My friend KBell makes socks for a living. But it’s what comes out of her kitchen that’ll really knock your socks off – the world’s most perfect brisket.
That’s a boast, I know, that is bound to generate some heat. But what you have to know about Kbell’s brisket is two things: She’s ridiculously generous about sharing her recipe, which actually hails from her mother Selma Bell of Gloucester, Mass. And, for all I know, from Selma Bell’s mother, too. The Bells from Gloucester are like that, a tight-knit (so to speak) family. But the second and probably more important aspect of KBell’s brisket is that it’s pretty much fool-proof.
The key is in the timing. If you’re serving the dish for Friday night, say, you need to make it on Thursday. That way, you refrigerate the meat overnight and can easily hack off the extra globs of fat in the morning and then thinly slice the beef against the grain and, voila – the perfect brisket is simply heated up 45 minutes before you serve it, au jus.
The first thing I ever stole was a piece of Bazooka Bubble Gum. I lifted the small, red, white and blue rectangle out of the glass canister on the counter, wrapped my fist around it and shoved it in my pocket. My heart pounded against my chest with fear and excitement as I glanced around the store making sure no one had seen me. It was a rush. Taking it. Not getting caught. Pulling something off. Putting something over.
On the first night of Hanukkah, I wanted to make something representative of our holiday. On the nights that we are not entertaining friends and family for dinner, we are invited to others for food and fun.
"Latkes are a kind of oil, into which small quantities of shredded potato have been infused." -- Jonathan Safran Foer
I'm wishing a Happy Hanukkah to all of our Jewish friends. Since Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days the Jewish people celebrate with foods that include oil.