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GRACE YOUR PASSOVER TABLE WITH RECIPES FROM THE HADASSAH JEWISH HOLIDAY COOKBOOK

For generations of Hadassah women, the connection between nurturing a state and nurturing a family has been through the kitchen. In 1931 the women of Dorchester, Massachusetts, put together the first fundraising cookbook, a model followed by dozens of chapters around the country that over the years have raised hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for Hadassah.

Today, though their cookbook sales and bake sales have been largely supplanted by the most sophisticated fundraising campaigns, Hadassah women are still cooking. The results are evident in The Hadassah Jewish Holiday Cookbook, an exquisitely illustrated book presenting the best of traditional and contemporary recipes from the Jewish kitchen. Published by Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., it is available at bookstores now, in time for Passover.

Edited by Joan Schwartz Michel, a senior editor at Hadassah Magazine and long-time food columnist for the New York Jewish Week, The Hadassah Jewish Holiday Cookbook includes 250 of the best recipes from Hadassah chapter cookbooks around the country and from Israel. Each has been meticulously researched and tested and adheres to the laws of kashrut. Presented by holiday, each section is introduced by a noted cooking expert. Among the contributors are Joan Nathan, Claudia Roden, Edda Servi Machlin, Susan R. Friedland, Steven Raichlen, and Rabbi Robert Sternberg.

Recipes include everything from the traditional, like chopped liver, gefilte fish and brisket to more elaborate fare, like poppy seed and onion cookies, Chicken Bouillabaisse with Garlic Mayonnaise, and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold's Stewed Fish with Lemon Veloute. All points of the country and globe are represented: from the deep south's Black Bean Bisque, to the north woods' Chicken Swamp Soup, to the original thirteen colonies Colonial Carrot Bisque and Yankee Tzimmes, to Hungarian palacsinta and Ukrainian borscht to harosets from North Africa and halek from Iraq. Perhaps the liveliest dialogue is between the Ashkenazic offerings like mandelbrot, and Helen Levine's hezenblosen and Sephardic fare with lyrical names like matbucha, chalatobouriko and taraleekos.

The mysteries of these exotic and familiar treats can easily be unraveled by purchasing The Hadassah Jewish Holiday Cookbook for $29.95 at bookstores nationwide. The perfect gift for Passover, it is not only useful in the kitchen, but an attractive addition to any coffee table.