Morgan Jeff - The covenant kitchen : food and wine for the new Jewish table

Copyright 2015 by Jeff Morgan and Jodie Morgan
Preface copyright 2015 by Leslie Rudd
Foreword copyright 2015 by Menachem Genack
Photographs copyright 2015 by Ed Anderson Photography

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schocken Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

Schocken Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morgan, Jeff (Winemaker), author.
The covenant kitchen : food and wine for the new Jewish table / Jeff and Jodie Morgan.
pages cm Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8052-4325-3 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-8052-4326-0 (eBook)
1. Jewish cooking. 2. Food and wine pairing. I . Morgan, Jodie, author. II . Title.
TX 724. M 665 2015 641.5676dc23 2014025769

www.schocken.com

Cover photography by Ed Anderson
Cover design by Janet Hansen

v3.1

This book is dedicated to our extended Jewish family around the globe
from Israel, London, Paris, Toronto, and New York to Chicago,
Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Francisco, and the California wine country.
Their love and support has helped us rediscover our rich heritage
and share it through food and wine.

I grew up in a Jewish home in Kansas, where the only kosher wines we knew were very sweet ones made from Concord grapes. But times have changed, and there are a growing number of fine kosher wines made from European grape varieties cultivated in many of the worlds finest wine regions.

In 2002, I challenged my friend and colleague Jeff Morgan to make a kosher wine from the Napa Valley that would be as good as the finest non-kosher wines made from the region. Although we are both Jewish, neither Jeff nor I had grown up in a religious community. But for various reasons, we felt compelled to raise the bar for kosher wine.

That decision changed our lives in more ways than we thought it would. I dont have a completely clear understanding of why, in Jewish tradition, wine is a holy beverage, but theres no doubt that wine has the power to inspire. More specifically, kosher wine has inspired both Jeff and me to rediscover and explore our Jewish heritage. And because our peripatetic lives as vintners revolve around food and wine, we have been able to share our own Jewish California wine-country lifestyle with the Jewish community worldwide.

This book offers readers a blueprint for exploring a cornucopia of food and wine while maintaining Jewish tradition and identity. Whatever your background, you will enjoy the recipes featured here. And those who do keep kosher can rest assured that all the recipes are appropriate for a kosher kitchen.

Ive known Jeff and Jodie Morgan for fifteen years. On a daily basis, they serve up a wonderfully homegrown sense of hospitality and good taste in their dining room. Its a pleasure to follow their lifestyle perspective and personal Jewish journey through these pages. The Covenant Kitchen will enhance mealtime for anyone with a sense of culinary adventure and a taste for tradition.

LESLIE RUDD
Co-proprietor, Covenant Winery
Vintner, Napa Valley

One of my fondest and most vivid childhood memories is of watching my mother lovingly prepare food for our family. Although I certainly enjoyed the result, it was my awareness of her efforts in the preparation that made my mothers food so special. This love and affection in the Jewish home and its role in transmitting traditions from one generation to the next have nurtured the Jewish experience throughout the centuries.

The special quality of the Jewish home is, in fact, highlighted by our Sages, for whom it resonated with sanctity. As far back as the tent of our matriarch, Sarah, our tradition expresses the idea of the homes sanctity. Sarahs tent, the Midrash tells us, was endowed with three wondrous qualities: The Shabbat candles miraculously remained lit from one Shabbat to the next; the challah she prepared expanded far out of proportion to the ingredients she used to make it; and a cloud of purity continuously hovered above the tent in which she lived with Abraham. The wondrous qualities of Sarahs home mirrored the sanctity of the Tabernacle: The flames of the menorah remained lit continuously; the lechem hapanimloaves of show bread used in the Tabernacle servicestayed warm long after they would have been expected to cool; and the Divine Presence itself, expressed in the form of a protective cloud, constantly rested above.

The distinguishing features of Sarahs home reflected the fact that the Jewish homeand particularly the Jewish kitchenis anything but mundane. On the contrary, when we bake challah, prepare meals, or say a blessing over wine, we are bringing forth a spiritual component latent in our physical world; and in the process we are sanctifying it.

Food has always brought Jewish communities and families together. From our unique religious legacy many culinary customs and cultural delicacies have emerged, creating a veritable smorgasbord of Jewish experiences. The traditional gastronomic delights associated with Shabbat and each of the holidays have served in their own way to bind the Jewish community together and to preserve our heritage. The traditions of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewry yield a rich cuisine, which is itself a repository of Jewish culture.

Jeff and Jodie Morgan are intuitively aware of Judaisms remarkable capacity to bring out the spiritual component in food and thereby imbue the physical world with a sense of sanctity. The Covenant Kitchen is a labor of love that, in a pleasant and engaging way, reflects this profound understanding.

The book is more than that, however. The Morgans, so experienced and knowledgeable in their fields, have been on a path of discovery of the laws and traditions of kosher, or kashrut. Integrating this information into a contemporary cookbook is not an easy task, and The Covenant Kitchen is a masterful expression of how one can create modern recipes without sacrificing the standards of a kosher home. The Covenant Kitchen is a perfect partnership for OU Press, the publishing division of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, more commonly known as the OU. The OU, founded in 1898, has been the leader in expanding kashrut supervision worldwide, and we are proud to join with the Morgans and with Schocken Books in presenting this wonderful synthesis of culinary art and Jewish tradition.

Both the Morgans and the OU are on a journey. Jeff and Jodie have embarked, in a very personal way, on a journey in search of spirituality and meaning. The OU, as well, is on a spiritual quest. Its mission is to bring the message of Judaism and its rich heritage to Jews throughout the world. The light of kashrut can be a beacon illuminating this journey. Kashrut brings us back to our roots and tradition. Kashrut brings us back to Sarahs tent.

RABBI MENACHEM GENACK