The New Jewish Table: Modern Seasonal Recipes for Traditional Dishes Hardcover – March 5, 2013

When two chefs get together from different ethnic backgrounds there is bound to be delicious and nutritious delights! Chef Todd Gray is so down to earth that his food results are modern ,tasty ,and down right GOOD!! He was one of the earlier Chefs to work with our local farmers. . He began his food journey in Virginia, brought it to a peak in Equinox, their award winning restaurant, in Washington ,D.C .He is is adding to his culinary skills with the opening of the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia.. .Ellen Gray took her background of food distribution and working around food in Israel and made her food background work. Majoring in Economics certainly helped her in her role as a wonderful partner. Their combined food knowledge, presentation and love resulted in this incredible read. The food jumps out at you at every page. It returns the reader to their own individual background filled with memories of borscht, kugel and latkes.

This is a wonderful book. It shares time between the coffee table in our gathering room and the island in our kitchen. Touching stories (you have to love the line about how Todd avoided Ellen's rule about not dating a customer!) and fabulous recipes that are easy to follow. I own a number of cookbooks, but my three go-to cookbooks are now Larousse, Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food, and this book.

The photography is beautiful. I found Todd's and Ellen's introductory remarks to various recipes really provided some insight into how the food can be such an important part of family memories. I look forward to trying their takes on some of my favorite dishes (sorry Mom, these look like they will taste even better than your recipes), and also going outside my wheelhouse on some of the other items deeper in the book.

My family is catholic and jewish and I was mainly raised in Europe (not that it makes a great difference where you come from) - it's nice to be able to adapt recipes that come from one side of my family.

The recipes and text are wonderful. The chef, Todd Gray, and his wife, write their commentary on how they blended their cultures. There are recipes for traditional Jewish Holidays, but also for every use. They are Jewish, not Kosher. I have tasted them at great occasions and now use them in my home.

This is by far the best look at the food of Jewish heritage from a new perspective that I have cooked from...I am not a professional by far...but I have a ton of cookbooks on kindle's and in paper form so that I can "get it right."

The product of a culinary blending in a mixed marriage, this book has excellent, seasonal recipes. The pictures, however, by Renee Comet, make it special. They will tempt you into making these delicious sounding and looking dishes.

Even though most Jews do not keep kosher, I find it irritating at best when books touted as "Jewish" include pork and shellfish. These are the kinds of cookbooks those who keep kosher look for and to include these kinds of recipes is misleading. I returned it out of principle more than because of any issue with the quality of the book itself.