In the heat of summer, nothing beats a really fresh tomato. As I sit at my desk on Martha’s Vineyard, I take frequent breaks to go to the deck to pluck a potted Sun Gold and pop it into my mouth. It is a mid-summer treat that I dream of as I pass by grocery ...

With smoke from backyard grills perfuming our cities, the appetite once again turns to steak. This summer’s been extra meaty, thanks to Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef, by journalist Mark Schatzker. To find out what makes a great steak Schatzker visited ranches and breeders across the United States, Japan, ...

When I visited the White House a few weeks ago, for a celebration to mark the first Jewish American Heritage Month, I was reminded that the excitement of being in the stately building can overpower any appetite a person might bring there. The platters of Moroccan-Israeli eggplant salad, slices of rare beef, very fresh and ...

When he entered the New York dating scene after college, Yishai Lemberger set a basic criterion for what he was looking for in a match. “I would only date women who loved herring,” says the 36-year-old health-care consultant, who like many Jews of his generation grew up eating the fish on Saturday mornings at shul.
Given ...

Lev and I were on a channel-surfing trip to the children’s television channels when a plate of hummus larger than anything ever seen in the sky over Roswell appeared on the TV screen. A few people held a huge tape measure beside it, and they were surrounded by dozens more who were rejoicing. As a ...

The holiday of Shavuot marks the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. To celebrate, people stay up all night studying. They also eat dairy foods—milk, blintzes, and cheesecake—although there seems to be little agreement as to why.
Fred Schuster opened S&S Cheesecake in 1960; he now has help from his son-in-law, Yair Ben-Zaken. Together, they ...

“Women need role models on how to be effective advocates, and how to make a perfect blintz,” the activist Cora Weiss once said. The blintz—that old world delicacy with its winning combination of a slightly savory pancake and sweet, creamy filling—in recent years became a recurring theme in the cross-country phone calls I’d shared with ...