Knish Investigator Wins National Prize

Laura Silver has been awarded one of the top prizes for religion writing in the nation.

The New York-based writer earned Second Place in the 2011 RNA Religion Commentary of the Year. She received the award on Saturday night at the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA) Annual Conference in Durham, NC.

The award was open to opinion pieces created and distributed via any media format in 2010. Silver’s stories used food, culture and humor to highlight the Jewish experience in New York City.

Christmas with Claude Lanzman’s ‘Shoah’ (Huffington Post)

On Veteran’s Crosses and Shields (Huffington Post)

Custom Versus Costume (CNN)

Silver praised RNA and fellow religion reporters for their enthusiasm, persistence and camaraderie. “The 2010 RNA Conference and its attendees encouraged me to ratchet up my game and submit articles for consideration,” said the woman who has been on the knish trail since 2002.

First prize for Religion Commentary went to Silver’s new crony, Kay Campbell, Faith and Values Editor of the Huntsville Times (Alabama).

Silver came home from the conference with a two-foot plaque and a piece of sports history.  At a conference banquet, the girl who didn’t make it to her high school’s hoops team won a basketball autographed by Naismith Hall of Fame member. Coach Cathy Rush is the subject of The Mighty Macs, an upcoming feature film about the down-and-out Catholic College woman’s team that she coached to victory in the 1970′s.

“I’m inspired by underdogs and women who persevere and break down barriers,” said Silver, a former scorekeeper for the Flushing High School boy’s basketball team. Today, the journalist sees her quest for knish history as a way to highlight forgotten stories and initiate interfaith dialogue between Polish Catholics and American Jews, who have passed the food back and forth for generations.

Up North in the Land of the Pastie

Greetings from Ely, Minnesota

That’s Ely. Pronounced EEL-lee. Looks Jewish, but nope. I did see a pastie [pronounced past-EE, to distinguish it from ornamental nipple ornaments] in the supermarket. It’s pretty knish-like, but with pork and beef. And it’s the size of, say, half my face. So nope, I didn’t buy one, but hope to cop a photo on the way out of town.

So here I am on a lake, Tofte (the e is not silent), 15 miles out of Ely. Good for early morning and sunset kayak rides, dips in the lake and trips to the local house of 250,000 lures. This is not an exaggeration. And, very good for writing. Up in a screened in cabin called Osprey, or in a lakeside library. I like this unbridled sky thing. And nature.

Walking to a kayak last night, I recalled the words of ” Eli, Eli,” lyrics by Hannah Senesh:

I pray that these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rush of the water
Lightning in the sky

(Better in Hebrew.)

If you’re curious about the state of the knish in the Holy Land, have a look at this article,  just out from Alef Next.

Recipe: Ida Gardner’s Knishes

Hearty thanks to Sandy Loeffler, who originally posted this recipe on http://www.jewishfood-list.com.

It’s been a source of great joy and fulfillment — and filling — to many, including he latest crop of International Knish Society bakers at the Hazon Food Conference in beautiful, sunny Davis, California.

Ida Gardner’s Knishes
Source: My mother, Ida Zelkowitz Gardner
Serves: Yields a few dozen, depending on the size

Dough:
5 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups warm water
2/3 cup oil

Potato Filling:
3 pounds of potatoes, peeled, cut in pieces and cooked
Salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, peeled, chopped and fried in a bit of oil

Meat Filling:
3-1/2 pounds roasted chuck
2 pounds of chopped, fried onions
2 pounds of boiled potatoes
salt and pepper to taste

Topping:
egg wash (1 egg yolk plus 1 tbsp. water)

For meat filling, after everything is cooked, grind all the ingredients together.

For potato filling fry the chopped onion in the oil. Cook the potatoes until soft but not mushy, and drain. Mash or rice the potatoes, and mix with the salt and pepper, onion, and oil.

Assembly:

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

In a big bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add eggs, oil, and warm water, and mix together with the flour mixture. Knead the dough slightly. Form a ball. Divide the dough into 4-5 parts. Roll one section at a time into a thin circle (about 1/8th” thick) on a lightly floured board or pastry cloth. Brush lightly with some oil.

Put a ring of the potato filling on the dough around the outer perimeter of the circle, leaving a bit of dough to fold over the filling. Make a slit in the center of the circle. Lift the dough up and over the filing from the outside of the circle.

“Roll” by hand until you’ve reached the center, and the filling is encased by the dough. Using the side of your hand as a “saw,” cut through the roll of dough until you have as many pieces of whatever size you prefer (baseball knish-size, for example). The ends of each knish will look “twirly” or might be open a bit.

Pinch each end together and tuck into the knish, making a “pupik/belly button,” and tuck it into the knish.

Grease the baking pans and put the knishes on. Brush each knish with the egg wash. Bake at for about 20 minutes on the bottom shelf of a gas oven, then switch to the top shelf for the next 20 minutes.

These knishes freeze well, but once you taste them, you won’t have many left to freeze. They’re great!

Poster’s Notes: My mother, Ida Gardner (z’l), was a wonderful cook and baker. She and my aunt did their own catering of small parties and dinners, and Mom also worked for a few different kosher caterers in Baltimore as the “knish lady.” Schleider’s, the last caterer that Mom worked for before retiring, had a contract from Memorial Stadium to provide meat knishes at the home baseball games. It seems to me they only charged about a quarter for them–a real bargain for something of this quality that was as big as your fist. I don’t know if the caterer is still in existence or who now has the contract at Baltimore’s Camden Yards Stadium or if they are still made and sold. When the television show called “What’s My Line” was on, we kids thought about signing Mom up as a guest because we figured the panelists would never guess “Knish Lady.” However, Mom was very shy and would never consent to letting us send her name in to the show. Mom also once baked some potato knishes for one of the cooks at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY, when Isaac Bashevis Singer was in town and having lunch at the restaurant. He loved them, and I’m sure all of you will too.

Posted by Sandy Loeffler

From Mrs. Stahl’s to Knyszyn and Back

Here’s the video from my presentation at TEDx:BroadStreetNY: Learning From History
at The Hive at 55, June 25, 2011.
The footage isn’t blurry, just this starter image… a reminder that it’s just not the same as being there in person. But a very close second.

The Backstory
I learned about this TEDx late in the game and took a chance on pitching the talk. (A conference in New York City about history without the knish?! ) Lucky for me, event organizer and leadership guru Holly Landau also had a connection to Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes —her grandparents lived near the Brighton Beach shop — and was on the lookout for a theme for the afternoon snack break. The humble hunk of dough saved the day.

We had cocktails and knishes, cocktail sized, of course, Cabbage, potato and kasha (buckwheat), from Yonah Shimmels, the closest knish purveyor, and one with more than 100 years of backstory.

And, speaking of Mrs. Stahl’s: big news! I’ve made contact with the Weingast family. The man who bought the shop from Mrs. Stahl’s niece is still recounting knish tales. What a gift. I’ve searched for Mrs. Stahl in birth records, death records, Brooklyn business records with no luck. The Weingasts were the missing link. Their name was on the front of the store — an integral part of the business.

Knish History 101 at the Brooklyn Brainery

Two Wednesdays, July 6 and 13, 7-8:30pm

This two-session explores the wrapped potato pastry of Eastern European Jewish origin through legends, songs, and tastings. Knish enthusiasts, knish veterans and the knish curious are all warmly invited to join this interactive exploration.

Part 1: At the first meeting, we’ll explore the history of this storied food on American shores. From the Knish Wars of Rivington Street to Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s 1990s regulation of oven temperatures in the city’s sidewalk food carts, the potato pocket is inextricably linked to the history of New York City.

Part 2: We’ll explore the roots and modern-day manifestations of the savory pie on foreign shores, with stops in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East. On our agenda: Talmudic commentary about the early knish a hunt for hot pockets on the streets of Paris and a Polish legend that links the stuffed dough to mourning rituals

We’ll conclude each session with a knish tasting. Bring your questions and memories.

For you, $30

Alive and Well and Living in Paris

Bonjour Knish. The potato pocket is a yellow triangle at La Boutique Jaune, Paris.

I first wrote about knishes in 2002 for Jews of Brooklyn as an homage to my grandmother, who kept a couple of kasha [buckwheat] ones in her freezer at all times. I’ve been hot on the knish trail since my grandmother’s beloved knish shop, Mrs. Stahl’s of Brighton Beach, closed its doors in 2006. The recipe was sold to an Italian pasta maker in Vineland, NJ.

And, after some archival research in Bialystok, I learned that I’m a direct descendant of the small town of Knyszyn, Poland. No joke. My knish exploits now include a book-length memoir and a documentary in the works.

•  •  •

Here’s how it started: Knish as memory, vehicle for love, loss and condolence.

“Knish Reminiscence” in Jews of Brooklyn, Brandeis University Press, 2002

Bland black lettering stands in place of the scripted neon that once proclaimed Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes. The dulled orange counter that ran the length of the shop is gone. There’s no indication of the continued availability of cherry lime rickeys. And, as if to compound the retreat of Mrs. Stahl’s into the back right corner of the shop: no onion pletzels today.

The pletzel is a flat latke wannabe, a rectangular tongue of onion-strewn dough: hot, thin, salt-tickled and just greasy enough to assert its presence with a translucent brown bag smudge. Cyrillic letters are skewed pictograms on the five-foot high plexiglas knish menu. Semi-foreign characters represent the steady cast of ingredients: cherry cheese, spinach-potato, mushroom. The current-day incarnation of Mrs. Stahl plucks one steaming kasha from the metal knish repository. She bags it for me and chatters in Spanish. I take a plastic white knife to the tawny knish, douse both halves in mustard and order a hot tea. This is the only place that makes me sentimental about styrofoam. Without Gramma, Mrs. Stahl’s is elevated from pit stop to destination.

I rummage for money and find none. My wallet is at home. The knish woman shows no signs of pity. For two years I have kept myself from Mrs. Stahl’s and Brighton Beach. There’s no reason she should recognize me or note my re-appearance. I go to the car, scrounge $2.20 for my snack, resign to return soon for a neat, pleated metal tray of cocktail knishes. My Atlanta cousins are dying for another shipment.

Today the wind coaxes me past the blank excavation of Brighton Baths. A grey sky tucks itself into my pocket. A man in a black hat and peyes walks towards me. I am convinced he will stop to reveal a kabalistic message from Gramma. She dreaded the day they would dismantle the Baths. Just as well, I think as I approach the boardwalk, just as well she is not here to witness it: the new development would have ruined her view. My second birthday without her and I have decided, impromptu, to buck past the Brooklyn landmarks I have been eschewing in grief and weakness.

The Prospect Expressway dumps me onto Ocean Parkway. Alone, I rekindle my traditional birthday pilgrimage. Today, place will be person. I count on Brighton to assuage my restlessness and indecision. Each cross street screams a story.

Church Avenue: her husband’s used car lot—now converted to an incomplete church across from the stables. Rugby Road: the dim apartment above the alleyway, where, before there were trees on the street, she holed herself up with perpetually packed cardboard boxes and cigarettes; where no visitors were allowed; where she fought with Al, or ignored him in the kitchen he infused with a Sunday smell of lox, eggs and onions.

Avenue M: the Caravelle Diner, only acceptable eatery for Aunt Sid and Aunt Rose—relatives through friendship, not blood—who piled their dining room three-layers thick with heirloom furniture and urged cases of matzo on Gramma before and after Passover, until their deaths.

1199 Ocean Avenue: Apartment 1L, phone GE4-3868 where she wooed Caribbean neighbors with stuffed cabbage and applesauce pinked from peels. The bus shelter right in front of the building where she was pushed to a broken hip and her first stay at Maimonides Hospital. (I raced home from Massachusetts).

Avenue U: the Chinese restaurant we shuttled her to every second or third weekend in the ’80s. Gramma and I would split the egg rolls, but she always gave me her tough, bubbled skin.

The Coney Island Avenue funeral home we filled with friends and tardy, insistent relatives is on the verge of demise. Today, the Ocean Parkway foliage seems to peak; golden leaves stream from trees against my windshield. The street must be as it was for the funeral. Jenn and Sarah got there early, so sat on a bench to bask in the Brooklyn autumn. I was as if colorblind. Today, I imagine that the dark oak paneling of Schwartz Brothers Chapel has been peeled away, that light floods the somber den and congregation room, thwarting the tentative movements of a flat-faced funeral director who spoke only in the third-person past- tense.

It is easier to be on the beach than I expected. My favorite jetty is dotted with afternoon lovers. I balance myself on a rock surrounded with ocean thunder and residual foam. Again, the black-hatted figure. Again, silence. A seagull stares at me from the crest of a wave. Bald-legged Russian women wade along the hard sand. The tea is milky and sweet, the knish warm and grainy. Kasha was Gramma’s favorite too. There were always several in her freezer. Now, I allow myself to thaw. I look up at the building where she lived, find the window that was hers and realize I don’t need a messenger to invoke her presence.

Yellow Fever

Oh, hello, there.

You ordered, maybe, a knish?

Square, fried, with a squirt of mustard?

Hot on the Trail

So, if you’re following this, you know that my hunt for the history of the knish began with an obsession with a family knish store. Not my family, but felt like it. Mrs. Stahl’s of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The knish destination of my father and his forebears. The kind of place you take for granted… until it’s gone.

When it vanished I sprang into action – found out the recipe was bought by an Italian guy, also of immigrant stock. And since then I’ve been cavorting around New York, Poland, Israel in search of the knish. I come from a mixed marriage– Bronx and Brooklyn, but I’m 100 percent knish, through and through. My Bronx relatives are from Knyszyn, Poland.

But, back to Brooklyn. What’s the big deal about this photo?
It’s from the New York City Municipal Archives, for one. 1980. The system works based on lot numbers and block numbers. Adn thankfully, the researcher helping me out had the good sense to look at the lot number next to the one I was searching for and voilà. I have other photos that show the storefront full on, but I like this one for the context and for the teamwork that got it into my hands. This part of my research is sponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University for a section of the book project called Knish Sister: Mrs. Stahl, the Sholom Auxiliary, Bella Sherman and me.

Stay tuned for more on these visionary ladies who know how to roll in (and out) the dough.

Kindred

“The more we are ourselves,
the more we can invite the audience in.”

one of the great quotes about art-making and life here at the Conney Conference in Madison, WI.

A knish baking session with dancers, artists, academics. A talk about Knish Reminiscence and a lecture for an undergrads in a class Food in Rabbinic Judaism. The majority of them had never encountered a knish. The first question from a student:

Q: What does a knish taste like?

A: The answer: a taste the previous day’s output.

Bursting Out All Over

Spring is, at least in these parts. And with spring, the knish, too, sprouts eternal.

I’m getting ready to go to Madison, WI for the Conney Conference on Jewish Arts. Knish-making, after all, is a Jewish art, is it not? One need not be Jewish to produce or enjoy the fruits of the knish.

But, of course, it can’t hurt. Nor can it hurt to make another appearance at the Mustard Museum in Middleton.
Years ago, maybe 15 or more, my folks and I went to Wisconsin. They celebrated their anniversary with a weekend at Seth Low Cabin and I stopped by to visit. They went on to visit the Mustard Museum, and I was downtrodden to have missed this special pilgrimmage.

Just goes to show, we never know what’s in store.