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MIRIAM SHAVIV:
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A matter of taste

There is nothing more annoying to people who have kept kosher all their lives than having someone roll their eyes at the thought of eating kosher food. Is it really possible, we ask ourselves, that the foods which taste so good to us — our mother’s chicken, our grandmother’s brisket, our neighbors’ cookies — are perceptibly inferior, just because we substitute an ingredient here or there?

Could the Jews, who love food so much, really not know the first thing about the subject? Surely our food is no better no worse, just. different?

Unfortunately, most of us come across such eye-rolling (and sighing, and flat-out refusal to visit kosher restaurants) on a fairly regular basis. It is particularly gratifying, therefore, to see the success of a cookbook like Kosher By Design, which, since its launch in April, has been selling a solid 25,000 copies a week — clearly to non-kosher and even non-Jewish customers as well as to its natural Orthodox constituency.

The best-seller is the brainchild of Susie Fishbein, a New Jersey housewife with four children, who shot to fame as the editor of another recent cooking phenomenon, The Kosher Palette. That elegant collection of recipes, by the parents of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, New Jersey, was pounced upon by thousands of trendy modern-Orthodox couples and singles on the Upper West Side, and set a new standard in the kosher industry.

Kosher By Design is obviously modeled on The Kosher Palette; the aim, says Fishbein, is to provide "easy-to-read recipes. that can be prepared with a minimal amount of fuss, but yield a maximum amount of aesthetic impact."

Indeed, the first thing that strikes you about the book is that it is a visual treat. The pictures are bright and colorful, the dishes arranged by a professional food stylist. There are whole spreads with nothing but imaginatively set tables, meant to give readers inspiration for their own homes; the overall result is striking.

LIKE ITS predecessor, the signature Kosher By Design recipes are classic dishes with a modern twist, like the already much-commented upon tri-color gefilte fish (one white layer plain, one pink layer salmon, and one white layer laced with green dill), or the stuffed matza balls. While some of the recipes are simply perfectly acceptable versions of recipes easily found elsewhere (pecan pie; couscous salad; Yerushalmi kugel), others have true flair, such as won ton wrapped chicken with apricot dipping sauce for an appetizer, the pesto chicken with roasted red pepper sauce, or the Asian steak salad. This is not your bubbie’s kitchen.

Most of the recipes use 10 ingredients or less, most of which are readily available, and there are even kosher wine lists — some of the recommended bottles cost as much as $400. Ultimately, this cookbook has many gems. The veal loaf, which has a sweet brown-sugar-ketchup glaze, is a stylish appetizer, and freezes well. The chocolate lovers truffle brownies did "transcend the world of brownies‘ and will be ’the best you will have ever eaten," just as Fishbein promises. Delicious and easy, as well, were the sweet bread machine halla, dairy peach muffins and zucchini bread.

The problem is, though, that as good as Kosher By Design is, it simply does not measure up to The Kosher Palette.

Most importantly, the recipes are not as reliable. While you could trust every recipe in The Kosher Palette to shine, some of the recipes in Kosher By Design do not work well. The chocolate palmiers, for example, were a good idea for a quick dessert - chocolate spread and sugar rolled up in puff pastry, cut into cookies. But they were too rich, looked uneven and were mostly not eaten. The sesame noodles tasted too strongly of sesame oil to enjoy.

There are also too many recipes which are too complex, with too many steps. So while it is true that my guests were still talking about the chocolate lovers truffle brownies for a week afterwards, they also took more than an hour and a quarter to make — and will thus be consigned to my "very, very special occasions only" file.

Last, but not least, many of the fabulous-looking table arrangements are, on closer inspection, kitschy. Do you really want to ruin a classic dining room chair by covering it with what looks like a white pillowcase with your guest’s name spelled with seashells on its back? Do you really want to place the dishes at your Purim seuda on cut-out cardboard crowns, studded with plastic jewels? Is this really, ahem, tasteful?

All this, of course, does not mean that Kosher By Design is not worth buying. It is head and shoulders above most of the other kosher cookbooks on the market, in its ambition, trendiness, originality and (on the whole) practicality; no wonder it appeals to such a wide audience. Just buy The Kosher Palette first.