Jewish holidays cookbook Festive meals for celebrating the year

Gr 4-8-More than 40 recipes are included for celebrations from Shabbat to Lag B'Omer. Several introductions explain cooking tools, kitchen safety, and the general principles of keeping kosher, and brief background information is given for each holiday. Simple step-by-step instructions make the recipes easy, and some include shortcuts such as using store-bought dough. Each one makes clear whether the food is meat, dairy, or pareve (neither), and sidebars offer variants and cooking tips. For example, the recipe for "Chicken Noodle Soup" calls for butter or margarine, and suggests vegetable oil or olive oil as alternatives. Most of the recipes are traditional, including both Ashkenazic and Sephardic dishes, but there are a few creative twists such as "Savory Cheese Sofganiyot" (doughnuts) for Hanukkah instead of the usual jelly filling. Beautiful color photographs, both full page and spot, whet the appetite. While readers will garner only a superficial understanding of the holidays from this book, they will gain a great appreciation for Jewish flavors.-Heidi Estrin, Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.