I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen one day when she gave
me a couple of cook books. “Rechy, I get most of my recipes online these days,
and I definitely have not touched these in years.” I was more than happy to add
some cookbooks to my meager collection. One of them was a paperback book called
“Kosherlicious Dishes” by Chabad of Owings Mills. This definitely was the least
appealing to me from them all. It was simple: no pictures of recipes, no glossy
pages, and no graphic design.
Every so often, generally when I am hosting guests, I get
into these nervous frenzies were I am like, “I have such boring recipes. I need
something new! I need something
different!” And then I take down all my cook books and start manically turning
the pages trying to find that elusive recipe.
Well it happened one Thursday night, when all my cookbooks were
strewn across the kitchen table, and I was frantically searching for a new and
exciting recipe. Frustrated with my lack of progress, I dug deeper into the cabinet
that held my cookbooks and pulled out the small paperback Chabad cookbook. “Hmmm,
maybe this has something.” I was shocked to find some wonderful recipes in the
salad and kugel sections, recipes that I still hold dear today.
I just want to take a moment to apologize to the “Kosherlicios
Dishes” Cookbook for not giving you a chance right away.
In any case, I was especially pleased to find the “Colorful Couscous
Salad”. There is a very well-liked Shabbos take-out in Baltimore that has an
array of beautiful salads and the “Colorful Couscous Salad” reminded me of one
of the salads they sell.
