Healthy Jewish Food – Our Zoom presentation

“When life throws thorns, hunt for roses”, goes the old saying. Well, life certainly threw a few thorns in our path when the start of our recent Zoom event was held up by a computer glitch, but we soon managed to hit upon roses. Two of them, in fact, in the persons of Judi and Jackie Rose, the authors of “To Life: Healthy Jewish Food”, the recently-published book of recipes and advice on healthy eating, who were live on camera in the comfort of their own homes, the one to show us how it’s done, and the other, to explain the benefits of heeding their counsel.

Judi, the cookery maven, is of course the daughter of the legendary Evelyn Rose – no Jewish home is without at least one of her well-thumbed cookbooks – while her cousin, Jackie, is a GP and nutritionist. The pair of them entertained and educated us with a 90-minute presentation, during which Judi demonstrated how to make a trio of the desserts featured in the book: a luscious forest fruits strudel which looked so gorgeous in all its purple glory that it had the audience salivating; a simply-made granita to accompany the strudel; and some ‘jewelled’ chocolate and pomegranate discs – the perfect ending to a delicious meal.

In between Judi taking us through the preparation and the ‘here’s one I made earlier’ stages, Jackie provided the nutritional guidance, explaining the health benefits of the ingredients used in the recipes, offering some valuable advice on healthy diets and the destructive effects of taking in too much sugar, and in a particularly timely contribution , drawing our attention to those foodstuffs which might help if not to prevent then at least to stave off the worst effects of Covid-19. She also spoke about the reasons that gave rise to the book that the two cousins had written, among them their horror at discovering the amount of unhealthy ingredients in many popular and readily-available prepared food and drinks, and concluded by highlighting the work of the three charities – World Jewish Relief, Chai Cancer Care and Save a Child’s Heart – to which the proceeds of the book were being donated.

Both demonstration and advice were eagerly lapped up by the audience, which comprised not just members of our shul but also a large number from the wider local Jewish community, and the lively question and answer session which followed indicated just how interested and appreciative they were. So much so that our chairman Elissa, who presided over the occasion, has already asked the two Roses whether they will make a return visit in the not-too-distant future to show us some more of their recipes. Zoom is a wonderful thing (when it works) – bringing us all together from near and far. There’s just one drawback: the absence of a slice of warm strudel to taste! To mix metaphors, that really would have been the icing on the cake.