Our friendly neighbor to the north serves up no ordinary soup

In the past ten years kosher food has taken a tremendous step forward, not just in the restaurant scene but in the home as well. Shabbat tables all over the country have been transformed from landing pads for distinctively classic kosher items like potato kugel and matzo ball soup into a place where culinary experimentation is brought to fruition. This growth in our food culture is thanks to a number of exemplary individuals who have published cookbooks that encourage the average kosher cook to step outside of their comfort zone and work with recipes and ingredients that would have otherwise been ignored. These individuals are mostly well known. They appear at booths at the Kosher Food and Wine Experience, they give lectures at Kosherfest and they judge competitions like the Manischewitz Cook off and the CKCA Next Great Kosher Chef. But there is a distinct presence missing from these events and from the pantheon of the great kosher food personalities and that presence belongs to Pam Reiss.

Pam is a chef and author of “Soup, A Kosher Collection” and “Passover, A Kosher Collection”. “Soup”, her first book, gave a unique perspective on the methodology of making soup and provided a number of excellent recipes many of which are singular in the kosher world. One of the things that made “Soup” so fantastic is that though it is a kosher cookbook it has a style and appeal that reaches non-kosher consumers as well. Now I have owned this book since it was first released in 2004 and I am not going to lie, it may have kept me from starving on more than one occasion. Back then I was not especially proficient at cooking for myself, but because of “Soup’s” attention to detail and guided instructions I was easily able to replicate even the more complex recipes in the book which allowed me to survive on things like Turkey & Wild Rice soup or Sweet Potato Chowder. It is the combination of these exceptional recipes and brilliant writing that has made “Soup, A Kosher Collection” such a successful cookbook that as of last month it has been rereleased as a second edition with twenty new and equally exceptional recipes included.

What really sets Pam’s writing apart from many of the other kosher cookbooks on that market is that while the majority of other kosher food personalities are writing and promoting their work full time, Pam writes her books in between her nine to all hours of the night job which, to me, makes her efforts and accomplishments all the more impressive. During the day, Pam operates the only kosher grocery store and caterer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada a city whose motto is “We were born here. What’s your excuse?” Without Pam’s (and her family’s) work there wouldn’t be any place in Winnipeg to buy kosher products. Therefore, she works to ensure that the community has what it needs to keep a kosher home and make Shabbat and Yom Tovim. Pam’s dedication to her community creates a deep hole in ours in that Pam often cannot attend the plethora of kosher food events that occur yearly on the East Coast; so many kosher foodies do not get the chance to meet her like they do the other kosher celebrities. It’s a shame because Pam has an amazingly sharp wit and a sardonic sense of humor that is infectious. She would stand out amongst all the other cookbook authors in that she is not a New York native or insider from the kosher world but rather someone who knows the food industry top to bottom and understands the trials and tribulations of keeping kosher in a small and very cold town. I will admit that this is one of those cases where I struggle with impartiality because I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and so I have known Pam, quite literally, my entire life. However my personal opinions do not take away from the fact that Pam is a tremendously talented individual whose insight and creativity shine through in her writing and her recipes. So, though we may be lacking in her physical presence out East, her cookbooks allow us to own a piece of what she represents.

Zechariah Mehler is a widely published food writer and expert in social marketing. Follow him on Twitter @thekoshercritic