Bette and her husband Manford were frequently manning the cafe, so when I wanted the recipe for harira, her version of the the  extraordinary Moroccan soup I ordered one April day in January 2001, she promptly xeroxed it for me. I left Sur La Table years ago so I saw Bette less frequently, but  I miss her nonetheless. I can't believe that she won't be welcoming me with a smile and a bowl of her delicious soup when I walk down Fourth Street.


                     Here's the recipe that Bette copied for me in April 2001. It seems like yesterday.

And here is my offering to Bette. I make this soup a lot and I think of her every time I get out the recipe.

Harira from the recipe above

Mulligatawny Soup

Quote from Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey

Here I am in Agra in my pinafore, gazing at the Taj Mahal

I'm posing in Kerala at the Southern tip of India

Traveling in India in 1972, I did not have the pleasure of tasting mulligatawny soup, at least that I can remember. In those days I was more interested in art history and dance than in food, so most meals in India are long forgotten. What remain with me are the vibrant flavors. the scrawny chickens in Delhi,  the red-hot vindaloos served in Goa, and the heavenly lobster in Kerala on the Southern tip. Though I was careful to eat only cooked food, no unsterilized water, and no yogurt, I got bolder as the months-long trip wore on, and by the end I was indulging in street food with no disastrous results. I came home craving the flavors of the places I had visited.

I  took this photo of a fish market in Goa in 1972

After traveling for three months in India and Nepal, I returned to Berkeley, an aficionado of Indian food and culture. But  unlike today, there were no Indian restaurants in my neighborhood and few in San Francisco. I can only remember The North India Restaurant, specializing in tandoori dishes, in San Francisco and The Khyber Pass in North Oakland offering nearby Afghanistani cuisine.  I seldom indulged. In addition, there were few Indian cookbooks available. The famous Time/Life series," Foods of the World," published a lavishly photographed volume in 1969 called Foods of India by Santha Rama Rau, which I devoured. Then, in March 1975, when Sunset Magazine printed a recipe for "India-style Chicken Soup (Mulligatawny)" in a section called "You use every bit of the bargain chicken," I tried it. After faithfully completing the numerous steps in the recipe, I found the result to be quite special. The finished soup had a haunting, exotic curry-like flavor and texture that I had not encountered before.

     At this point, I have collected  many Indian Cookbooks, both recent and rare, so for another description of mulligatawny soup, I referred to one of my favorites, Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni. She writes, "I first tasted this soup sixteen years ago in an elegant restaurant in Frankfurt Germany... Contrary to what the name suggests (mullaga means pepper, and tanni means water or broth), what I tasted was an exquisitely delicate broth, faintly laced with spices that brought back the familiar aromas of home...
     Because of its unorthodox origin, Indian cooks have had a field day exercising their creative genius with it. As a result, there are innumerable interesting variations of this soup around the world today...       
     This is the one occasion on which I set aside my spices and use a commercial curry powder blend, because then only am I able to re-create the flavor and aroma that once captured my senses."

Longing recently for something exotic, I unearthed the old Sunset Magazine recipe in my files and set about adapting it to my present tastes and habits. This meant using less butter, leaving out the flour, and using freshly cooked garbanzos instead of canned. The idea of utilizing the canned garbanzo liquid didn't appeal to me.  Here's the adapted recipe:

simmering chicken legs in broth with veggies

First, I made "stewing broth" as instructed. I used two large whole chicken quarters, though the recipe calls for one whole chicken. I simmered them in 5 cups chicken broth and 3 cups water, with one small onion, a stalk of celery, one carrot, 1 t. salt, 2 cloves, 1 T. coriander seeds and one half cup grated coconut. I skimmed fat from the broth and boiled it for 30 min. until the chicken was just done. Then I  removed the skin, took the meat off the bones, reserved it and strained the broth, pressing on the contents through a metal strainer. That was my broth.


I chilled the meat and broth til I was ready to make the Soup: In a soup kettle, melt 2 T butter. Add 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped, 2 cloves minced garlic, 3 t. curry powder, 1/2 t. turmeric and saute until onion is soft. I decided to add three thickly sliced, parboiled carrots to the soup at this point. Stir in prepared broth, and simmer for 15 minutes. Whirl 1 can garbanzo beans with their liquid (or about 2 to 3  cups cooked bulk garbanzos) in the food processor with some water to thin the mixture. Add to soup with all reserved chicken. Cook about 15 minutes, stirring often. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add prepared brown basmati rice, lemon slices and chopped cilantro to soup bowls before serving. (serves 4)

The recipe, printed in 1975, concludes: "At 49 cents a pound, our whole chicken cost $1.47, serving 4 for 37 cents each." 

Mulligatawny soup adapted from the Sunset Magazine recipe

My two favorite Indian cookbooks, pictured below, are: Julie Sahni, Classic Indian Cooking, New York, William Morrrow, 1980 and Madhur Jaffrey, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Both authors have written many other excellent books on Indian food and cooking.

                                             

Anna's Soup

My friend Anna works with me at Book Passage in the Ferry Building, or should I say I work with her. As one of the the newest members of the staff, I depend on her advice and help, and she is always there for me. Anna is a vegetarian and she claims that she doesn't like to cook. Her husband Dave, who also works with us at the bookstore, does most of the cooking. He too is a veggie man and a great cook according to Anna.  I'm always curious about their vegetarian menus, since I often depend on chicken, or even meat to supply my proteins. He even packs a lunch for her. That's a faithful husband!

The one dish Anna likes to cook is soup, and Dave agrees that she's a pro. But when I questioned her about her soup recipes she looked at me with surprise and informed me that soup is a dish that you make by foraging in the fridge. Rather than checking cookbooks, researching recipes, going to the store to buy ingredients, (steps I do routinely), she takes the opportunity to empty the fridge of leftovers to create a soup that's different every time.

Inspired by Anna's creative spirit (did I mention that she's an artist? ) I decided to try a soup with ingredients I had on hand. And because it was the Monday after Thanksgiving, I had an advantage. The fridge was loaded with beautiful fresh vegetables and holiday leftovers, so I took them out and got to work chopping on my cutting board. What a treasure trove of produce for my impromptu soup!

Shallots, leeks, fennel, carrots, celery, Ricki's wild rice & mushroom stuffing, canned garbanzos and fresh herbs 

Stuffing Soup

 In olive oil I sauteed two chopped leeks and three shallots, added two chopped carrots, two stalks of celery and a half bulb of fennel. When the veggies gave off a lovely, fragrant aroma I poured in some TJ's chicken broth which I always try to keep on hand, and brought it to a boil. After about twenty minutes I added the leftover mushroom-and-wild rice stuffing, thoroughly rinsed garbanzos, and fresh herbs from my garden. Again I let the mixture simmer for half an hour and my soup was done.

Vegetable Stuffing Soup in a vintage Dansk casserole 

We enjoyed the reheated soup for dinner and I held off adding the leftover turkey Ricki had packed for us on Thanksgiving. This way we could enjoy a truly vegetarian meal (oops, except for the chicken broth) created entirely from on-hand ingredients, a la Anna. I can't wait to do it again!