As a child, I would perch the small, squat, black-and-white television on the kitchen counter and watch Julia Child as I made endless batches of sugar jam cookies with whatever ingredients I could scrounge up in my mother’s cabinets. There must have been children’s cookbooks at the time, but I didn’t have any, and those on the shelf at home were complicated. What a delight it would have been if I’d had Joan Nathan’s “A Sweet Year: Jewish Celebrations and Festive Recipes for Kids and Their Families.”
Nathan tells us in her preface that she wrote the book’s first edition in the mid-1980s, when her children were about the same age as her grandchildren now. She reflects, “In today’s multicultural America, much has changed to adapt to different types of diets and a changing world. Hummus, for example, is a household staple, as well-known as peanut butter.” The book, Nathan says, is a testimony to earlier times and freshly acquired tastes. It includes 25 new recipes, which her family developed and cooked together.
Throughout her career, Nathan has written predominantly about Jewish food of the diaspora. She divides the cookbook into nine chapters, each dedicated to a Jewish holiday. “These are foods that children and adults alike will enjoy,” she explains. “I have used real Jewish holiday recipes, some of which have been simplified for children but still satisfy adult tastes.” The format for each recipe includes instructions for what children can do themselves, and those that require adult assistance, providing kids with guided agency.
Nathan provides a brief commentary and tips for the recipes. For the Sabbath, there are Cheese or Spinach Burekas. These small, triangular pastries are made with phyllo dough and filled with either ingredient. Nathan enjoyed them during her time living in Jerusalem, baked by Bulgarian, Turkish, and other Baltic immigrants, and typically eaten in the morning with hot chocolate or strong coffee. The photograph of Shakshuka makes you want to whip it up right away. The poached eggs are enticingly nestled in a tomato and cheese sauce seasoned with scallions, red pepper, cumin, paprika, and coriander.
The Rosh Hashanah Moroccan Apricot Chicken Tagine with couscous and raisins, flavored with saffron, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, and topped with blanched or toasted almonds, caught my eye. So, too, did the Persian Pomegranate Punch, easily fashioned by rolling a smooth pomegranate on a countertop, piercing it with a shish kebab skewer, and then inserting a straw to drink the liquid straight from the bulbous fruit.
Nathan lays out a menu for a Yemenite dinner before the Yom Kippur fast, including apple-honey cupcakes. For Eastern European Jews, honey symbolizes hope for a sweet future, and is essential for welcoming the New Year. The walnuts mixed with the grated raw apples give this sweet a delightful crunch.
For Sukkot, there is a vegetarian Children’s Cholent, or veggie-bean stew, that bursts with carrots, sweet eggplant, zucchini, and yellow squash. Nathan mentions that this dish was one of her grandchildren’s great-grandmother’s favorites, which her mother would top with sliced potatoes.
Some of Nathan’s recipes are edible art projects, such as the Ice Cream Cupcake Menorah included for Hanukkah. The edible dreidels are even simpler to prepare. Children thread a toothpick through a marshmallow, then a strawberry, finishing with a chocolate Hershey’s Kiss. For Tu B’Shevat, there is an easy Tzatziki, a Greek yogurt and crisp cucumber dip. You pulse the yogurt, smashed garlic, mint, and vegetable in a food processor, add salt to taste, chill for several hours, and drain any accumulated liquid. You can serve this appetizer with cut vegetables or pita. Conveniently, Nathan includes a recipe for the bread in her Purim chapter. She says, “There is something magical and mysterious about pita bread. It puffs way up in the oven to become a pocket … A baker … in Philadelphia gave me a hint for encouraging the dough to split — roll the dough out, let the rounds rest a few minutes, and then, just before you put them into the hot oven, roll them out once more.”
With Passover upon us, I loved the variation on kugel, the sweet traditional bread or noodle pudding. She has created Vegetable Kugelettes, mixing matzo with sweet potatoes, carrots, and brown sugar. The little baked cupcakes can join the symbolic egg, bitter herbs, vegetable, haroset, and lamb shank on the Seder plate.
In the final chapter, Nathan presents a delicious watermelon, corn, cucumber, and feta salad for Shavuot. She also provides instructions for whipping up homemade curd cheese from whole milk, plain yogurt, apple cider or white wine vinegar, and freshly chopped herbs like parsley, tarragon, or dill.
“A Sweet Year” is a perfect family cookbook, with appealing choices for a range of tastes and skill levels. “A Sweet Year: Jewish Celebrations and Festive Recipes for Kids and their Families” by Joan Nathan, $35. Available at Edgartown Books.
