I was planning to make a few dips, but a food processor fiasco involving tomato dip in places it didn’t belong meant I ended up making only one.
Illustration by Lea Kron
Ari Bluzenstein, age 31
Grocery store salesman
Cooking for 3 families at each meal
Brooklyn, NY
I was lucky enough to marry a woman who’s a real balabusta. Her food is delicious, and she makes it seem like Shabbos and Yom Tov meals are created with ease. Still, when my wife challenged me to be a Man with a Pan, I was excited. I envisioned a busy Erev Shabbos and the satisfaction I’d feel after providing my family with healthy and delicious food, even though my experience in the kitchen is limited to the sesame chicken I was famous for when I was a bochur in Israel, 10 years ago.
Since our kids are picky eaters and don’t always appreciate my wife’s delicious food, I decided to see if I could create a Shabbos to my wife’s exacting standards, and at the same time satisfy the kids.
I got started by going through all the cookbooks in our house, but I quickly found myself getting overwhelmed, wanting to cook everything that looked good. I decided I’d simplify the job by preparing a fully heimish, Hungarian-
style Shabbos. I looked up the Satmar Butcher’s store Shabbos menu online and decided to copy it exactly.
Since I had started a new job the previous week, I knew that I wouldn’t have lots of time to devote to cooking. My plan was to start cooking on Sunday, and make one or two things every day. I started with the one thing I knew even the pickiest member of our family would eat — dessert. His favorite is strawberry sorbet, and I managed to quickly put that together on Sunday night.
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