IntroductionIt was January 19, 2011, when I took up yet another hobby, a humble blog named
Busy in Brooklyn, to add to my hodgepodge of avocations. I’d been dillydallying in the arts for years—from scrapbooking to knitting, photography to calligraphy, I had tried them all. With three young children at home, it was time to leave my job as a web designer, but I needed an outlet for my creative energy. I had started sharing some of my birthday cake creations, crochet projects, and simple kosher dinners on Facebook, and the feedback was coming in strong:
start a blog! So I went in blind, with no expectations, thinking that my blog would go by the way of my other hobbies, another short-lived stint.
And here I am, twelve years later, a professional food writer and self-taught photographer lucky enough to travel the world sharing what I am so passionate about: bringing families around the table to celebrate our traditions and Jewish pride through food.
What was it about blogging that stuck for me? Well, it certainly wasn’t my love of cooking—at least not in the early days. I was one of those newly-marrieds who had never stepped foot in the kitchen, but learning to cook is a rite of passage for a Jewish housewife, so I did what any young bride does—I ordered takeout! Then, on Fridays, when I had to get Shabbat dinner prepped, I’d call my mom and ask for recipes for her traditional gefilte fish, chicken soup, and kugel.
Lots and lots of kugel.
When I started hosting Shabbat dinners, I realized that cooking didn’t have to be a chore. Instead it could be a means for me to express myself creatively. Friends would ooh and aah over my dishes, and it proved the maxim “People eat with their eyes first” to be true. Food started to not seem all that boring anymore—the kitchen became my studio, and my dishes were a blank canvas to explore my artistic side. So I dived in and began binge-watching the Food Network and poring over food blogs and food magazines, and I eventually took a crash course in photography that segued into a full-on kosher culinary school adventure. Before long, that young bride who couldn’t cook an egg slowly and steadily learned to hone her skills in the kitchen and behind the camera.
Soon after, I started to receive photos of my recipes out of other people’s kitchens— testimony from moms like me who gathered their children around the table for weeknight dinners, messages from novice cooks who baked my challah recipe for the first time for Shabbat, DMs from nonaffiliated Jews celebrating Rosh Hashanah over my brisket recipe—it fueled me and filled me with the greatest sense of purpose.
The feelings run deep for me because, when I was thirteen years old, my oldest brother, Ari Halberstam, was killed in a terrorist attack on the Brooklyn Bridge simply for being Jewish. He was a six-foot-tall, blue-eyed, funny, and charming sixteen-year-old, a star on the basketball court, who took so much pride in his Jewishness. Ari was a prankster, and as his younger sister (and the middle child!), I bore the brunt of his many escapades, but he was also fiercely protective and my biggest champion. Finding a path to honor my brother Ari’s memory is the greatest gift of my journey. Every
Busy in Brooklyn recipe that other families share around a holiday table, every blessing made over one of my kosher creations, and every opportunity to share the love of food, family, and tradition among one another is a means to celebrate what my brother Ari lived and died for. From the depth of my heart, I thank you for giving me the privilege and honor of gracing your holiday tables and for making space for my cookbook on your shelf.
Chanie Apfelbaum
Copyright © 2023 by Chanie Apfelbaum. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
