Backyard Kitchen: The Main Course by Sarina Roffe
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Backyard Kitchen: The Main Course (Sephardic Heritage Project, 2020) is a collection of entree recipes handed down from mother to daughter over several generations. It is the second in a series of kosher cookbooks, each with a different theme. With over 90 recipes and magnificent images, Backyard Kitchen: The Main Course, offers entrée recipes, most of them traditional to Middle Eastern homes. Some recipes have been Americanized or are offered with healthier ingredients than what was available a century ago.
The genesis for Backyard Kitchen came from Esther Salem, Sarina’s Syrian grandmother, who came to America as an immigrant in 1921, and could not read or write. She met Selim at the Egyptian Rose restaurant, owned by her sister, on the Lower East Side. When they moved to Bensonhurst, Esther and Selim converted the garage of their home into a kosher kitchen – a backyard kitchen. The first cookbook, Backyard Kitchen – Mediterranean Salads (Sephardic Heritage Project, 2016) has sold well. The cookbooks are complemented by Sarina’s blogs, an iPhone app called Sarina’s Sephardic Cuisine, and the sarinassephardiccuisine.com website. Proceeds from the books benefit Sephardic Heritage Project About Sarina Roffé Sarina Roffé was born and raised in Brooklyn, in the heart of the Syrian Jewish community.
The daughter of Renee Salem and Abe Missry, both of her parents are Syrian Jews of Aleppan descent, as were her grandparents. Sarina’s recipes have been included in the New York Times, the New York Times Jewish Cookbook, Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America (Beardsley Award). She also wrote “Food and Drink, Modern Period: Syria” Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill, Leiden, 2014), publishes an online blog and launched Sarina’s Sephardic Cuisine, an iPhone cooking app.
Year first published: 2020
