Levana's Table

Book excerpt: For more than twenty years, Levana Kirschenbaum has delighted New Yorkers with her bakery, restaurant, catering business, and cooking classes. Now, for the first time, she shares her kosher recipes and kitchen wisdom with home cooks everywhere.Levana's Table offers more than 150 recipes that are simple, nutritious, beautifully presented, and 100 percent kosher. Together, these dishes form an international mosaic reflecting the author's Moroccan upbringing and other wide-ranging culinary influences and interests: French, Mediterranean, Asian, and vegetarian cooking, as well as food for holidays and entertaining.Recipes include traditional kosher fare, such as potato latkes, matzoh ball soup, and brisket with sweet-and-sour sauce. But this is not your grandmother's kosher cookbook. There are many Moroccan-style dishes, such as couscous, tagine, tabbouleh, and pastille. Levana also includes creative contemporary fare that is kosher—Tricolor Vegetable Terrine with Basil-Leek Coulis; Champagne Risotto with Arugula, Peas, and Asparagus; and Porcini-Crusted Black Sea Bass with Mint Sauce. And, of course, there are the desserts—from the author's award-winning carrot cake to her sought-after chocolate chip cookies to her decadent Chocolate-Hazelnut Mousse Torte.The book closes with twenty menus—for entertaining and everyday—and a survey of kosher wines that are as international as Levana's cooking.