Who’s in the kitchen? Trunks, camp & rugalach

Posted

Although it’s been seven years since my youngest has been to sleep away camp, the middle of June always evokes nightmares of “trunk packing.” As the middle of June arrives, I have to remind myself that I don’t have to go through that anymore. Come on, you all know what I’m talking about. Buying, labeling, folding and then the hard part, fitting it all into an oversized trunk and duffle bag. Oh, and let’s not forget the huge plastic under the bed storage bin that’s filled with snacks and the 24 bottles of water, or cans of soda. Hey, it was going to be three weeks till we saw our kids again; they had to survive, didn’t they? Starting the week before trunks were picked up, I had piles laid out of all the clothes, toiletries (not sure boys actually used them) and whatever electronic devices that could sneak past the bureau of censorship. Once the trunks were picked up, I heaved a sigh of relief; I was free, well, at least till I had to start shopping for visiting day. More snacks, more socks and more soda. Wow, he drank a lot of soda, or so I thought, until David was interrupted during a meeting with a client. His secretary rushed in and said the camp director was on the phone and it was an emergency about his son. David, panicking, picked up the call and listened as the director told him that Daniel was warned not to sell soda to the other campers (he sold the cans for 25 cents less than the canteen). Upon hearing that, Daniel handed the business over to his younger brother who got a cut of the profits. The last straw was when Daniel said he did nothing wrong, that the director didn’t say anything about Jeremy not being able to sell sodas. David calmly explained that the next time he received a call from camp that involved the words emergency and Daniel, it had better be because he had killed someone!

When I went to camp I had a “valise” and a small bag of snacks. If we were hungry we would get snacks at the canteen. My husband, Jerry, on the other hand, never had to worry about missing home cooking. The first summer he attended Camp Raleigh, he and his brother Seme remember the first Sunday of camp. Off in the distance they saw their parents walking onto campus, their dad carrying a tablecloth and looking for a table and their mom and aunts and uncles schlepping huge shopping bags filled with homemade goodies. The director stopped them and said they really couldn’t be there, since it wasn’t visiting day. “Are you telling us we can’t visit our children when we want to? We’re survivors, we were in Auschwitz, what do you mean we can’t visit our children, this is America,” their mom said. The director was speechless and actually let them stay. They found tables and covered them with the tablecloths they brought. Out came the huge roast beef sandwiches, homemade shlishkes, kugels and the “famous chocolate rugalach.” The rugalach were for the boys to store in their bunks, since they were dairy.

The next week they were back, and the director knew better than to say anything. The tablecloths were whipped out and there was more food than the week before because all their friends said they loved Mrs. Joszef’s cooking.

By the third Sunday they arrived the brothers said, “you’re here, again?” To which their mom replied, “This is the thanks we get? We all get up early, I cook, Tanta Rochel went all the way to the bakery on East 19th to get the fresh rolls, we sat in traffic for 3 hours....”

Far cry from visiting day today. You can’t even get onto campus ten minutes earlier on visiting day, let alone on any given Sunday.

So to all of you sending off kids, why not try my mother in law’s famous rugalach (ask Fay and Steve Kollander, how great they are; they went to camp with the Joszef brothers).

To all of you campers, have a safe trip up and a wonderful summer. And the night before visiting day, if you don’t want to stay up all night cleaning out your cubbies and folding everything, why not try Daniel’s method: just send everything to the laundry, your cubbies will be spotless and everything comes back all folded.

MOLLY JOSZEF’S FAMOUS CHOCOLATE RUGALACH

DOUGH

n 3 cups flour

n 1/4 cup granulated sugar

n 1/6 teaspoon salt

n 1 cup unsalted, butter, cut in chunks

n 4 1/2 teaspoons rapid-rise yeast

n 1/4 cup warm milk

n 1/2 cup sour cream

n 2 eggs, separated

n 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

CHOCOLATE FILLING

n 2 cups white sugar

n 1 cup unsweetened cocoa

n 1 egg white

n 1 teaspoon vanilla

n ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

n ½ stick butter

n 1 egg white

n 2 tabiespoons hot water

Mix all dry ingredients, then add the wet ones and mix well. Set aside.

Place flour, sugar and salt in bowl of a food processor, (my mother in law does this by hand) and place cut-up butter on top. Pulse to cut butter into flour until mixture is grainy and mealy. It doesn’t matter if the mixture is a little uneven.

Stir yeast, dash of sugar and milk together in small bowl to dissolve yeast. Add to flour mixture, along with sour cream, 2 egg yolks and extracts. (Reserve egg whites for glazing.) Mix just until it forms a ball, (By hand, stir to make sticky mass.) Divide dough into two sections. Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill 20 minutes or overnight.

On lightly floured board, roll each dough section 1/8-inch thick, then trim into 12-inch circle. Smear each with 1/4 cup cocoa mixture. Leave a small circle in the middle bare. Cut into 12 wedges and roll from wide side to point into crescent shapes.

Beat egg whites and brush crescents with them. Place on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper and place in 375-degree oven. Immediately reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake until medium brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Contant Judy at Judy.soiree@gmail.com.