Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Prohibition Pickle

 23 Elul 5780.

I usually have cantaloupe or Greek yogurt with toasted almonds and goji berries and chia seeds for breakfast. But today I had a very unusual breakfast: I dined on Prohibition Pickle pickles.

I am easily tempted to try new flavors and to support local vendors. For this home business, I have a particular fondness. I have known Chaim Davids since he was a wee lad. His father, Rabbi Moshe Davids, taught each of my sons his bar mitzvah parasha. And his mother Shula was a local mikveh lady and a wonderful friend.

    

Many years ago, Chaim showed up at my door a few hours before he was to be a Shabbat guest... and proceeded to wow me with his kitchen expertise. He was humble about it. He played the role of respectful sous chef, and I gushed that he was one of the five people on the planet I can stand to work with in my kitchen. It wasn’t until later that I learned he had attended the Baltimore International College School of Culinary Arts and Hotel/Restaurant Management and had subsequently worked for California restaurants and wineries, as well as working as a mashgiach for the OU and the Vaad Hakashrut of NorCal. 

    

I have followed Chaim’s endeavors over the years since his aliyah. Besides marrying the lovely Batya and helping to bring into the world three adorable daughters, Chaim has created and locally-distributed ginger beer and beef jerky, and has helped to launch several popular food establishments such as Beer Bazaar in Mahane Yehuda, as well as maintaining a thriving personal chef business. 

    His most recent venture is pickling. What follows is my initial impression of some of these delicacies.

    Full Sour – These were nice and crispy, which is my first requirement for a pickle, but a bit too high-salt for my tastes, if eaten straight out of the jar (my usual preference); but chopped up and added to salad or inserted in a burger, they should be lovely. I'm hoping as the company grows, a lower-salt option will be available, because the other seasonings are quite enjoyable. 

              Not Quite Kraut – This one ended up surprisingly being my favorite, as I usually am not a sauerkraut fan. But the big chunks of cabbage and carrot were very tasty. Again, the brine itself is well-seasoned. 

              Bread and Butter – These days, we are avoiding sugar; but we’re not making a religion of it. To his credit, Chef Chaim Davids does call this one “junk food,” which is very fair. Who doesn't want to “cheat” a little now and then on the strict diet? These B&B pickles were not overly sweet; I loved that they were made of zucchini (that retained just the right amount of crispness); and the seasonings were tasty and intriguing. 

             All the pickles were beautiful and fragrant. The simply-designed labels are a pleasure. 

               I discussed my few problems with Chaim, and received very satisfactory answers:  

RE: Chaim, I would love an ingredient list and a little more information about the process. How much sugar am I eating? Is it refined sugar, or some “healthier” version? Is this more a brine (salt) recipe or vinegar recipe? What about the process are you especially proud of? (For example, are we talking probiotic here? If so, that should be trumpeted, as it’s all the rage these days.) 

CD: I need to find an affordable way to convey the product’s qualities, as labels are very expensive, and production is too small to justify bulk purchase. An ingredient list in my catalog is next – thanks for the tip! By the way, the only sugar is in the bread and butter pickles. And yes, most of the products are probiotic. And – wink-wink – one of the secret ingredients in the Mixed Dancing Spice Mix is nutritional yeast. I like to think that the products are a reflection of my personality, because I want them to be bold and punchy, but also wholesome and nutritious.

RE: What about the saltiness? 

CD: The main thing in fermenting is to win the war between good bacteria and bad bacteria. The high salt level comes with reason: being lacto-fermented, the brine needs to be between 3.5-4% salinity at least or I risk losing it to mold and Kahm yeast. I use no firming agents or preservatives in the full sours and cabbage, hence the full salt flavor. As you said, incorporated into meals is a great application.  If people want to learn more about fermenting, I’m offering a pickling workshop series soon. You can follow us on our Facebook page for details.

             And then came lunch time... 

             Aryeh and his adorable son Coby came by and barbecued for us. (Well, Aryeh manned the grill. I followed Coby around as he taste-tested rocks, twigs, leaves and other assorted backyard goodies, insisting that none of them get an actual roll-around in the mouth. Even very cool boy-grandmas must set some limits.) I asked Aryeh’s honest opinion of the various pickles and condiments... and received my answers in wide-eyed yummy sounds. Verdict: these pickles are GREAT at enhancing burgers!

             As I am not interested in eating burger buns, I had my burgers on a bed of crispy Romaine, and tried each of Prohibition Pickle’s spreads and sauces. 

             The Dude Shemesh jalapeño-garlic sauce (besides being delightfully named, for Israelis) is gentler, but quite tasty. The G’Henom habanero sauce was hotter, and even more to my liking. I really enjoyed the Beet & Horseradish “gefilta enhancer,” and plan to use it for our yearly Rosh Hashana nod to eating gefilte fish. It is much more flavorful and has a more interesting texture than other chrain recipes we’ve tried. And now – drum roll, please – Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my new favorite mustard. It doesn’t have a name yet, beyond “Awesome Mustard,” but it is fragrant, flavorful, spicy, nicely-textured... in short, it is magnifique. (How about Magnifique Mustard, Mon Ami? Don’t thank me. I’m a giver.)

  

   While there is no official kashrut certification at this time, Chaim asserts that all ingredients are kosher mehadrin. After the initial soft launch to determine which products offer the most mass appeal, he is planning to pursue certification. Until such time as he gets certification (an expensive proposition, as people in the food and beverage business know), all I can say is that I would eat in Chaim’s kitchen. 

   In short, the prices are no higher than you would expect for homemade craft products, the quality is exceptional, the flavors are, as they like to say in New Yawk, “to die for.” Check out Prohibition Pickle at https://www.facebook.com/Prohibitionpickle/ 

Where Everybody Knows Your Name: The M&M Gottlieb File

6 Tamuz 5780.

It’s been a while since I wrote anything for the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” segment of my blog. COVID-19 has scared us out of nearly all dining away from home, which means there was a little money in the budget for a couple of adventures.

Also, in these economically-devastating times, if you’re going to spend your money at all, why not spend it to try to support the local small businesses of your choice? The team of Miriam and Marc Gottlieb does such remarkably fine work, we love to do business with them. Miriam crafts beautiful, light-and-color mosaic masterpieces. 

We have needed small tables for food and beverage, because replacing computers due to spillage is far outside our family budget. And Miriam communicates zealously to be sure that the finished product suits your individual tastes. The Dearly Beloved chose a guitar motif. He was happily surprised at how perfect and full of joyful color was the resulting work. I chose a colorful naïve-art house that looks like a place from which music and poetry might spring. Miriam is available at her Facebook page Mosaics by Miriam not only to create something you will love, but to teach classes in the art of making your own beautiful mosaics.

With so much time at home, learning a new art, especially along with family members, can add a lot of joy to the coming summer days.

Since the lads were all converging on us with their families for a pre-Shabbat birthday barbecue bash for two of the little girls, and it would be the first time we were seeing all of them together since Chanukah, we decided to give Marc the “gift” of allowing him to provide our Shabbat feast. And an elegant feast it was!

We had the Boeuf Bourguignon and the Magret d’Oie Fumée (my personal favorite). The Dearly Beloved really loved the beef, remarking several times that the dish was tender and flavorful, and that the mushrooms were absolutely delicious. I felt like royalty dining on the simultaneously rich and delicate goose breast, a treat I taste maybe twice every half-century. I always worry that breast meat will end up being dry; but this need not have concerned me. This dish was sublime. I’m not eating white potatoes these days, but the Dearly Beloved remarked, “Ah. This is exactly the way I like my potatoes!”

Speaking of royalty – the Duet de Tartinades is a dance on your taste-buds you must try at least once before you drop off the twig. Short of John Keats level poetry, I’m not sure I can give over to you how lovely this little duet was. “I feel like I could get used to being a rich person with a personal chef,” I remarked to the Dearly Beloved.  You never tasted chicken liver as refined as the Pâté de foie de poulet, graced with a not-overwhelming enhancement of wine. The Rillettes d’oie is perhaps the fanciest spread I have ever tasted, consisting of an awe-inspiring blend of bits of goose leg in oil and seasonings. It is so rich that I will be having a smidgen of it with my lunch for at least a week, reaching around to see where I left my queen’s crown every few moments.

We chose the Salade Grillée to accompany the mains. While among the dishes, this is the one I could have made myself, it was prepared perfectly, with finely grilled vegetables on a variety of fresh lettuces. We’re not usually dressing fans, but this one was perfectly balanced, worth throwing care to the winds and risking the extra calories.

There was no room for dessert, so we saved the very rich and tasty Tarte au Chocolat for Seudat Shlishit. The low-sugar recipe kept the chocolate cream from being cloyingly sweet. Rather, it was very satisfying to whatever sweet-tooth we still possess after years of dialing back our sugar addiction.

Marc is a culinary artist. Just as any musician or writer or painter crafts their work, Marc delights in making of food a thing of beauty and a joy forever. And when it’s in celebration of his birthday and of that of his favorite chef, Anthony Bourdain (may he rest in peace), he spares no artistic effort.

All I can say is that Tony would be proud.

To get your (delicious) meat-fix in before the Nine Days, check out Marc’s weekly S’wichboard menu for sumptuous and generous sandwiches. Not only is the meat (and vegetarian fare) varied and delicious, but the prices are extremely reasonable, and he delivers to Jerusalem and Gush Etzion. There’s even the added attraction of a “buy 9, the 10^th is free” membership card. B’teyavon!

Photos either my own or used with permission.