‘My Life In Recipes’ by Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan makes it an even dozen of some of the most literate and mouthwatering books about food and it’s meaning in Jewish life with a new book about her own Jewish life. It is appropriately subtitled, “Food, Family, and

Memories” from a title, “My Life in Recipes.”

The handsomely produced volume on heavy, slickly coated paper is part scrapbook and part recipe file — all that she has culled from a lifetime of traveling the world in search of another story and another recipe.

Now in her 80th year, Nathan has been described as the “Grand Dame of Jewish Cooking” by the New Yorker which gave this book a glowing review earlier this year. She grew up with home cooking, as did much of the women of her generation, starting with a black and white photo in her book of 4-year-old Joan putting the finishing touches on a chocolate birthday cake.

Over the years, her six books on Jewish food and two books on Israel’s cuisine have become standards, with the stated goal of keeping Jewish food traditions alive.

Six years ago, the International Association of Cooking Professionals deservedly named her “Jewish Cooking in America,” a culinary classic. The book had earlier been the basis for a PBS series with the same name. In 2000, the series won a prestigious James Beard Award for best television food show.

If there is a favorite chapter among the 35 in this book it is the one on Passover, her favorite holiday. She calls the holiday meal she prepares, “the hardest thing I do each year.” It is, as she quotes her mother’s words, “a ganze production.” She prepares as few as three and as many as five different recipes for harosets from around the world. The recipe that opens the Passover section of the book is a garosa as the dish is termed on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao. It’s made with dates, prunes, raisins, tamarinds, peanuts and cashews. There is also a molded halibut gefilte fish that looks like a tasty alternative to the jellied fish dumplings that are often nestled on green lettuce leaves.

For dessert, try the yummy Passover pecan lemon torte with a parve lemon curd filing. And finally, in an attempt to free America from machine-made matzo found on most tables, there are instructions for the home baker.