A new take on latkes
LANESBORO -- As a rabbinic student, Rachel Barenblat frequently interprets sacred texts to see how they might apply to the contemporary world. When these spiritual explorations lead to the kitchen, it's all in keeping with tradition, says Barenblat, whose popular blog -- velveteenrabbi.blogs.com , which receives about 200 hits a day -- chronicles her musings.
"Recipes are like sacred texts passed down on yellowed index cards," says Barenblat, 31, who believes that the study of scripture has a lot in common with cooking. "I love the old classic recipes that I grew up with," she says, "but I like to see how they change if you add something new."
Her home here, on top of a hill, overlooks fields, often dusted with snow at this time of year. Lanesboro is close to Williamstown, where Barenblat first came when she moved to New England in 1992. In jeans, clogs, with a knitted kippah (skull cap) perched on her light-brown hair, Barenblat is slicing cabbage for a batch of Asian latkes.
These are the result of experimenting, she explains, which she considers the best way to study recipes. One night about four years ago, her husband, Ethan Zuckerman, decided to make completely different latkes. The traditional potato pancakes are fried in oil during Hanukkah, which begins on Friday night and commemorates the Jews' rededication of their ancient temple after they won it back from the Syrians.
Zuckerman, 33, is cofounder of the website Global Voices, and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. He was the one who added cabbage, black sesame seeds, and ginger to a mixture of white and sweet potatoes to reinvent their latkes. They both liked the way the Asian ingredients turned ordinary fare into something more fun and colorful. They worked together to refine the recipe, adding other vegetables to the batter and replacing the classic accompaniments, applesauce and sour cream, with an Asian-style dipping sauce.
The latke batter, flecked with grated carrots and purple cabbage, looks like slaw, and the ginger and sesame oil give it a distinctive aroma. Once the batter is made, instead of using a spoon, Barenblat prefers to plunge her hands into the bowl to toss everything, which gives her a better gauge of the texture.
Barenblat is studying in the Aleph Rabbinic Program, part of the Jewish Renewal movement, located in Philadelphia, and expects to finish in about five years. But between studying, serving as rabbinic intern at Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, blogging, and writing poetry, she manages to find time for cooking.
In a recent blog post, she wrote: "Retellings of old stories can be like re-creations of old favorite recipes. An old classic changes when it's reinterpreted by different chefs (and more ordinary kitchen cooks with no formal training but a love of the art)."
Barenblat likes to try non traditional menus at other holidays. One Thanksgiving, she added pumpkin to her challah dough before braiding it into bread. For the Jewish New Year this fall, she made risotto with butternut squash and sage. Not everything works perfectly, she says, but she views trial and error as part of the process. "In cooking, as in life," she says, "it pays to have a sense of humor."
On her blog, she chronicled the failure of her first attempt to make jam from an etrog (a citrus fruit used in the Sukkot fall harvest festival). "I misjudged my marmalade, and wound up with four jars of etrog-ginger fruit sauce," she wrote. This year's jam turned out better, and she and Zuckerman plan to eat it in February. Jars of other homemade jams and pickles fill a wire shelf in the corner of their breakfast room.
Blogging also started as an experiment. Barenblat grew up in San Antonio, Texas, went to Williams College , and then earned an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She wrote poetry (a collection about her experiences as a hospital chaplain, "chaplainbook," was published this year by Laupe House Press); cofounded and directed Inkberry, a nonprofit center for the literary arts; and worked for three years on a book about Jewish religious practices. When it was mostly done, she decided that she wanted to rethink the entire premise of the book.
She had met Zuckerman when they were at Williams together and married him in 1998. He persuaded her to share some of her ideas about religion on a blog. She started in 2003, taking the name "Velveteen Rabbi" from the popular story about a rabbit.
In regular posts, Barenblat discusses everything from reading the Koran to helping prepare a body for a funeral. "I look at what it means to be religious in America today," she says. "I don't fit the pop culture stereotype of a religious person."
But she does seem to fit comfortably into the kitchen, easing handfuls of the latke batter into the hot oil and frying the pancakes until they're lacy and golden. As the pancakes are done, she drains them on paper towels and whisks the ingredients for the dipping sauce. The crisp pancakes taste familiar, but the mix of vegetables with the sauce takes these latkes into new territory.
No matter how far the rabbinic student goes in her creative interpretations of liturgy, she knows there's still a place for tradition -- especially on the Hanukkah table. "I always have to serve a batch of traditional potato latkes alongside the Asian ones. If we don't have those, people miss them." 