I come from a solidly Ashkenazic background. I have very fond memories of my grandmothers’  holiday specialties - I love matzoh ball soup, brisket, sour-cream coffee cake…even noodle kugel. But really, I am convinced that somewhere in my family’s history, some Sephardic blood snuck in there somewhere. Oh yes. How else to explain that I practically swoon just reading a recipe for lamb stew with prunes and apricots, served over couscous. Or chicken with preserved lemons and green olives. Or anything at all with orange-blossom water. Even the names of the spices: coriander, cumin, cinnamon…fantastic. Transporting.  And I particularly like reading some “exotic” recipe (and for most American Jews, it’s pretty exotic—although if you’re here in Seattle, you have a much greater likelihood of having grown up with boreki than I believe anywhere else in the US…except maybe LA?) - anyway, for example, a complicated soup recipe calling for chickpeas and fava beans and cardoons, and reading that this is a traditional Passover dish. ! I love it.

Here is a favorite. Better make it now, while it’s still freezing outside…really good winter eating.

Lamb Stew from Djerba (D’fina Djerbaliya)
Adapted from Saffron Shores, by Joyce Goldstein
(a fabulous cookbook, if Jewish North African (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) cooking sounds good to you!)

1/2 cup apricots, soaked in hot water 2-3 hours
1/2 cup pitted prunes, soaked in hot water 2-3 hours
1/4 cup olive oil
2 1/2 lbs lamb shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2-inch cubes (I always ask a butcher to do this, or look for pre-cubed lamb stew meat at the grocery store)
2-3 onions, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups water
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt to taste
Couscous for serving (See note at bottom of recipe)

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the oil over high heat and brown the cubed meat on all sides. Using a slotted spoon, remove to a plate.

Add the onions, bell pepper, and garlic to the pot and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring often. Add the spices and cook for 5 more minutes.

Add the meat back to the pot, along with the water. Cover and cook for about 1 hour.

While the stew is cooking, drain and coarsely chop the dried fruit. Add the chopped fruits and chickpeas to the pot, and cook until the meat is tender, about 30 minutes more.

Season to taste with salt, and serve over couscous.

Couscous Note: Joyce Goldstein practically begs readers not to make couscous according to the package directions, because it comes out dense and heavy, rather than light and fluffy. She offers a long alternative, involving multiple steamings, and a short alternative. Here’s the short version:

Pour 3 cups dry couscous into a lasagne-type pan. Bring 4 1/2 cups water to a boil, season water with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil, and pour over the couscous. Stir well with a fork to moisten every piece. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for 10-15 minutes. (Or longer, if water is not all absorbed.) Rake with a fork to break up lumps, and serve.

I’m looking for a few good wine lovers for a special Passover wine tasting this coming Tuesday evening. Please contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). This is something we do for the JTNews newspaper every year before Passover (yeah, yeah, I know, Manischewitz is nasty) that highlights wines that don’t taste like cough syrup. I have a couple spots open, and I’d like someone who is at least somewhat knowledgeable about wines and has an appreciation for wine beyond a casual glass with dinner.

Ari Sandel accepts his Oscar. His date? His mother.
I’ll bet that unless you make a habit of watching short live-action films, you probably had no recollection the category even existed in the Oscar contest. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took center stage with Ari Sandel’s “West Bank Story,” a little story about making peace in the Middle East - with a lot of hummus.
“My intention was to make a movie that Israelis and Jews would watch and find themselves liking the Arab characters, and that Arabs would watch and like the Israeli characters,” Sandel said backstage at the Oscar ceremony, from a story on JTA [login required] today.
“Is the film is going to change the world or do anything else? Probably not. But, you know, if you can change just a few minds I get e-mails from all over the world, from Israelis and Arabs, talking about how much the movie meant to them. That’s hopeful because otherwise there is such a sea of negativity out there.’’
Sandel has screened the 21-minute film about two rival falafel stand owners — one Israeli, the other Palestinian — whose two kids fall in love. When their stands are burned down, the two join forces to make sure their customers can eat.
The film has certainly made the film fest rounds — though it’s not on the docket this year at the Seattle Jewish Film Fest.

“I thought we had done a pretty good job and now my ambition was to screen the film in three venues — Sundance, Jerusalem and Dubai,” [Sandel] said.
“West Bank” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and received a warm response. Next came a screening in Jerusalem. With two-thirds of his goal fulfilled, Sandel wrote an impassioned letter to the Dubai Film Festival and, to his amazement, the film was accepted in the “Bridging Cultures” category.
“The Dubai festival is sort of a Middle Eastern Sundance, only you get much more of a VIP treatment,” Sandel said.
The United Arab Emirates capital is a rapidly modernizing city, but officially no Jews live there and no one had ever shown a movie depicting an Israeli soldier in a positive light.
So when “West Bank” screened in Dubai’s biggest venue before 1,000 Arab dignitaries and movie producers, Sandel was understandably nervous.
The post-film question-and-answer session started badly. One Arab rose to protest that the film failed to portray the suffering of the Palestinian people, and half the audience applauded. Another man was unhappy with the lack of scenes depicting Israeli brutality.
Finally a woman stood up, identified herself as a refugee from Gaza, said she loved the movie and asked how she could get a copy for her friends and relatives.
With such a Palestinian imprimatur on the record, the audience turned friendly and the evening was deemed a success.

Mmmm… Now I’m hungry.

I took my first snowboarding excursion to Crystal Mtn. yesterday (my first time strapping on the board in three years, incidentally), and it was like heaven. Literally. I had never had a snow day like this, or at least since the very early ‘90s. The powder was so deep, so light, so fluffy I felt like I was floating on clouds. The snow was so soft that I’m hardly in pain today from all the times I fell — three years off the board is a long time. I’ve never experienced powder like this in the Northwest, and only one other time, during a few days in Steamboat, Colo. while I was in college, has there been anything like it. Get up there while you still can, before it all turns to slush!

Update: It apparently wasn’t a good day up there for everyone. This is what can happen if the heavenly snow turns hellish, from the P-I.

What people will say to get into office these days:

“I’m sure you realize — well, most people don’t — millionaire Democrats outnumber millionaire Republicans about four to one. It’s mainly because of the wealthy Jewish faction inside the Democratic Party. Most Jewish people are Democrats and they bring that wealth. My opinion is, if Israel would go into Iran, Democrats will follow that cause. I really do believe that.”

That was Bob Parker, who until yesterday was Republican candidate for mayor of Indianapolis, making comments to a columnist for the Indianapolis Star. It’s another one of those slap-your-head, here-we-go-again moments, which was of course seized upon by the National Jewish Democratic Council which requested that the Marion County party denounce and ask that Parker be removed from the slate.
Well, Parker’s out, but it’s another reminder that these stupid comments can happen across the spectrum — just like it happened here. A year and a half ago, Monorail board candidate Cindi Laws did the same thing when seeking endorsement from the King County Labor Council, and got called on it. But it keeps on happening, probably will keep on happening, and, aside from countless hours of “education,” I have no idea how people who should know better refuse to understand that sometimes I have trouble paying my mortgage, and the many Jews stuck in the same cycle of poverty are in the same boat as those who are not Jewish. Except those non-Jews don’t have a stereotype to live down.