OyChicago articles

Stacey shares some of her High Holiday traditions, and traditional recipes

As I have mentioned before, my Judaism, while deeply rooted and very important to me, is something that falls more on the side of culture and tradition and less on the side of religion or spirituality. But there are certain aspects of every holiday that resonate for me, and one of the things I appreciate about being Jewish, is that I can feel free to cherry pick the pieces I like and leave the rest behind.

As we look towards the High Holidays, I thought I would share some of my traditions, and some of my traditional recipes, with you.

As my family did not, and does not, belong to a temple, the high holidays are always spent with family and friends. Actually, the friends in question are basically family. I’m blessed with several families, extra parents abound (all of the love and advice and support but none of the discipline or college tuition), and I’ve got enough siblings-by-choice to sort of feel fundamentalist Mormon. Not to mention a truly ridiculous number of bonus nieces and nephews. Some of my earliest memories are of spending the high holidays with different configurations of these special friends.

Often we gather at my family’s weekend place in the country, a place away from the hustle and bustle, with plenty of trees and green, wide open sky and fresh air. A place where, if one is inclined to commune with a higher power, it seems like the deity of your choice just might be hanging out.  Sometimes the day includes a field trip to a state park for a long walk or to the Botanical Gardens or, if schedules keep us downtown, a swing by the Lincoln Park Zoo or the Conservatory.

After some happy outdoor activity, sort of a nod to Adonai, ‘thanks for all the cool nature and stuff!’ we repair to the nearest convenient living room. If it’s Rosh Hashanah, there are apples and honey to snack upon and possibly kichel if someone has been to Kaufman’s recently. If it’s Yom Kippur there’s a rousing chorus of “Isn’t it sundown somewhere?” and “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry in my life!” And before you get all shocked that most of our merry band of skip-the-services practitioners actually do fast, it is important to note a few things. One, we almost never make it all the way to sundown, we tend to break out the chopped liver round about 3:30pm, and feel virtuous to have made it that far. Two, the fasting packs a devilish one-two punch, it both connects you meaningfully to the tradition without having to sit through services all day, and also gives you total guiltless permission for a major Jew-food binge for the rest of the evening.

At some point in the afternoon, we break out the “All things Jewish explained” books, and take turns reading about the origin of the holiday at hand. On Rosh Hashanah we might offer up some new year’s resolutions to the group, on Yom Kippur there is meaningful atonement-type eye contact around the room, in case you may have accidentally offended someone present.

And then there is the meal. We go full-on traditional for holidays, with my grandmother Jonnie both cooking and providing recipes, the two meals are a true connection to our history. For Rosh Hashanah, there’s matzo ball soup and brisket, served with farfel with mushrooms and onions, or kasha varnishkes.  Round challah, of course, and more apples and honey. Usually there is also a chicken option, and some sort of green vegetable. For Yom Kippur, we go light, bagels and lox, tuna salad, egg salad, sweet kugel. It is all delicious, all exactly what we want and need, it feeds the soul as well as the body.

I talk a lot about the deeper meaning of food between people. When people ask why I go to the trouble of hosting at home, cooking for people instead of going out, my answer is simple. It is a sacred gift to feed someone. To sustain them physically, and please them sensually. The conversations you have around your dining table or in the living room before or after a meal, those are conversations that don’t happen in restaurants. Food is love. Not a substitute for, but an expression thereof. It is often the cliché of Jews that we are constantly talking about food and planning the next meal, and the stereotypical Jewish mother is always portrayed trying to get someone to eat something. This comes from somewhere. It is no surprise to me that a religion I associate so much with attempting to live a life that sustains and fulfills spiritually and intellectually, that we have a fine and long tradition of food. My favorite holiday is the Seder (more on that in the spring, I promise). The use of food inside of a holy service seems very natural to me.

So, as we look to the New Year, to a time of renewal and forgiveness, I wish you all very happy holidays, however you choose to celebrate. An easy fast, if that is on your agenda, and really good food. And to help you in that, I offer up a couple of my family’s recipes.

Brisket

1 5 lb. beef brisket
2 t salt
¼ t pepper
2 yellow onions, sliced
4 ribs celery, sliced
1 c chili sauce (Heinz is good)
1 bottle beer
¼ c water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put water on the bottom of a heavy roasting pan. Season brisket with salt and pepper and lay on top of water. Spread onion and celery over the top of the meat, then distribute chili sauce evenly over the vegetables. Cook uncovered 90 minutes. Pour beer over meat, cover tightly with foil, and braise 45 minutes per pound of meat. Remove from gravy, defat liquid, and puree juices with vegetables. Put juice in container, and chill meat overnight in fridge. The next day slice meat across the grain and lay into baking dish. Cover with gravy, and put back in fridge. Reheat at 350 to serve. (1 hour to indefinitely!)

Matzo Balls

2 T melted chicken fat
2 eggs, beaten
½ c matzo meal
1 t salt
¼ t white pepper
1/8 t baking powder
2 T club soda

Make sure fat is cool (you can substitute vegetable oil) and mix with eggs. Blend matzo meal with other dry ingredients and mix blend into eggs and fat. When well mixed, add club soda. Cover and place in fridge for 30 minutes at least. Bring 3 quarts water or chicken stock to boil in large wide stockpot. While waiting for it to boil, form balls of the chilled mixture. Reduce heat to simmer and drop in balls, cover and cook 30-40 minutes depending on size of balls. Store hot in cooking liquid, or chill for later use, freeze in cooking liquid or soup.

Poppyseed Cookies

3 eggs
1 c sugar
¾ c cooking oil
¼ c orange juice
¼ t salt
¼ c poppyseeds
2 c sifted all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs till foamy, then add sugar, oil, juice and salt. Add poppyseeds and flour and mix till well blended. Drop by heaping half-teaspoon (I know it looks like not enough, but trust me) 1” apart on ungreased sheet pan. Bake 15-18 minutes, until just golden around edges, but still pale in the center. Remove immediately from sheet to rack and cool.

NOSH of the week:  In light of the impending holidays, I challenge you all to participate actively in the holiday meals. If you love to cook, offer to host one of the celebratory meals. Take the afternoon off and spend it in the kitchen with your mom or grandmother and ask to hear the stories about where the family recipes came from. If you’re handy with the computer, borrow the notebooks and scraps of paper that comprise the family food history and scan them or retype them into a cookbook and make copies for the family. Learn how to make your favorite traditional food. Invite someone over who can’t make it home for the holidays. And mostly, celebrate all the extraordinary blessings of this past year.

Yours in good taste,
Stacey

www.staceyballis.com

NOSH food read of the week:  Okay, you’ve all seen them. They line the shelves of your mom’s office or grandmother’s kitchen nook or your favorite Aunt’s bookshelf. That series of worn cookbooks, Thoughts for Buffets, Thoughts for Good Eating, Thoughts for Food, Thoughts for Festive Foods, More Thoughts for Buffets…this series of cookbooks were produced by the Women’s Auxiliary Board of the JCC, as a fundraiser to support Camp Chai. Jonnie, my aforementioned grandmother, was one of the recipe testers. They are sort of innocuous, likely to have the binding cracked, pages dog-eared and falling out, stained and full of crumbs. And if you are smart, you’ll make sure that they never leave the family. They are full of great recipes and all your favorite classics are here. Most of the recipes were donated by the women of the Auxiliary (and their hired cooks!), so it is basic home cooking for every occasion. They can be a funny trip down memory lane, Jonnie and I have had many a side-splitting laugh over some of the outdated foods and ideas. But they are a part of our larger heritage, and worth holding dear. So the next time you are with your family and spot them collecting dust, take a look, and see if it isn’t maybe your turn to be the keeper.

Lake Koshkonong, home of the gefilte fish

Having my face smacked with a decomposing alewife when I was five put my blossoming relationship with fish on the wrong foot. The north shore beach where the family frolicked was littered with the stinky things. And while I eventually learned to steer clear of the bullies who used the rotting fish as weapons, from that moment on, a day at the beach no longer was a day at the beach.

It was years before I had anything to do with fish other than to step gingerly around their silvery corpses.

“If it used to swim, I’m not eating it,” was my unspoken mantra.

By the time I reached fifth grade or so, emboldened one Pesach by as many shots as I could sneak of Manischewitz sweet table wine, I finally relented to Bubbe’s perennial plea to try her gefilte fish. I slathered the gray, lifeless lump with gobs of horseradish, blocked my brain from thinking about its murky, marine origins, shaved off a tiny sliver with my fork, and swallowed it without gagging. (I think I was holding my nose.)

My recovery from fish trauma had begun.

Fast forward many years, and I’m up for a slab of grilled salmon or a filet of fried tilapia now and then. No head, no tail, preferably no skin, and I’m usually good to go.

Come the Jewish holidays I actually look forward to gefilte fish. Which leads me to a Rosh Hashanah fish tale.

Eighteen months ago, my wife and I found a little piece of paradise by the shores of Lake Koshkonong, a vast, shallow lake in southeastern Wisconsin that nobody else seems to have heard of. It’s bigger than Lake Geneva, and less than an hour further up Highway 12, but you can practically hear a pin drop on Koshkonong, even on lazy summer weekends when flotillas of motor boats churn other Wisconsin lakes to a noisy froth.

Lurking in Koshkonong’s waters are lots and lots of fish: walleye, white bass, northern pike and carp. More carp than you can shake a fish stick at. More carp than you can imagine. So much carp, according to Jerry, the avuncular owner of Harbor Recreation, in Newville, Wisconsin, that just about every fish product made in North America that doesn’t actually look like fish—from fish sticks to fish filets to fast food sandwiches—comes from the clean waters of Koshkonong.

During a recent visit to Jerry regarding an old pontoon boat with a cranky engine, I learned more about the fate of Koshkonong’s carp.

Jews are pretty few and far between in an area of the country I like to refer to as “Germany lite,” and I don’t know if Jerry spotted me as a Member of the Tribe (not his tribe, mine). But he managed to finesse gefilte fish into the conversation with the patience and grace of a seasoned angler.

“You know, Jewish people eat tons of carp from here for their holidays,” he ventured. He tantalized me with fish tales of bearded rabbis coming all the way to Koshkonong from Borough Park to inspect and bless the fish before they’re packed in ice and shipped off.

At dusk my wife and I like to sit by the water’s edge and watch the sky light up as the sun sinks over the water. Near shore the carp like to jump, catching flies for dinner before slapping back down into the water.

I can’t say I’ve yet come to love those fish, especially the occasional one I find decomposing on our beach. But I do look forward this Rosh Hashanah to eating a little piece of Lake Koshkonong, daubed with horseradish and downed with sweet holiday wine.

Allyson, socializing

Cleveland native Allyson Becker moved to Chicago to become a professional Jew after graduating from Ohio State in 2002. After four years working at the Jewish Federation, Allyson joined up with the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, a non-profit committed to the well being of Israel’s soldiers. Funds from the FIDF are used to build mobile gyms, synagogues and libraries on military bases, provide care packages and fund academic scholarship for ex-combat soldiers.

So whether you’re a fellow sushi junkie, a Buckeye fan or a friend of the IDF, Allyson Becker is a Jew you should know!

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I had no idea at all until my junior year of college when I had an internship in the development department at Hillel. When I was little, I was just very social and in second grade my teacher told my mom that I was too much of a social butterfly. But, it turns out that has helped me in my career.

2. What do you love about what you do today?
I feel like a lot of times we get bogged down with the day to day things, but we have soldiers in town once a month and it really grounds me when they are here talking with us and sharing their stories and I realize all the more why what I do is so important.

3. What are you reading?
Essentially, the only thing I have been reading for the last month is various proofs of our tribute book for next week’s gala!

4. What’s your favorite place to eat in Chicago?
Anyone that knows me well—or really anyone who knows me at all—could answer this question! I order form Sushi Naniwa on Ohio so often that they have my card on file. The crunch role is the best; I am telling you it’s the best sushi in the city.

5. If money and logistical reality played no part, what would you invent?
A time machine to take me back to college when life was way more simple. I have college on the brain today!

6. Would you rather have the ability to fly or the ability to be invisible?
I’d love to fly and be able to see places that I wouldn’t usually get to visit.

7. If I scrolled through your iPod, what guilty pleasure would I find?
I was on the elliptical this morning and an old-school Puffy song came on from my freshman year of college—he went by Puffy then for sure!

8. What’s your favorite Jewish thing to do in Chicago – in other words, how do you Jew?
Attend FIDF Young Leadership events of course!

Get your Jew on with Allyson next Saturday at the  FIDF’s Annual Gala ! 

Johnny (played by Josef Brown) and Baby (played by Georgina Rich)—Opposites attract. A scene from the London production of the live show. Photo credit: David Scheinmann

“That was the summer of 1963 when everybody called me Baby and it didn’t occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before The Beatles came, when I couldn’t wait to joint the Peace Corps, and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman’s.”

These are the opening lines of the film “Dirty Dancing,” in which Frances “Baby” Houseman—a 17-year-old Jewish idealist—vacations with her family at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, where she discovers standing up for what she believes, the healing power of dance, and love.

Released in 1987, the film portrays a time of innocence set in the summer of 1963 on the cusp of big change in this country. “I called `63 the last summer of liberalism because it was the last summer you thought you could reach out your hand and make the world better and do it through peaceful and loving means,” said Eleanor Bergstein, writer and creator of the film. The character “Baby,” a nickname Bergstein was called until age 19, is partly based on Bergstein’s life.

Shot on a shoestring budget of $5 million in 44 days, the movie launched to fame unknown stars at the time, Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. In 20 years, the coming-of-age movie has reached cult classic status. “Dirty Dancing” die-hards have watched the movie so many times that they can deliver the lines with the actors, including the random and oft-quoted “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” which made the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 most famous movie quotes of all times.

In fact, through Bergstein’s research, she discovered that certain cable TV stations would run the movie on a continual loop for 24 hours straight and fans, instead of watching bits and pieces of the movie, would cancel plans for the day to watch the movie continuously.

“Something happens to them while they’re in front of the [movie],” Bergstein said. “If what they really want to do is be present while it’s happening, then live theater is its natural form.”

So the “Dirty Dancing” obsession inspired Bergstein to transform the movie into a live stage production. The show, entitled “Dirty Dancing—The Classic Story On Stage,” branded a play with lots of dancing and music—as opposed to a musical—kicks off its pre-Broadway U.S. premiere at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre from Sept. 28 to Dec. 7. Bergstein adapts the play from the film, and James Powell directs the live production.



Britta Lazenga (as Penny) and Jake Simmons (as Johnny) from the Toronto production, dirty dance. Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedmann

Before Chicago, the show played in Australia, Germany, England, and Toronto. Following its Windy City run, the play will tour several U.S. cities before premiering on Broadway.

“Dirty Dancing” is based on Bergstein’s recollections of summer vacations spent with her parents as a teenager at Grossinger’s, a swanky Catskills resort (named “Kellerman’s” in the fictitious story) with a large Jewish clientele. While her parents and older sister would tee off at the golf course, Bergstein would race off to the dance studio. There, she would enter and win “dirty” dancing competitions.



Josef Brown (Johnny) and Nadia Coote (Penny) strut their stuff on stage with help from the ensemble from the London production of the show. Photo credit: David Scheinmann

In the film and the live show—like Bergstein—Baby, too, wanders into the staff living quarters of the resort and discovers a risqué, sexy, and exciting underworld of dancers. There, she meets the intense and sexy dance instructor, Johnny Castle, from the other side of the tracks. For a variety of reasons, Baby becomes Johnny’s dance partner, and Johnny begrudgingly gives her lessons. But soon, the two develop a magnetic attraction and a love affair despite coming from opposite worlds.

Both the film and show have a sensual appeal. “It’s a magical, empowering story and I don’t think it’s just women who love it,” said Lauren Klein, a Jewish actor in the show, who lives in the Catskills when she is not performing. “It’s also a very sexy story. Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, sex was something that was thrilling, hidden, and mysterious, [unlike] today.”

More than just a romance, the play explores the civil rights era in greater depth than the film. It’s the summer of freedom marching and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, and in one powerful campfire scene, the actors sing the protest song “We shall overcome,” an anthem of the civil rights movement.

“This was the generation—many of them first-generation Americans—that was coming out of the memories of the war,” said Bergstein. “They loved America and there was a great desire to make the world safe. They thought the Jews were going to be safe now because World War II was over and the next group that needed help was those who were then called Negroes.”

Amanda Leigh Cobb plays Baby, Josef Brown plays Johnny Castle, and Chicago’s own Britta Lazenga, a member of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, plays Penny Johnson.

Cobb compares playing Baby—a character ingrained into the 80s pop culture vernacular—to another famous lovesick protagonist from many decades ago. “I used to joke with my friends about doing Shakespeare,” Cobb said. “People would say, ‘Juliette, you should play Juliette.’ And I would say, ‘I don’t know, because everyone has an idea of Juliette and who she is. That’s a lot of pressure.’ So when I got the job playing Baby, my friends would call and tease me.”

“Dirty Dancing” covers a lot of ground in a tumultuous time, but—in the end—it’s about the dancer within. “It’s about a feeling that there is a secret dancer inside you that can connect you to the world,” said Bergstein. “People who have never danced before, people who dance all the time, people who always thought they could dance see the show. Everyone has a secret dancer inside.”

For tickets to the show, call (312) 902-1400. For group sales and for subscribers to the 2008 Broadway In Chicago Season Series, call (312) 977-1710. For more information, visit  www.dirtydancingamerica.com or  www.broadwayinchicago.com . 

Oy!sters recall their, "I carried a watermelon" moments and other Dirty Dancing memories. What are yours?