Noodles aren’t just food
They are a philosophy.
The Italian Embassy

It was a Saturday afternoon. A huge party of bored single people was invited to my home that night and I needed to begin cooking right away if I wanted to have enough food to feed them all. Everyone knows that the unattached mid-lifers nourish themselves by loading up from party to party and drink protein smoothies to hold them when they are alone. The last time I fed this group, they demolished two dozen bottles of wine (their contribution to the potluck) six boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, five loaves of French bread, four gallons of cabbage soup, three turkey and rice casseroles, two chocolate cakes, an apple pie, and the enamel on my stove. Gretchen O’Leary stopped me as I emptied out everything in the refrigerator to put on the table and said, “Where did you put the potatoes, Lynn Ruth? Sure and I never feel filled up without steamed potatoes with butter and parsley to finish a meal.”

I smiled. “No potatoes tonight sweetie,” I said. “Did you try the soup?”

She nodded.

“The turkey and rice??”

She nodded. “Two helpings.”

“The salad and the gouda cheese puffs?”

She nodded.

“The dessert?”

“All of it,” she said. “Even the doughnuts. I thought the potatoes might take the sweet taste from me mouth.”


“I guess you better order some fries from MacDonald’s,” I said. “I don’t have a thing left in the house.”

This time I was determined to have enough food to stuff everyone until they exploded. “Nothing fills you like The Cavit Vegetable Soup,” said Nina. “I’ll come over and show you how to make a mixture that would overload the Iranian population. This stuff is very filling. “

“These people are BIG eaters,” I said.

“Well then, we’ll give them some bread to eat with it, “ said Nina. “Trust me, Lynn Ruth. “The Union soldiers lived on nothing but this particular recipe and my great, great grandpa swears it gave him the sheer animal strength he needed to smite the entire confederacy with his bare hands.”


“They did it with VEGETABLE soup?” I said.

“This vegetable soup,” said Nina. “It’s been in the family for generations.”

Nina and I had a date to create this super vegetable soup today, and I wanted to serve something sweet but not too sweet, to go with it. “I know,” I said. “I’ll make a lokshen kugel. “

Nina frowned. “That sounds kinky to me,” she said. “What is it made with? Fancy kumquats with a speech impediment?”

I smiled. “Not exactly,” I said. “More like glorious noodles in delectable dress.”

“I’ll believe that when I taste it,” said Nina. “Where I come from, a noodle is a noodle.”

“Where do you come from?” I asked.

“Kentfield,” she said.

“That explains it,” I said. “This recipe has been in MY family since they escaped the Russians at the turn of the century. I’ll share it with you if you promise never to tell the secret ingredients”

“My lips are sealed,” said Nina. “But only if you SWEAR not to tell a single living soul what I do to produce this vegetable soup.”

I hauled out my mother’s recipe box and found six different recipes for Jewish Noodle Pudding. I couldn’t tell which of the six was THE kugel whose memory still made my mouth water. One used cottage cheese, another hoop cheese, a third used apples and a fourth used dates and raisins. I searched the web and found more variations. One baked the thing for half an hour, another refrigerated it overnight. One used broad noodles, another couscous. Which formula was THE ONE AND ONLY?

I tried to conjure up a picture of my tiny mama creating her famous lokshen kugel and all I saw was a small, aproned figure tossing noodles and dairy products together like a circus juggler. I remember saying, “Mama, what do you put in that thing that makes it so marvelous,” and she paused, her wooden mixing spoon poised in midair. “I put in love, Lynnie Ruth,” she said. “And noodles, of course. Lots of noodles.”

Well, I knew how to cook with love. I was the one in my family whose motto has always been, “If you don’t cry for seconds, why bother with the first?” I recalled all the sensational tastes my mama packed into that magic pudding and I knew exactly what to do.

Nina arrived promptly at three with two huge cast iron soup pots, and two bags of vegetables. “These are the ones we use for flavor,” she said and pointed to the first bag bulging with celery, summer squash, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli and cabbage. “When the broth is finished, we strain it and throw away the vegetables.”

I sat down and tried to still my lurching heart. “You THROW them away?” I gasped. “You dispose of perfectly good food? My mother would have made at least twenty five casseroles out of those vegetables.”

“Trust me, Lynn Ruth,” said Nina. “They will be tasteless after they’re boiled that long.”

“All they need is a little schmaltz and some grievenes,” I said. “And they will be to die for.”

Nina gave me her Kentfield look and continued. “The other bag has the vegetables we will put in the pot after the soup is strained. Have you put out the ingredients for your noodle pudding?”

“Not yet,” I said. “In our family, we create these things by reaching blindly into the refrigerator and taking out the ingredients that call out to us.”

Nina paused. “We don’t do things that way in Kentfield,” she said.

“What a loss,” I said and opened up the refrigerator door.

Nina chopped her vegetables and started the soup. I mixed a lot of cream cheese and egg yolks with a bunch of fruit while she boiled the noodles. I buttered a casserole while she beat egg whites. I dotted the whole thing with too much butter while she strained her soup and got out all the dead veggies and two battered bay leaves. While I was wrapped up in noodled fruit, she disposed of the overcooked turnips, onions cabbage and celery. By the time I looked up from my sour cream and pineapple, they were history and the product of my imagination was bubbling in the oven.

The bell rang! Our guests were here. Nina tasted the soup. “Add vinegar,” she said.

I put the kugel on the table and reached for my fork to taste it. Too late! My guests descended like flies to taffy and my invention was devoured before I put down my potholder. “Did you taste it?” I asked Nina.

She nodded, “I move very fast when I have to. You must give me the recipe.”

“I was working so fast I forgot what I did,” I said.

“Yours is an unusual cooking technique, Lynn Ruth,” said Nina. “But it certainly works. I can’t wait to tell my family in Kentfield how you do it. They will be amazed.”

“So am I,” I said.

When our guests left, they had finished all the soup and kugel. They had also consumed eight platters of cold cuts, seven dozen bagels, six plates of cheese canapés, five bowls of salad, four loaves of challah, three green bean casseroles, two apple pies, one angel food cake with rum custard topping and an innocent partridge resting in the pear tree I planted out back.

Nina came into the empty kitchen and put her two Dutch ovens in a bag with her knives, graters, her strainer and Foley Mill, the bottles of seasonings and the cheesecloth for her bouquet garni. “What happened to your little partridge? He always chirps good-by.”

“He has been digested,” I said. “Poor fellow.”

“In Kentfield, we bake our partridges before we eat them.” said Nina.

“I told you these people are good eaters,” I said. “It’s a good thing I put the dogs in their kennel.”

A lokshen kugel is a group of noodles
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My Rabbi