Author: Meghan Froy

Haroset (AKA charoset or halek/halaq) is a staple Passover spread or paste made with a mixture of fruit, nuts, honey, wine and spices, to symbolize the mortar that was used by Jewish slaves to make bricks in Egypt. While haroset is typically only seen on the Passover seder plate, I’ve used the flavors of my […]

These flourless lace cookies are truly addictive. I turn them into sandwich cookies by pairing them up and filling them with Nutella, but they’ll go with just about any spread you like  — be it chocolate spread, homemade ganache, jam or cookie or nut butter.  With no mixer needed, these gluten-free cookies are incredibly simple […]

Over the course of the last few pages, we’ve been discussing the particulars of when a nazirite must shave in response to contracting corpse immunity. On Nazir 49, we encountered a mishnah which taught that a nazirite must shave after coming into contact with a corpse or even certain quantities of fluid or dust from a […]

As those of us familiar with Sephardic cuisine know, there are often different names and spellings for similar dishes. When it comes to baked casseroles of vegetables, egg and usually cheese, it could be called a kuajado or quajado, sfongato or asfongato, fritada or frittata. Most often, “almodrote” is used by Turkish Jews when the […]

Some of the most popular alcoholic beverages are forbidden on Passover. Beer, whiskey and bourbon are all made from fermented grains, which is the very definition of hametz, leavened products forbidden from consumption on Passover. However many other alcoholic drinks are made by fermenting other things and can, at least in theory, be made kosher […]

Baking for Passover — when you can’t use regular flour or any kind of leavener — can be a challenge, to say the least. Sure, there are endless recipes out there, but to find a dessert that is truly swoon-worthy is the ultimate challenge.   Enter: The flourless chocolate cake of your dreams — which just […]

We’ve by now spent quite some time on the issue of a nazir who accidentally contracts corpse impurity. We’ve discussed shaving the consecrated hair the nazirite was growing — which has now become impure and can no longer be offered — and the week-long purification ritual to reverse the corpse impurity of their body. This is […]

Is a fetus a part of the pregnant person or an independent entity? How we answer this question has important implications — morally, legally and ritually. Most of us are used to hearing this question asked in the context of modern abortion debates. But the rabbis of the Talmud also asked, and answered, this very question in another […]

Given the restrictions on eating hametz (leavened grains) on Passover, many Jews fall back on a meat-and-potatoes diet for the duration of the holiday. Barred from eating the products of five forbidden grains — wheat, spelt, oats, rye and barley — and with additional restrictions on grain-like foods (kitniyot) observed by many Ashkenazi Jews, Passover […]

In 1957, the robust post-war economy and the rise of convenience food mass production paved the way for the widespread availability of sugar and sugary treats. No more did you have to ration cubes for your coffee or rely on grandma to bake your brownies.   But accompanying this sugar rush was the baby boomers’ (particularly […]