Country Greek from “The Last Schmaltz” is a Salad Comprised of
the Usual Ingredients Plus the Welcome Addition of Chickpeas
What is a nice Jewish boy from North York doing with a mini-empire of quirky restaurants in a gritty neighbourhood of downtown Toronto? Doing pretty well is the short answer.
“The table could sometimes breed violence and it could be the backdrop to the proscribed and the forbidden and the perverse … But feeding people made them happy; it made me happy, and grounded me.” From “Treyf” by Elissa Altman
My mother Ruth Schachter (née Nisse) in the garden of her flat in Primrose Hill, London UK, in 2014
I wrote this in 2002 when I was food editor for the Toronto Star. My dear mother, 95, died peacefully in her sleep a month ago on April 21, 2018
“Bland, intractably beige, and (most unforgivably of all) suspended in jelly, the bottled version seemed to have been fashioned, golem-like, from a combination of packing material and crushed hope.” From an article about gefilte fish by Rebecca Flint Marx in The New Yorker (October, 2016)
The above is eloquent testimony to the bad reputation of gefilte fish – a downhome, humble staple at the Jewish holiday table.
“Immaturity and hair dye keep me young.”
I’m repeating the title of this post for a few reasons: First, everything clever is worth repeating. It usually gets a good laugh – one of life’s giddiest pleasures, especially at my age. It’s true and unabashedly honest. It sums up what’s to follow – the announcement that I turn 70 in a few days. And last, it’s original.
My love of fish and chips dates back to formative years growing up in London, U.K., the historical home of this popular, populist, down-home dish.
In my early teens, I recall joining Girl Guides where we lived in the North London suburb of Finchley – then a white-collar, white-bread enclave where my Jewish family stood out like a sore thumb.
Kensington Market: my neighbourhood, my family – my first real home.
Located in the heart of downtown Toronto bordered by College and Dundas to the north and south, to the east and west by Spadina and Bathurst, this unique enclave is a quirky, edgy, messy mish-mosh of old and new.
My Jewishness is fraught with complexities and contradictions.
Raised without any religion in the North London suburb of Finchley in post-war Britain, it was white-bread, white-collar and Anglo-Saxon all the way. (This is not the case today, I’ve noted on recent visits, in a neighbourhood where kebab shops, curry houses and the Tally Ho! pub rub shoulders in a somewhat seedy multicultural mix).
My mother Ruth Schachter in her garden a few years ago
This appeared in the Toronto Star in 2012 when I was its food editor/columnist. My dear mother, 95, died peacefully in her sleep on April 21, 2018.
I often joke with my mum that she’s the antithesis of a Jewish mother.
For some reason – probably as an antidote to stress, this being the onset of that silly season – I’ve been cooking a lot of late, in particular trying new recipes from books by my Toronto foodie friends.
If you’ve read the previous blog – my tragic tale of the missing cookbooks – you’ll understand why the tomes in question are dear to my heart.
