Alex: what are you making mommy?Me: I’m making Moroccan anise cookies.Alex: can you make American cookies?Me: no, I’m craving mama’s cookies.Oh mama mama, I miss you. Mama is my maternal grandmother. She used to make a huge container of these cookies…
My mother makes the best pizza. She is not even Italian. Her pizza has Middle Eastern flavors. Instead of using tomato sauce she uses fresh sliced tomatoes (the beefy kind, such as Roma). After she covers the dough with tomatoes and mozzarella, she…
It’s strange to cook for one when you used to cook for two, four, or more. This week I am home alone. Hallelujah! My husband is in New York and the boys are in school. I was content eating my…
I can’t bring myself to cook with fire. It’s boiling outside and inside (we don’t have AC, most of the time the weather here in SoCal is perfect). Our meals these days are mainly raw salads with lots of crunchy…
I always forget how much I love hummus and how easy it is to make until I make it. Here in Los Angeles, unlike in Israel, there are not a lot of hummusiyot, restaurants that sell only hummus. In Tel…
My mother – a bread worshiper – and I agreed that focaccia is the best bread for people like us whose favorite part of the bread is the crust. Focaccia is basically one big crust.
There was a single, short period when I completely lost interest in cooking. It was exactly three years ago, when my youngest sister, Inbar, passed away at the age of 27. When she left, my joy of cooking and baking left with her. Like everyone…
Kale is very nutritious but I won’t use the word superfood because I’m allergic to it. As much as it is healthy I wouldn’t have eaten it if I didn’t like it’s earthy flavor. Me and the millions of aphids…
Rice bowl is basically a salad on a bed of rice. You can make your rice bowl very basic or extravagant. I like them simple, but for my husband, the more things, the merrier. I can live on rice bowls.…
El-machamer is the Jewish Moroccan (Sephardic) version of Tortilla Española or frittata. My mother’s recipe doesn’t really have sweet potatoes or spinach, but then she never makes this dish for a main course like I often do.
A while ago, my husband and I went to see a friend’s performance in Echo Park. We discovered that the show starts only at 11pm. So instead we strolled around the neighborhood and stumbled upon a busy vegan cafe. We weren’t…
As a kid I couldn’t take my eyes away from my mother or grandmother, when they made home-bread for Shabbat. I was hypnotized by Eema and Mama’s swift gestures and from the process itself. For years I assumed that it…
I was so happy when she said yes and wrote this post for my blog. Introducing, Yael, the woman who thought me almost everything I know about baking! When Shelly asked me to be a guest at her blog, I…
Once I had a one hour layover in Stuttgart airport that turned into 5 hours. The airline gave us vouchers to buy food, but all they had was pale sausages, sad potatoes, and miserable lettuce. I couldn’t even find nuts…
This cooked salad is just one of many cooked salads that Moroccan Jews make and serve like tapas at Shabbat dinner. The are not really salads but I don’t know why we call them salads. There is a cooked tomato and pepper…
Harissa is a Moroccan spicy condiment made with red chile peppers and small hot chili peppers and spices. We eat harissa with braised dishes, sandwiches, soups, salads, couscous, omelets, etc. My husband likes to mix it with ketchup and dip…
I find most store-bought granolas and granola bars too sweet and too expensive. Why spend $10 for a small bag when you can easily make it yourself? The preparation is takes less than 5 minutes, you can control the sweetness…
First of all, thank you for supporting me and my humble blog! I love getting your feedback, so please continue to do so. Feel free to request recipes and ideas for easy simple dishes. Second, can you believe that the first…
Leo: Mommy, we’re bored! Mommy: How can you be bored when you have a friend over? Leo: Can we play Skylanders? Mommy: Ok, I can put it on my blog. Mommy: No! Kenneth (Leo’s friend): So can we film a…
All the women in my family make this soup and we all make it slightly different. For example my grandmother used to make this soup with a beef shank, which makes it more like a stew; My aunts Shuli and Sara add to…