Interviewing Chef Kiko Sante, New Executive Chef at Mocha Bleu

Had a very interesting chat with Chef Kiko Sante, an Italian chef who, over his three decades working in America, has worked at several pretty legendary restaurants in Manhattan, including the Rainbow Room, Orsini and Tino's. He has now transitioned to as executive chef for the Glatt kosher restaurant, Mocha Bleu, in Teaneck.

Check out my interview! Enjoy!

http://jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5321:mocha-bleu-debuts-new-executive-chef-menu&catid=160:business-spotlight&Itemid=572

All-of-a-Kind Family Novels Reissued to Inspire a New Generation

I know this isn't food per se, but I learned of some of my favorite Lower East Side foods from these wonderful books... Such a pleasure that we get to re-read them with our children.

Many of the avid fiction readers among us were inspired by great books we read as young adults. Novels we read as older children and teenagers can often deeply affect one’s future understanding of life, history and relationships. One such example of a beloved book that stayed with young American Jewish girls was All-of-a-Kind Family. Sydney Taylor’s series about five sisters who lived in turn of the century New York, was published in the 1950s, and taught many kids about the nature of their grandparents’ childhoods on the Lower East Side. For the second half of the 20th century, All-of-a-Kind Family was the most recognizable and widely-known series about American-Jewish children.

This past summer, Lizzie Skurnick, editor-in-chief of Lizzie Skurnick Books, an imprint of Ig Publishing, began reissuing the four out-of-print sequels of All-of-a-Kind Family. The first two, All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown, and All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown, were reissued in June and July, and More All-of-a-Kind Family and Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family will be available this fall. The original title has never gone out of print.

“Those books were very important to me,” said Skurnick, in an interview with JLBC. Skurnick explained that she first began resurrecting out-of-print Young Adult (YA) fiction for a column she wrote for the online magazine Jezebel, which discussed a lost YA title in each entry. “They were literary classics,” she said. “I turned 35 and I suddenly realized how important these books had been to me. I realize they had formed so much of my notions of history. For example, I learned so much about the Lower East Side from All-of-a-Kind family.”

Read more: http://jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5103:all-of-a-kind-family-novels-reissued-to-inspire-a-new-generation&catid=150:news&Itemid=562