Well, the April tour of Bubby's Kitchen has ended, and we hit three corners of the US… as for the fourth, Southern California, you are in the works!  I want to thank Bonnie Cramer and Union College Hillel for the incredible Bubby's Kitchen reception and production at Proctors in Schenectady – Bonnie worked her magic, filled the seats and sold out the show!  For those of you who were there, you know it was an especially sweet performance having so many of the real life characters from Bubby's Kitchen in the audience, especially Bubby herself!

And like one of the four children at the Passover seder, you ask, what are we cooking up in Bubby's Kitchen next!? Well, oh wise one, (you're obviously the wise one – I mean you asked what's coming next!?)  - I'll tell you: We are about to launch into some intimate readings in NY for people in the theatre industry and are starting to seek producers and investors to get Bubby's Kitchen moving ever forward at the next level..

So, if you have a contact in NY (or elsewhere) in the Theatre/Film/Music/Performing Arts industry or connection to an organization that would be a fabulous sponsor and y

ou have an inkling that they would love Bubby's Kitchen, please connect us!  As many of you know and some of you may not, Bubby's Kitchen has been brought around the country thus far by word of mouth –  You have approached me in person or emailed me after a performance and asked, “How do I get Bubby's Kitchen to Hotzenplutz USA?  Or better yet, to Yenemsvelt?” and you have made it happen!  I have come to learn, that you, the audience, the fressers of Bubby's Kitchen, you are some of the most powerful, motivated and effective people I know!  SO if you love Bubby's Kitchen, believe in the story and the message of the show and feel that you want to share it with the people you know and love (and some people who you may come to know and love in the future..) please let the matchmaking and the shiddachs begin!

As for the great Mother's Day Giveaway… Send in your favorite story of your own Bubby by May 7th – I'll read through them and choose the one that makes me smile the most and send that person a Bubby's Kitchen Apron – perfect for Mother's Day!   Write to me, email me, facebook me, twitter me, – What? Nu, we shouldn't  be in touch!?

xoxo Shira

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Bubby's Kitchen is having its homecoming this weekend, and unlike my days at Troy High, I will not be wearing a knee-length-sapphire-blue-multi-tiered-taffeta-off-the-shoulder-hand-me-down-Jessica Mcclintock-couture-dress… but you should!   In fact, I encourage you to – for this weekend is truly a celebration!  I'm headed home to Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady NY, just a hop skip and Ginsburg shuffle from the original Bubby's Kitchen in Troy NY!  And many of the Kitchen regulars will be in the audience – including, Bubby herself!  So if Bubby's homecoming isn't enough to get you all into your high school prom gowns and white tuxedos with powder-blue cumberbunds (which I know you saved in the back of your closet somewhere) I don't know what is!

I was just told that a few more tickets have been released, so if you don't have your ticket yet, email Bonnie Cramer at cramerb@union.edu to reserve now!

In expectation of this Sunday's homecoming I was interviewed by Joe Donohue on the Roundtable earlier this week (what a great interviewer Joe is!) listen here

and, this fabulous article 'Spend an Afternoon in Bubby's Kitchen' by Kristen V. Brown was printed in today's Albany Times Union.

In other news, the Bubby's Kitchen team just returned from a fabulous show in Seattle – thank you again to Lisa Giangreco and Karen Ovetz of the Seattle Chapter Hadassah for bringing me out West.  Seattlelites – you were a wonderful audience and fabulous hosts – I hope to be back out there soon!

Hope to see you all at proctors Theatre this Sunday, April 28th at 1pm for an incredible show!

xoxo

Shira

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This has been a week of great highs and great lows… As Bubby’s Kitchen honors those who fight back in the face of terror and senseless harm, my deepest respect and gratitude go out to all of those first responders and citizens who ran towards the horrific explosions in Boston rather than away, whose first instinct was to help those in need rather than to flee to safety.  My heart and prayers are with the people in Boston, those that lost loved ones, those that were injured, and those who are currently in lockdown and living in a state of fear as the search continues for the second bomber.  In light of this recent act of destruction, it comes to my attention over and over again, that there will always be more good than bad in this world, that there are always more people who want to offer help than to cause harm, and that this is the force of humanity that we must nurture in ourselves and in our children.  This good is what we must celebrate and strive ever towards.

As for things in Bubby’s Kitchen… Miami was a fabulous success! I want to thank the community of Miami for welcoming me so warmly and give a specific shout-out to Marcy Levitt and Vicki Einhorn at the Alper JCC, for inviting us down and making our visit and our performance such a smooth and wonderful success! Miami, what can I say, you are a fantastic audience and I hope to be back soon!

And as Karen Carpenter once crooned, we’ve only just begun…. and now we’re off to Seattle!   If you are on the West coast and free on Sunday April 21st at 1pm – make sure you’re at the Kirkland Performing Arts Center for our West Coast premiere!

Also coming up – I’ll be interviewed by Joe Donohue on WAMC’s Round Table program on Wednesday, April 24th at 10:35am EST in anticipation of Bubby’s Kitchen’s Homecoming to the Capital District on Sunday, April 28th 2pm at Proctors Playhouse, GE Theatre! Tune in if you’re around!

Wishing you all a week filled with peace, love, kindness, and a good nosh…

xoxo Shira

For Tickets to upcoming Performances:

Kirkland Performing Arts Center, Seattle Sunday, April 21st, 1pm

Proctors Playhouse, GE Theatre, Schenectady NY, Sunday April 28th, 2pm, email cramerb@union.edu

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This past week we commemorated Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and as happens every year, I was shaken with the sheer magnitude of our historical narrative as it came to life through testimonies of individual survivors.  And then, I was moved to a place of intense and overwhelming gratefulness that my Bubby and Zayde survived this atrocity, moved to Troy, NY and created the solid and wonderful foundation for my family.  My grandparents were also pillars in their community and were known as the people to come to for advice and comfort – served up with a glazele tea and a piece of mandel bread…

I am reminded again that each of us has a story, and those stories must be passed on through our generations, retold and remembered.   I felt an urgency in this mission as I saw the survivors had aged another year and diminished yet again in numbers.

Bubby’s Kitchen is a celebration of my family’s story, but it is also a tale of the impact that each generation’s and each individual’s story can have on another person.  So please, share your stories, with your children and your grandchildren – the happy ones, the sad ones, the scary ones, the joyful ones… the stories that make you laugh and the stories that make you cry…

and share them with all of us here at Bubby’s Kitchen…

It is the best way for us to Remember Never to Forget.

xoxo Shira

PS.I can’t wait to share my story with Miami this Sunday! I hope to see you there!

xoxo shira

To Purchase/ Reserve Tickets:

Miami, Alper JCC, Sunday, April 14th 2pm

Seattle, Kirkland Performing Arts Center, Sunday, April 21st, 1pm

Schenectady, Proctors Theatre, Sunday, April 28th, 1pm cramerb@union.edu

The post Remember Never to Forget appeared first on Bubby's Kitchen.

Lots of action in the Kitchen these days…

We’re gearing up and getting very excited for the Miami Performance on April 14th, and the Seattle Performance on April 21st and now…

Bubby’s Kitchen is heading home!…

It’s Official! Bubby’s Kitchen will be performing at the GE Theatre at Proctor’s Playhouse in Schenectady NY on Sunday, April 28th 1pm – just across the river from Troy NY and 103 Nyroy Drive – where it all began…

I’m really honored that Bubby’s Kitchen is being brought to the Capital District by Union College Hillel as part of their Holocaust Remembrance Series thanks to a grant awarded by the David and Fela Shapell Family Foundation and Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.

Though one of the messages of Bubby’s Kitchen is that you carry home with you wherever you go in life, it is a special privilege to actually go home and bring my family’s story back to its original address… if you are in the area, I would LOVE to see you there!

Tickets for the Proctor’s Theatre Performance are free, to reserve a seat email Bonnie Cramer at cramerb@union.edu with your name, phone number and number of tickets requested.

As for press – check out the latest – a wonderful article, Kitchen Table Wisdom in JTSnews in Seattle.

So, Miami, Seattle and Schenectady – get ready… here we come!

xoxo shira

To Purchase/ Reserve Tickets:

Miami, Alper JCC, Sunday, April 14th 2pm

Seattle, Kirkland Performing Arts Center, Sunday, April 21st, 1pm

Schenectady, Proctors Theatre, Sunday, April 28th, 1pm cramerb@union.edu

The post Bubby’s Kitchen is Heading Home! appeared first on Bubby's Kitchen.

When I think of Passover I think of Maxwell House, do you?

Each year as Passover rolls around, the house gets cleaned, the liver gets chopped, the brisket gets braised, and the Maxwell House Haggadot come out of their cardboard box.  When and how did Maxwell House became synonymous with our people’s most powerful collective story, and as all Jews do on Passover, I ask, Why?

As it turns out, sometime between 1932-1934, The Joseph Jacobs Ad agency defined their goal; to make coffee rather than tea, the drink of of choice at the end of the seder meal.  And so, the Maxwell House Hagaddah was published, and with over 50 million copies distributed to date, it has become one of the longest run sales promotions in the history of advertising. How appropriate that it tells the longest run story in our people’s history.

The component to this story that I feel compelled to add is the power of nostalgia.  While I certainly advocate for creativity, supplemental readings, interactive questions that go beyond the four in the Hagaddah, mini skits and plush toy plagues thrown around the table at just the right dramatic moment, the addition of new music, different melodies and anything else that makes the story relevant and meaningful each time we tell it, I am certain I would be missing something if those blue Maxwell house books weren’t placed just so on our Kosher for Passover dishes.

If Passover is about memory, then at seder we must honor both the collective memory of our people and the personal memories we make along the way.  No Passover for me is complete without the family all holding up our blue Haggadot, singing a few key passages in our best Zayde voices, making his presence felt at our table long after he is gone.   So, thanks for the memories Maxwell House, but I can keep it a secret no longer – the Ginsburgs always drink Sanka…..

Happy Passover!

What’s your family’s Passover tradition?  Share your story with us right here and your story could be featured in next week’s newsletter!

PS – BUBBY’S KITCHEN IS HEADED TO ALBANY! APRIL 28TH, 1PM AT PROCTOR’S PLAYHOUSE, TICKETING DETAILS TBA

and… Don’t forget tickets are on sale for the following performances:

4/14 Bubby’s Kitchen, Miami,  2pm   Tickets here

4/21 Bubby’s Kitchen, Seattle, 1pm  Tickets here

xoxo shira

*I first wrote this for my East End Temple Templet Column, but I thought you’d all enjoy it, nu – was I wrong?

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Like most of you, I sometimes find myself dreaming of a good whitefish on a bagel, the perfect slice of tomato, a sliver of cucumber… Maybe in your dreams its herring in cream sauce with a slice of rye – but you get the picture…

These days there are fewer and fewer places to find such delicacies – the staples of a Bubby’s Kitchen – but as all New Yorkers know, Russ and Daughters of the Lower East Side always delivers..

I opened the NYTimes to an article about the new book, “Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes From the House That Herring Built.” written by Mark Russ Federman, the third generation to run Russ and Daughters for three decades.

What struck me aside from the commitment to the family business was the length he went to ensure that family continuity when his daughters would bring home boyfriends AKA potential son-in-laws.

“Joel didn’t arrange his daughter’s marriages, Mr. Federman writes, but he “did retain what is called in business today the right of first refusal.”

The criteria was less, will you love and care for and honor my daughter and more.. “Was he strong enough to schlep barrels of herring? Smart enough to add up a column of numbers on a brown paper bag? Could he make change? Would he look good behind the counter?” If so, “Fine, you can marry him.”

In my family the criteria involves eating p’tcha, pretending you speak yiddish, and making it through a holiday with the entire family without having a nervous breakdown…

What’s the criteria in your family?  Share your story with us right here and your story could be featured in next week’s newsletter!

Don’t forget tickets are on sale for the following performances:

4/14 Bubby’s Kitchen, Miami,  2pm   Tickets here

4/21 Bubby’s Kitchen, Seattle, 1pm  Tickets here

xoxo Shira

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This week, Bubby’s delicious strudel recipe is featured on the interactive site Beyond Bubbie

The women in my family were always busy in my Bubby’s kitchen mixing three cups of wisdom for every two cups of Matzo meal into whatever recipe they were preparing.

And there was always something mouthwatering in the over, the smell of the mandel bread and rugalach alone could make you cry…but to taste – forget about it, heaven on earth..

And then there was my Bubby’s Strudel. Saved for ‘the company’ NOT, for your every day meal. Bubby’s strudel was served on her finest dishes, table set, and ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS with a glazele tea made from a re-used tea bag sitting in a little dish on the windowsill.. waste not want not.

To eat this strudel is to be back on 103 Nyroy drive, surrounded by family, love, comfort, and of course, a table filled with ‘company’
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!  Click here for the recipe.. and share your own recipes and stories on the Bubby’s Kitchen Blog

Ps – use this same dough to make Hamantaschen for Purim!

Happy Purim and happy baking!

xoxo shira

The post Bubby’s Strudel featured on Beyond Bubbie – special for ‘the company’ appeared first on Bubby's Kitchen.

Thanks for sharing Alan! Keep the stories coming everyone!

“Thank you for your apron. Just a quick, silly story… As a mother now of a 2 year old, my daughter and her partner have his Grandmother and Grandfather. So my wife and I decided we’d be a Bubby and Zayde, just to help with the differentiation for little Jensen. And though I live in Iowa and don’t talk with a Yiddish accent, don’t eat herring, don’t smoke nasty cigars, nor don’t wear 3 types of plaid, nor my wife isn’t the typical borscht cooking grandma – all of which is to say that we are now Bubby and Zayde. Jensen loves it and our friends/neighbors in Dubuque, Iowa are trying to figure it all out. Well, now you know WHY I bought the apron for my wife for Valentine’s Day. She’s a great Bubby. And someday, we’d love to see the one-woman play. Thanks.”

-Alan, from Iowa

Just goes to show you, you can find Bubbys and Zaydes anywhere you can find love….

xoxo shira

The post Bubby’s Kitchen…. In Iowa… appeared first on Bubby's Kitchen.

Dear Bubby’s Kitchen Noshers,

Check out this wonderful feature in The Forward this week on Bubby’s Kitchen. Thanks to Lucy Cohen Blatter for the wonderful interview! Speaking with her brought up ever more memories from my Bubby’s kitchen that aren’t written into the show – it got me thinking how much I would love to hear all of your stories! So, please click  share your stories and start sharing your own family kitchen stories right here! Wishing you all a sweet Shabbes gathered in your own Bubby’s Kitchen!

Bubby’s Kitchen has started tweeting @inbubbyskitchen (I need a tweet like a loch in kop – (hole in my head) so lets start communicating via small blue bird right here!

And…Don’t forget tickets are on sale for Bubby’s Kitchen, Seattle – at the Kirkland Performing Art Center, April 21st 1pm

to purchase – click here!

… And Tickets are on sale for Bubby’s Kitchen, Miami – at the Alper JCC, Sunday, April 14th at 2pm – to purchase call 305.271.9000 x268

xoxo Shira

The post Bubby’s Cooking Takes to the Stage – The Forward appeared first on Bubby's Kitchen.