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One part Tuesdays with Morrie, one part Like Water
for Chocolate, Nana
Lena’s Kitchen by Amy Ostrower is an inspirational collection
of stories
and recipes from a Southern Jewish kitchen. These recipes read almost
like
folk tales, fables from a mythic past handed down generation to
generation
with love. As an extended family of sisters, daughters and granddaughters
gather to make a Passover meal or prepare the Shivah table, Nana
Lena’s
recipes are dispensed with an equal measure of wisdom – about
life and
death, courage and responsibility, family and faith.
We see the spirited Lena grow in these pages from a young girl and
impetuous
bride to a loving mother and grandmother. Her story mirrors the
larger
currents of her times. The daughter of immigrants, Lena Goodman
was
born on the Fourth of July, 1912 in Berkley, Virginia. During her
lifetime
she saw the Flu Epidemic of 1918, the Great Depression, the Second
World
War, the invention of indoor plumbing -- even a Jewish boy named
Sandy
Koufax play Major League Baseball. She continues to live on in these
stories,
fondly remembered by her granddaughter Amy, who is a screenwriter
living in Los Angeles.
Nana Lena’s Kitchen is a gem -- and a perfect gift for mothers,
daughters,
bubbies and best friends. |
