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Kosher cooking club brings ¡®Kashrut¡¯ to Wash U

BY JILL KASSANDER

Too many cooks do not spoil the broth when it comes to the Kosher Cooking Club at Washington University. In fact, the more the merrier. With the sounds of laughter and the smell of saut¨¦ing onions wafting down the corridors, the signs on the walls of Mudd Hall pointing the way to the Kosher Cooking Club were really unnecessary.

Club advisor Chana Novack started the program two years ago. ¡°It¡¯s a wonderful experiential program for the students,¡± Novack said. ¡°They are learning to do Jewish. This is very important, because after college they will have these skills to help them keep a Jewish home.¡±

Almost every other Thursday evening Novack brings all the kosher cooking utensils and supplies from her home to the kitchen in Mudd Hall. Students Talia Fein and Danielle Matilsky are the co-chairs of the club this year. ¡°I got involved in the club last year,¡± Fein said. ¡°It¡¯s such a fun, relaxing, easy going environment. Some people come to learn to cook and some just like being together.¡±

¡°It¡¯s a nice thing to do on a Thursday night,¡± student Ben Alper said. Not everyone who attends the cooking club programs keeps kosher, is Jewish or even eats the finished product. ¡°I don¡¯t actually eat the food,¡± Ari Cohen said. ¡°It¡¯s just fun to be at a Jewish function.¡±

Each semester the students share ideas of items they would like to cook. In the fall, the group had a Shabbat series and cooked challah, chicken soup and kugel. The series for this semester included sushi night, Ashkenazi treats and this particular Thursday evening ¡ª Sephardic cooking.

The recipe for the main course: Iraqi Kubba Aduma (red Iraqi dumplings) was brought back from Israel by Rebecca Kazzaz who was directing the cooking assembly line. Everyone was busy with assigned tasks: chopping, mixing, kneading and shredding. Students were lined up at the long kitchen counter talking about classes, movies, cooking, food, finals and even breaking into song now and then.

Upcoming events include making hamantashen for Purim and a special event for Passover.

¡°During Passover, the Jewish Student Union Social Committee will set up a table at lunchtime where students can walk by, grab a kosher-forpesach matzah pizza for lunch and then go to class,¡± Fein said.

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TODAY JIM MCKEAN, A MASTER VIOLIN-MAKER who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, laughs at the memory of how nervous he was when he found out that Christer Larsson was joining his cooking club. McKean and his wife, Claire, had started the club, which meets one Saturday night every other month, with three other couples. Larsson, the chef and owner of the Swedish seafood restaurant Christer's in Manhattan, and his wife, Deborah, were replacing a couple who were moving. It was daunting to cook for a professional ("Why don't we get together a violin-making group too?" McKean cracked), but he was game.

McKean decided to make an onion tart for the Larssons' first visit. Unfortunately, he neglected to leave enough time for the pastry dough to sit, and he wound up racing to the Grand Union for the ready-made variety. "Every time I tried to roll the stuff out," he remembers, "it would just go back into a ball in front of my eyes." But when everyone finally sat down to the pissaladi¨¨re, Larsson took one bite and proclaimed: "The onions are caramelized perfectly!" McKean knew then that this was the right man for the group.

"We think about good food," McKean says, explaining why he and Claire have such a good time at the club. "We think about getting together and having fun. It isn't like haute cuisine, where we really pull out all the stops." He reconsiders: "Well, actually, yeah, sometimes we do."

Larsson, who is busy these days preparing a take-out sausage spot, Knödel, for the new food court in New York City's Grand Central Terminal, has his own reasons for loving the club. "It's not that easy to cook," he observes in his pronounced Swedish accent. "It's something you practice, and you get better and better at it." He and Deborah are used to spending Saturday nights at Manhattan restaurants; when the club meets, they don't have to travel into the city, they don't have to pay a fortune for a meal, and--since each couple is responsible for only one course (the evening's hosts choose the dinner's theme and prepare the main course)--they don't have to spend all weekend cooking. "It's my night off and I have a good time," he says, quickly adding, "but it's pretty civilized. We all like to get up early on Sunday morning, so it's not like anybody will start dancing on the table." Every meal does start off, though, with a good bottle of Champagne.

Need more cooking club, please visit Chabad On Campus.

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