Latest News
Culinary craftsmanship intersects with spiritual insights in the wonderfully collaborative book, “The Cook and the Rabbi.” On April 14 at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck (6422 Montgomery Street), the cook, Susan Simon, and the rabbi, Zoe B. Zak, will lead a conversation about food, tradition, holidays, resilience and what to cook this Passover.
Passover, marked by the traditional seder meal, holds profound significance within Jewish culture and for many carries extra meaning this year at a time of great conflict. The word seder, meaning “order” in Hebrew, unfolds in a 15-step progression intertwining prayers, blessings, stories, and songs that narrate the ancient saga of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery. It’s a narrative that has endured for over two millennia, evolving with time yet retaining its essence, a theme echoed beautifully in “The Cook and the Rabbi.”
Part liturgy, part folk art, part narrative, “The Cook and the Rabbi” is a testament to the adaptability of Jewish traditions. In the introduction, Rabbi Zak articulated, “My prayer has been to reveal a glimpse of the hidden sparks of each holiday and their connection to one another.”
Zak has served as the rabbi of Temple Israel of Catskill since 2012. Simon, the chef and visual artist behind the book, approached Zak with her literary agent after attending one of her services at Temple Israel with the idea for the book. Their collaborative effort is imbued with history and reverence for tradition while expanding meaning, creating an invitation to make the holidays deeply personal. With Passover in particular, Zak wrote: “Some of us long for our childhood and devote ourselves to re-creating those experiences, whereas others are determined to create something different for themselves, their families, and friends.”
From “The Cook and the Rabbi”
Matza Lasagne with Spinach and Roasted Butternut Squash
Is there anyone who doesn’t love lasagne with its layers of oozing ingredients complementing one other as they attach themselves to your fork? Here’s a recipe that uses sheets of matza instead of pasta, letting you keep up with your lasagne cravings, even during Passover. I used butternut squash for one of the layers as it can be found almost year-round. The flavor of squash diminishes over time— so, you might want to freeze it, peeled and cut into chunks, when it’s freshly harvested. Roasting is a good method to coax flavor out of even the most recalcitrant squash.
Serves 8
—One 1½-pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1½-inch chunks
—½ cup olive oil, plus some for pan and drizzling
—Flaky salt
—8 ounces spinach, tough stems removed, rinsed
—½ cup chopped onion
—2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
—¼ teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes
—One 28- ounce can peeled plum tomatoes (choose the best quality because they’re likely to be preserved in a thick sauce; if the sauce is watery, thicken with a tablespoon of tomato paste)
—1 pound whole- milk ricotta
—¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
—A few grinds of black pepper
—6 matzas
—½ cup grated Parmesan
—Leaves from 6 flat-leaf parsley sprigs
Heat the oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet or jelly- roll pan with parchment paper.
Arrange the butternut squash chunks, in a single layer, in the pan. Moisten with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of flaky salt. Bake, occasionally flipping the chunks, until all sides are golden, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven but don’t turn the oven off. Mash the roasted squash and set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium- high heat. When the oil is hot, add the still wet spinach and a pinch of salt. Toss to completely coat the spinach. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook until just wilted, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the remaining 5 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and Aleppo pepper flakes to the pan and sauté until the onion is translucent. Use your hands to crush the tomatoes into the pan. Add all of the can’s sauce. Simmer for 20 minutes.
While the sauce is simmering, place the ricotta in a medium bowl. Coarsely chop the cooked spinach and add to the bowl along with the nutmeg, black pepper, and a pinch of salt. Thoroughly combine.
Use a teaspoon of olive oil to lightly oil a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
Assemble the lasagne: Cover the bottom of the dish with 1½ matzas. Spread the mashed squash over the top. Cover the squash with a thin layer of tomato sauce. Cover the sauce with 1½ matzas. Spread the spinach mixture over the top. Cover that with a thin layer of tomato sauce, and then cover it with 1½ matzas. Cover this matza layer with half of the remaining tomato sauce. Cover the top of the sauce with 1½ matzas. Evenly spread the remaining sauce over the top. Sprinkle the Parmesan over the sauce. Sprinkle the parsley leaves on top of the Parmesan. Drizzle olive oil over the top.
Bake in the already heated oven until the top is golden and the sides are bubbling. The top of the lasagne should be crunchy — a perfect foil for the almost mousse-like filling.
Keep ReadingShow less
Housy baseball drops 3-2 to Northwestern
Apr 10, 2024
Wyatt Bayer threw three strikeouts when HVRHS played Northwestern April 9.
Riley Klein
WINSTED — A back-and-forth baseball game between Housatonic Valley Regional High School and Northwestern Regional High School ended 3-2 in favor of Northwestern on Tuesday, April 9.
The Highlanders played a disciplined defensive game and kept errors to a minimum. Wyatt Bayer pitched a strong six innings for HVRHS, but the Mountaineers fell behind late and were unable to come back in the seventh.
Wes Allyn played first base for HVRHS.Riley Klein
Despite the proximity of these two schools, this was far from a rivalry game. Players on both teams were more than familiar with the opposing roster after teaming up each fall for several seasons of Gilbert/Northwestern/Housatonic co-op football.
Fans could not have asked for a better spring day to take in the game April 9. Clear skies illuminated the field with temperatures around 72 degrees in Winsted. Singing birds gave way to chirping dugouts as the match got underway.
Riley Klein
Wyatt Bayer worked the mound from start to finish for HVRHS. He opened the first inning with a strikeout, but one Northwestern runner reached home before the inning was out. The Highlanders took a 1-0 lead which lasted through the third inning.
In the fourth, Hunter Conklin launched a deep double into center field. He brought home two runners in the process and put HVRHS up 2-1. Northwestern evened the score in the bottom of the fourth to tie it up at two.
The tie persisted through the fifth inning before Northwestern pulled ahead in the bottom of the sixth. Bayer got on base with a single in the seventh, but the Highlanders got out of the inning ahead.
Anthony Foley caught Nolan Risedorf in a pickle.Riley Klein
Bayer threw three strikeouts for HVRHS and went 2 for 3 from the plate. Conklin led the Mountaineers offensively with a 2 RBI double.
For Northwestern, Ben Crone batted 2 for 3 with a triple, Gavin Deloy hit 2 for 3 with a pair of singles, and Robbie Ayers hit 2 for 4 and touched home twice including the game winning run.
HVRHS moved to 0-2 for the season. The Mountaineers will host Terryiville High School Friday, April 12, at 3:45 p.m.
The dugout tracked a high-flying fould ball.Riley Klein
Keep ReadingShow less
Kozik presents work at Kenise Barns
Apr 10, 2024
The Ontario outdoorsman and painter Tom Thomson (1877-1917) captured the essence of the far North American landscape in a series of small paintings on wood panels—executed so well that in the century since his early death (in a canoe accident) he has become the de facto Painter Laureate of Canada. A great part of his achievement is due to his skillful use of the discrete brushstroke, deliberately placed in pitch-perfect colors, likely out of a necessity for immediacy, as his landscapes were painted on location. The ‘discrete brushstroke’ as an idea appeared in 19th Century French painting (Manet and the Impressionists), liberating the art form from descriptive modeling and making the mark a gesture unto itself. This freedom opened the door to Modernism, culminating in such a painter as Ellsworth Kelly: color and gesture simultaneously made manifest in pure form.
KK Kozik employs the discrete brushstroke with impressive results, building her images out of patterns and ‘tiles’ of complex tertiary colors (vanilla yellows, resonant mauves and pinks, deep blues and sagey greens). Aspects of her carefully structured images appear as friezes composed of blips and chunks of color, reading as vegetation or light moving on the water’s surface in a dizzy fracture. Psychedelic.
Much as Tom Thomson did in his paintings of Ontario, Kozik internalizes familiar views of our New England landscape and converts them, using her logic of design and touch, into mythic states of being. In one of her small landscape views, Kozik channels Irish painter Paul Henry’s sculpted clouds—and reminds us that any landscape painter of merit needs to capture the spirit of place.
Even though Kozik is a sophisticated painter there remains in her work a childlike sense of wonder. These paintings are devoid of the cynical skepticism and irony that pervade much of contemporary painting, and that is a very good thing. In one of her night skies the stars are silver appliqués attached to the surface of the painting, much the way a middle school girl would do in an art project. Wonderful. Kozik’s work proclaims that this sweet ‘island’ floating in space which we inhabit and the fact we even exist, is indeed a miracle.
Kozik’s show, titled “Miracle Island,” will be on display at Kenise Barns in Kent through May 12.
Keep ReadingShow less
Classic cult TV: Worth a new look?
Apr 10, 2024
A classic cult show does something new or pushes boundaries, has a dedicated but limited audience, and usually has a short run. You see “Game of Thrones” on lists of cult shows, but in my view it doesn’t come close. Its followers are fanatical and even have their rituals and lexicon, but it ran for eight years, and its audience ran in the tens of millions.
Firefly
“Firefly” (2002) is a much better example. Its cancellation by Fox after 11 episodes generated a huge fan uprising. You can see fandom at work in the Wikipedia entry, which runs longer than the one on Pearl Harbor and expounds on every detail, e.g. why the characters curse in Chinese. TV critic Emily Nussbaum called it a “character-rich, sci-fi western comedy drama with existential underpinnings.”
I’d give it passing marks for special effects, action, and humor, but is it worth watching? Here’s a scene from Episode One. Captain Mal Reynolds and the crew of his spaceship undergo a gunfight (on horseback), escape to their ship only to be pursued by Reavers (savage, half-human space pirates). “What happens if they board us?” the ship’s whore asks the pilot. “They rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skin into their clothing,” she replies. This sent me back to age 14, when I read a story titled, I think, “Serena and the Sex Slaves of Sirius” in an issue of Spicy SF Stories. I fled “Firefly” for the Mets game, but if you have a teen sci-fi fan in the house, he will have fun with it. Stream on Hulu or rent on AppleTV or Amazon.
My So-Called Life
“My So-Called Life” (1994) is a teen drama that centers on Angela Chase, a pretty and confused high schooler with a crush on handsome but oddly taciturn Jordan Catalano. Some episodes concern Angela’s parents, who seem almost as confused as their daughter. This well written show was far ahead of its time, dealing with such issues as homophobia, drug use, and guns in school (this was years before Columbine). Low ratings caused ABC to cancel the show, and a fan campaign to save it was reportedly the first in the history of the Internet.
Is it worth watching? Absolutely! It’s a welcome step back from the angry, disturbed teens in more recent shows like “The End of the F***ing World,” and was called one of the best teen dramas of all time by Rolling Stone and other publications. The stars are two great reasons to have a look: Jared Leto (his first major role) plays Jordan, and Angela is played by 15-year-old Claire Danes, who grew up to play Carrie Mathison in “Homeland.” Stream on Hulu, rent on Amazon and other services.
Difficult People
“Difficult People” (2015-17) stars Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner as two cynical New York City comedians who loathe almost everyone in town, especially celebrities. The name-dropping and jokes come at you with machine gun speed, along with cameos by Nathan Lane, Tina Fey and many other A-list actors. Another plus: any show that trashed Kevin Spacey and Charlie Rose years before their public exposure deserves respect.
This is big city humor at its most abrasive, and most critics liked it. Is it for you? That depends. Are you happier with Mary Tyler Moore in Minnesota or Larry David in LA and NYC? Mary folks might pass; Larry people should jump in, which you can do anywhere. Start with Episode 3, which is total madness: Kate McKinnon does a hilarious turn as Abra Cadouglas, an alcoholic magician, Julie and Billy host a raunchy pledge week at PBS, and Martin Short makes a scornful guest appearance. Three seasons, stream on Hulu or rent on Amazon and others.
Keep ReadingShow less
loading
