20 minute read
TJH Speaks with Faigy Murray, Author of My Pesach Kitchen
Eight Days of Yum
TJH Speaks with Faigy Murray, Author of My Pesach Kitchen
Faigy, congratulations on your
first cookbook. Can you give us a little background on yourself?
I grew up in Montreal, where my parents still live. I always had a tremendous passion for cooking. I love being in the kitchen. As a young girl, every time I went to my friends’ houses to study for tests in school, they’d be studying for a test and I would be in their mothers’ kitchens going through their mothers’ kitchen cabinets, looking at all the recipes that the mothers had.
Anytime anyone Anytime anyone served me anything, served me anything, even as a young girl, I even as a young girl, I would go up to them and would go up to them and say, “I need the recipe.” say, “I need the recipe.” I collected so many unI collected so many unbelievable recipes over believable recipes over the years. Way, way the years. Way, way before I got married, I had a complete recipe collection. Back then everything was handwritten, and I had those little recipe looseleaf folders.
The passion has never left me. My mother is an unbelievable cook. She’s Hungarian, so it’s more simple, traditional food. She doesn’t make a lot of crazy stuff. For Shabbos and yom tov, we had the same food my entire life, but whatever she made, and still makes, is absolutely flawless. I honestly can say I don’t remember my mother ever messing up a recipe.
I had big shoes to fill, but at the same time, she’s somebody who is extremely comfortable in the kitchen. She taught me to be comfortable in the kitchen and be confident. So, if I’m in middle of a recipe, and I realize that I ran out of something, I’m not going to say, “Forget it, I can’t make this recipe.” I don’t have salt, well, what other spices can I use cook. I have fused both my mother’s instead? and my mother-in-law’s styles of
When I got married, I was so ex- cooking. cited to have my own kitchen and It’s funny, my two boys – I have have my own food to prepare. Prob- a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old – ably within the first few weeks that I don’t like when I offer “funky” stuff was married, I was already hosting on Shabbos. They’ll tell me, “Ma, if guests and hosting meals, because it you want to make crazy things, save it was just so natural and such a pas- for during the week or make it, but we sion of mine. still need our kugel and our chicken
I never dreamt that I would be and our gefilte fish.” here today, inspiring people. And here I am today speaking with you. And I just wrote my first cookbook. It’s unbelievable, so surreal and so amazing. amazing. When I got married, my mother-inlaw cooked completely differently than my mother. She has a very eclectic style, very non-traditional. She’s the person who’s scouring the Internet, finding the most unique, cool new recipes for yom tov. It took me a long time to get used to it. I used to go to my in-laws for yom tov, and I’d be like, “Where’s my potato kugel?” But I got used to it, and I learned to love it. I learned to appreciate my mother-in-law’s style of cooking. She’s a phenomenal, phenomenal
unique, cool new recipes for yom tov. It took me a long time to get used to it. I used to go to my in-laws for yom tov, and I’d be like, “Where’s my potato kugel?” But I got used to it, and I learned to love it. I learned to appreciate my mother-in-law’s style of cooking. She’s a phenomenal, phenomenal
Would they eat the Moroccan salmon during the week? Are they adventurous eaters at other times?
They are. All my kids are. I have two little girls as well. My girls are less adventurous eaters, but they’re younger.
You actually started “going public” with your passion of cooking a few years ago when you started your Instagram. What was the impetus behind that?
After my youngest was born, fourand-a-half years ago, I was on maternity leave. My husband and I were discussing the next steps of life, so to speak. He said to me, “Faigy, don’t go back to work. Take six months off.” I’m a family photographer. I was doing it as a hobby. He told me, “Take this month off, try to grow your business, and try to really push it. We’ll put a business plan together and see
if we can turn it into more than just a hobby. If in six months we see that it’s not working out, you can go back to work, no big deal.”
In those six months, when I was really trying very hard to push my family photography, the idea came up that I should start a food blog. I had these conflicting thoughts in my head because, on one hand, it was such a yearning and almost a physical passion of mine that I would have loved to start a blog. But then, on the other hand, I was like, “How am I starting? Where am I starting? What am I starting?”
The other big food bloggers were pretty big already at the time. I quickly did some research and I said to myself, “She has 4,000 followers. She has 7,000 followers. Forget it, I’m never going to get there.” But my husband looked at me and said, “Faigy, all these people, at one point, started with 0 followers, so try it. You have nothing to lose because, worst case scenario, it doesn’t work.”
Ironically, this all took place right before Pesach four years ago – March 27 was my first post. I had prepared 10 posts, and I was shaking, literally shaking, as if I was going on my first date when I uploaded my first post. I sent the link to my mother-in-law and to a couple of friends’ chats that I’m on, and asked if they could follow me. I got 10 followers, then 30…. When I got my first 100 followers, I was just elated. The rest, as they say, is history.
How many followers How many followers do you have now?
I just hit 19,000 this week.
From 10 to
with the bare- friendly. My recipes are not Pesach-y food; it’s just good, solid food. Of course, in my dessert section, I have potato starch and almond flour in my recipes, because it is a Pesach book. But in 19,000. general, across the board,
It’s been such these are foods that I a wild, wild, unbe- make year-round. lievable journey. I love it.
My family is so supportive. They love supportive. They love hopping on and sayhopping on and saying hi to my followers. ing hi to my followers. I view my followers as I view my followers as my family, as well, bemy family, as well, because I bring them into cause I bring them into my house – the kitchen my house – the kitchen is the happy place in the is the happy place in the home – and I love interhome – and I love interacting with them.
This is your first cookbook. Why did you decide to write a Pesach cookbook?
Last year, many people were home for Pesach due to corona, and they weren’t planning on being home for Pesach. Many of those people – elderly couples staying home, young married couples, families – turned to me, as an influencer, for help. So I hopped on and did tons of [Instagram] stories. I told them, “OK, guys, we got this. We’re all home together, all in this together. This is what you do.”
bones basics products that you need for your kitchen, like utensils. I also wrote about how to go shopping and how to create a menu for Pesach. It all went into my e-book. I have a spice line called Union Spice Blends which launched about a little bit more than a year and a half ago. I used that website as a landing page for this PDF that I created so people could download it. It was downloaded thousands of times, not including all the times it was forwarded around to people. So
On my stories, I kept breaking it we’re talking about thousands and down for people, but I realized that thousands of people who were able it wasn’t enough and I needed to do to get it and be helped from it. something else to help. One night – That’s where my idea for a Pesach I literally pulled an all-nighter – I cookbook came from. When I was created an e-book. I dumped ev- talking with ArtScroll, I said, “You ery recipe that was Pesach-friendly know what? Let’s do Pesach.” into this e-book. It wasn’t edited; it Pesach is a big season. It’s a very wasn’t professional. I quickly wrote busy season. And many, many, many up the whole thing at the beginning of my recipes are year-round with the bare- friendly. My recipes are not Pesach-y food; it’s just good, solid food. Of course, in my dessert section, I have potato starch and almond flour in my recipes, because it is a Pesach book. But in general, across the board, these are foods that I make year-round.
What specific reciWhat specific recipes do you suggest pes do you suggest people use from the people use from the book for year-round cooking?
All of them. All the recipes in the book are recipes that I use yearround, although the dessert section contains potato starch and almond flour…
You have a section in your book entitled “Chol Hamoed.”
Yes. I’m always asked the question: what do we make for chol hamoed?
The “Chol Hamoed” section starts with breakfast and ends with dinner and has snacks in between. There’s matzah pizza and poutine, which is a Canadian dish like French fries with sauce and cheese. I have pancakes and shakshuka and fish bowls.
Everybody comes home exhausted from chol hamoed trips. With some recipes in this section, all you have to do is prepare it before you head out and then stick it in the oven. It’s all there for you.
Everything is in the book. I’m a very visual person, and I create a ton of lists. That’s how I function. I put the lists in the book for you. They’re all there – your menus, what you want to cook, what to buy. You could photocopy them and use them every year.
Also, you’ll notice that many of my recipes are freezer-friendly. I make sure to note that at the beginning of the recipe. There are many, many things you can freeze. I know that some people don’t have a lot of fridge space. This way, they can cook and freeze a lot of dishes until they need to serve them.
I’m like that – I don’t have a lot of fridge space, and so I freeze a lot of what I make.
There was one recipe that I made – the honey garlic chicken on page 116 – I wasn’t sure it was freezer friendly or not, but when I was testing it, I had extras and I just dumped it into the freezer. Later, I defrosted it and tasted it and it was so good. Maybe because it was able to sit in the juices for longer…I don’t know, but I do know that it’s definitely freezer-friendly.
What’s are the first things that you make after you turn over your kitchen for Pesach?
The first thing I do is desserts, because I feel like with desserts you have a thousand ingredients out and most desserts more or less have the same ingredients. I also make sure to make extra of my desserts because the guys will definitely be sneaking some – there’s nothing like fresh Pesach blondies.
Then I start with my soups and my dips. Dips are time-consuming
because they tend to take a long time to make. You’re sautéing onions; the matbucha takes a long time because you have to roast the tomatoes, and so on and so forth.
In my book, I detail, day by day, exactly what I do. After I make my menu, I break it down even further and write what I need to make each day – Monday morning, Monday afternoon, Monday night… It makes it so much more manageable. I like writing things down and breaking it down because it’s so satisfying to cross things off. During the year, I do this too. Every week, before Shabbos, I put on my list of things to do “set the table” because it’s a good feeling to cross it off and know it’s done.
How long did it take to make the cookbook from start to finish?
I got the official green light from ArtScroll to write the book the day after Yom Kippur. My editor said, “Faigy, we’re going to go print end of January. Do you think you can pull this off?” And I said, “Of course, 100%, no worries.” But when I hung up the phone, I had a full-blown panic attack. It was such a short time! But then I spoke with a mentor of mine and she told, “Faigy, you can do this. If anyone can do this, you can do this.”
Most cookbooks are done between nine and 15 months – nine being on the short side. I did this entire cookbook in three and a half months. And I did everything myself. I did the food prep, the recipe testing, the photography, the food styling, the clean up.
Wow! That’s a huge job. How many recipes did you have to, quote-unquote, cross off your list every day in order to get this done?
My husband figured out. He did a whole math system for me. But I kind of ignored it and just plowed through. I did five to eight recipes a day. I had this crazy, crazy schedule that I had made with myself where I didn’t stop for one second. I ate, breathed, slept, everything the book.
How did you do it? Did you do eight salads in one day or did you make a chicken and a side dish and a dessert all at once?
I was talking to somebody who had previously written a had previously written a cookbook, and she told me cookbook, and she told me to do that – to do all the to do that – to do all the same type of dishes each same type of dishes each day. She said, you can have day. She said, you can have a chicken day and a sala chicken day and a salad day. But I didn’t want ad day. But I didn’t want to do that because I was to do that because I was nervous that it would feel monotonous, and then all my chicken dishes would platter. start looking at the same.
It really was a matter family-style, letting of whatever I was in the people decide how mood of. Every Motzei much or how little Shabbos, I would make they want to put on a list of about 20 rec- their plates versus me ipes that I wanted to deciding for them. I’m make that week. And very into big salads. then I would make a Sometimes I’ll do an list of all the ingredi- appetizer, so I’ll plate ents I needed for those that. But even then, recipes. On Sunday morning, recipes. On Sunday morning, I’m not, like I said, I went grocery shopping. Everything was organized and listed, so I knew which ingredients went for each dish.
I go walking every morning. I wake up at 6:30, go walking, come home. After my walk, before the kids came downstairs, I would set up my boards for my background along with the props and utensils and towels I would need for the day. After my kids went to school, I’d take all the photos. When the kids came home, I’d do all the prep for the next day’s photoshoot and then would continue after they went to sleep and would edit the photos, etc.
Definitely sounds like a nonstop endeavor. What dishes do your kids look forward to every Pesach?
They love my yapchik. It’s in the meat section in the book. They absolutely love that. They also want my matzah balls and poutine. They demand the poutine. My husband loves his mother’s nut torte. It’s actually on the back cover of the book. My mother-in-law is famous for it.
What do you serve at the Seder?
I find that, as late as it is and as stuffed as people are with matzah, the men are always hungry, and they’re ready to eat. But I keep it very simple, very traditional. The Seder is not the time for me to serve tons of meats and whatnot. I serve gefilte fish, a couple of dips, chicken soup, matzah balls, a chicken, or my potato kugel chicken. And if anybody wants, I always have either little apple muffins or a little apple crisps for somebody who wants that extra sweet thing.
What are five recipes from your book that you feel like everyone has to try?
In the dip section, Mommy’s roasted eggplant is such a fantastic winner. I like to serve it as a dip, although my friend serves it salad-style. The sweet potato soup with mini meatballs has so much flavor to it. You can even serve it as a meal on its own. The Moroccan tilapia is an excellent thing to make in advance. The potato chip schnitzel is great. I always try to make that in advance because I make a tremendous amount and the kids can eat it the whole day.
For dessert, you need to make a big batch of my crumbs because you can use it on anything and everything. I always make tons of cookies and blondies. My frozen mousse cake is my Pesach specialty. My friend’s mother gave me her recipe, and – funnily enough – she actually serves it year-round for dessert. I make it every single Pesach.
You did the food styling for your book. Can you give us food styling tips?
My food is very family-friendly. When I serve my family, I don’t have to plate it fancy, and I don’t have little droplets and drips on the plate. It’s really more about serving your
family, bringing a big platter of chicken to the table. Recently I got very into using oven-to-table dishes because they look beautiful and you don’t need to transfer the food to a platter. I love to serve family-style, letting people decide how much or how little they want to put on their plates versus me deciding for them. I’m very into big salads. Sometimes I’ll do an appetizer, so I’ll plate that. But even then, I’m not, like I said, drizzling stuff.
As far as photography, it’s something that I’ve worked on and developed over the years. There’s a technical aspect of it, the lighting and the mathematics, that go behind what actually happens in the camera to capture the picture. But for the styling itself, I did a lot of Googling, a lot of research, a lot of YouTube videos: “How to style chicken? How to style potatoes?” There was a lot of trial and error, moving things around, playing around with little towels and different dishes until I really liked the look.
Faigy, you have 19,000 followers on Instagram. You’re
the food editor for “Taste” for the Voice of Lakewood. You work on the recipes for Circle Magazine. You have your
spice company. And now you have a cookbook. What’s next on the horizon, besides for a much-needed vacation?
I do have some ideas somewhere brewing. But right now, I want to really be able to focus on the cookbook and give the cookbook all its attention that it needs before jumping into the next thing.
Going back to the beginning of the conversation, it’s hard for me to sit down, but I may need to write down on my agenda, “10 minutes of nothing,” so I can sit back and enjoy – and then cross it off my list.
please join us for a webinar
The Israeli Elections and Judea and Samaria
Marc Zell
in conversation with
Eve Harow
Director of Community Development and Tourism
Thursday Thursday March 18th
1:30pm EST / 7:30pm Israel time
Registration Required
Questions may be submitted in advance to eve@oneisraelfund.org
Marc Zell is a practicing international attorney with offi ces in Jerusalem, New York, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Tallinn and Moscow. He is a graduate of Princeton University (Germanic Languages and Literatures/ Linguistics 1974) and the University of Maryland School of Law (J.D. with honors, 1977; Order of the Coif).
Mr. Zell currently serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee of Ariel University with a student body exceeding 17,000 and a faculty of 500. It is Israel’s only university located in Judea and Samaria, the home of Israel’s newest medical school (the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson School of Medicine) and the largest single employer in Israel’s Biblical heartland.
In addition to serving as VP and General Counsel of Republicans Overseas (International) he is Chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel. which played an important role in the landmark decisions that lead to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem; the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; the recognition by the American government of the historic and legal rights of the Jewish People in Judea and Samaria and the repeal of the 40-year U.S. federal boycott of Jewish institutions located in Judea and Samaria.
Mr. Zell is counsel in several major international law case and serves as counsel to Holocaust survivors and their families on restitution cases involving Jewish property seized during World War II and aft erwards. Mr. Zell is also active in the fi ght against the BDS movement.
Mr. Zell is a regular commentator on legal and political aff airs in many media forums. His publications include numerous articles in various fi elds of international law including the cross-border practice of law, cross-border insolvency, the Palestinian right of return, trans-national litigation, international entertainment law, international public procurement law, intellectual property law, constitutional law, antitrust and energy law.
He was recently selected to appear in the 2020 edition of Who’s Who in the World. He is also an accomplished actor and singer, having recently appeared in the Israel production of the Broadway musical Soul Doctor in a major supporting role.
Mr. Zell resides in Tekoa in Gush Etzion with his wife Robin. Th ey have 8 children and 17 grandchildren all of whom currently reside in Israel.
