Kitchen memories
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Close your eyes,” Paramus resident Sue Ann Kogan told some 40 seniors at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne. “What do you hear?” With that, her husband entered carrying milk bottles and ringing a bell. “That’s the first thing a Jewish mother or grandmother may have heard in the morning in the 1940s and ’50s,” she said.
Kogan’s show, “In My Mother’s Jewish Kitchen,” part of her “Freilach in the ’50s” series, recreates the era through interactive games such as Jewish Jeopardy — with categories including “Name that tune” (hint: It may be “Yiddishe Mama”) and “Name that recipe.”
“People love it when I bring out an old-fashioned coffee pot and old grilled-cheese makers,” she said.
Kogan, who visited the Wayne shul in September as part of its senior daytime programming, has performed in Jewish venues throughout the area. She said she tries to recreate a typical day for Jewish mothers in the 1950s — focusing on the kitchen, where they might read the “Forvertz” (Kogan brings one along) and then (with the vintage kitchen gadgets she supplies) prepare lunch for their children when they come home from school.
Also in the show is “The Great Chopped Liver Controversy,” where, Kogan said, audience members inevitably argue over the right way to make chopped liver (chopping bowl or grinder?).
Kogan does a variety of seasonal shows and has prepared a Chanukah program for the National Council of Jewish Women.
For more information, call (201) 967-0694.
Flag CommentPeople love it when I bring out an old-fashioned coffee pot and old grilled-cheese makers
A sink of iron, soapstone, or granite set in a wooden dry sink; and a kitchen clock, needed to time cookery now gleaned from published recipe books instead of handwritten family recipes. Water was carried in from exterior wells.sinks kitchen
