Over the years I’ve met experienced homemakers who don’t save leftovers or store food safely. And many people never learned how to cook from scratch. I’m lucky to have learned kitchen management at home from the most efficient cook I’ve ever met–my mother Touby z”l.
Cookbooks are usually about buying a set of ingredients and following instructions. I like to look at the whole picture–starting with what you have in the house, then choosing recipes and meals according to your specific needs. I want to teach people how to get from menu planning and shopping through cooking and cleanup without becoming exhausted or throwing away half the food at the end.
I see CookingManager.Com as a legacy to my mother, who died almost twenty years ago. She developed a chronic illness that forced her to work using the minimum number of steps. My mother believed that resources, including time, money and energy, should never go to waste. Originally I thought about a book or a website, but since I’ve been blogging for several years I decided on this format.
Why did you set it up with self-hosted WordPress (as opposed to using Blogger or WordPress.com)?
Self-hosted WordPress is used by most successful bloggers. Blogger has little flexibility and WordPress.com’s free service doesn’t allow advertising. You have to pay for self-hosted WordPress, but you own your own content.No one can close you down, as has happened on free platforms. And WordPress is superior when it comes to getting traffic from search engines.
The difference between Blogger and self-hosted WordPress is like the difference between renting and owning a home: Owning is a responsibility and sometimes a headache, but a good investment and ultimately more satisfying.
Who is your target audience for your new blog?
Anyone who wants to save money and time when making home-cooked meals. It can be for people setting up a kitchen for the first time, growing families who find they spend too much on prepared food, or people on special diets who cannot use processed products.
What was the hardest part of setting up the blog?
I’m still intimidated by coding, design and technical details. Keeping up with my post schedule has been a challenge over the busy summer.
The fun parts?
Writing, and interacting with my readers. I love to help readers with their specific problems, like what kind of pressure cooker to buy or how to use meat drippings to flavor future recipes. One mother of eight wrote that she learns something new with every post. I am still finding my voice on CookingManager.Com, so if you have questions come join the conversation while my audience is still small. ๐
If someone wants to set up a professional blog, how can one get advice on doing so?
Most people offering professional advice also have a public website. Before spending money, spend time on a few different sites to see if the style and focus is right for you. I highly recommend Leora, who advised me on setting up the WordPress blogs and designed the banner for A Mother in Israel. I also like Problogger.net, DailyBlogTips.com, and Nice2All.Com.
Don’t worry about missing a great offer as there will always be another one. If you don’t want to spend you can find hundreds, if not thousands, of free WordPress marketing articles and tutorials including WordPress.org, an active forum that helped me numerous times.
Has using Twitter helped promote your new site?
I haven’t developed my Twitter account much yet,( twitter.com/cookingManager), but I plan to. In the meantime I use it mostly for posting links to new posts. You can follow me both there and at @mominisrael, where I tweet more often.
Are you looking for guest posts for your site? What kind of posts would you like? Mimi at Israeli Kitchen contributed a delicious chick pea recipe, and I would love to have more. I’m not a “foodie,” but I’ve realized that readers appreciate simple recipes too. And a few have sent me their own recipes to publish. See the tab “Submit Recipe” on the front page.
What are some of your favorite posts on the new site? Why are these your favorites?
On Sunday I write about kitchen appliances and equipment. My mother was an energy conservationist before it came in style, and taught me about knowing your appliances and using them wisely. It’s something that not all home cooks think about.
Leora, thank you so much for the interview. I’m looking forward to feedback from your readers.
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Leora’s Note: This post was updated with Hannah’s new header and blog layout. The header was designed by Leora.
Lee Avenue in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn, illustration by Elke Reva Sudin How did you get started doing art?
I have always been an artist. It is a personality disorder that somehow becomes acceptable when channeled through pen on paper.
What was your childhood relationship to art?
Crayola
What is your training?
Growing up I had very little access to art or the artistic mentality. My parents are not artists and growing up in a religious school with no art program did not help either. I did what I could on my own but it was not until the age of 16 when I attended a pre-college program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) that I understood for the first time how representing subject through mark making could be such an enlightening experience.
College furthered what I had gotten a taste of in pre-college. Each of my 4 years gave me a deeper understanding of how any art is conceived, designed and constructed. I received a BFA in Illustration at Pratt Institute, an art and design college in Brooklyn.
What motivates you to do art?
Drawing from life. I enjoy the experience of translating one mode of experience into another. The illustration is an end product of my excitement to study and reflect without too much questioning during the process.
What in particular do you find difficult about doing “Jewish” art? Any conflicts?
The problem with “Jewish” art is that Judaism is built on the concept that God is infinite and we are contained within God. Therefore all our our earthly experiences are illusions because everything that we see as being separate, is really one unified entity. Whenever I attempt a “Jewish” art piece, it seems pointless to show material garments, ritual items and customs, because those only exist for us to find a way to connect with the ephemeral. It boils down and boils down until not even a blank white piece of paper to gives off true meaning. There is a reason we are commanded not to make graven images, people get absorbed in the image and not the meaning. I think this idea has helped Judaism survive for so long by the fact that no matter where we are in the world, we as Jews have no attachment to ritual as connected to physical things. The idea survives even when large portions of the population is wiped out.
My connection to Judaism is through action. So it is rather my process of creating the art, in which I connect to the infinite connections and acknowledging the spiritual path that it follows, that bring me to an end product which I feel is Jewish. Because there is no separation between my being and my artistic product, the product is inherently spiritual.
What would you suggest to someone who wants to learn art? Illustration?
The best advice I can give is to draw from life. Often times we draw from experiences, but our memories have a funny way of selecting what we remember, which is very limiting. Drawing from life opens up the artist to nuances and connections that would be otherwise hidden. Using our hands, we as artists have an easier time connecting to different parts of our brains, resulting in “happy accidents,” and allow us to take something physical and transform it into something representational and meaningful.
I studied illustration because it takes the principles of art and design and applies them in a more directed setting suitable for performing commercial work compared to what is generally taught in the contemporary fine art educational setting. Direction is important, because without focus artists tend to turn to their own desire to be admired by others, rather than contributing their abilities to the enlightenment of the public.
Can you tell us about the Hipsters and Hassids project?
I constructed an illustrated book titled “Hipsters and Hassids: The Youth of Williamsburg North and South.” It is an investigative illustrative study which discovers the surprising similarities these seemingly polar opposite communities have in common. I went inside the neighborhoods, with a strong focus on the Hassidic side, particularly concerning the women, to see first hand what life is like behind the surface is like. One of the biggest misunderstandings (and commonalities) is that both sides are so off-putting. On the Hipster side they sell their look and lifestyle as a product. Life is valued by the self absorbed fascination with the party, the outfit, and obscure references to music and culture, but lacking any meaning which had once held strong associations to those things. On the Hassidic end of things they are very protective of preserving their customs and way of life and outside influences are harmful in that respect. The truth is that people are the same everywhere, there will always be people open and close-minded, self absorbed and absorbed in other things, those of respect and those who bring shame to the human race, but the important thing is to remember the unity that all people share. We are all a part of this world for a reason and an obsession with particular fashions just aint it.
Riva Ben-Ezra started Dulce Catering as a means of serving the smaller events in people’s lives – Shabbat dinners, birthday parties, Sheva brachot*, and other small gatherings. Based in Hashmonaim, Israel, Dulce Catering makes mouth-watering meals for small groups, artistic dessert platters, and eye-catching birthday cakes for your special occasion. All food is strictly kosher. Dulce also packages gift baskets for Purim and all year round.
For the past year Riva has run the first and second grade Beit Yeladim on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, cooking and baking with them as an extension of their informal education process. She believes that teaching children to cook gives them independence, self-satisfaction, and is an excellent way to express their creativity.
Before moving to Israel, Riva and her family lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.
How did you get started in catering? I love to cook, and especially to bake. Someone has to eat all that food! Seriously, after the birth of Renatya (my second child), I wanted to find a more flexible work schedule, something that would keep me at home more and would be the creative outlet I felt was lacking in my present profession (veterinarian).
What types of catering do you do? I am not interested in giant cookie cutter affairs (pardon the pun) – I like to see the expressions on people’s faces when they eat my food, and I like to give people the feeling of being spoiled by receiving a scrumptious meal as a gift. For that reason, I prefer to do family dinners, sheva brachot, and other parties of less than 50 people. I also make designer birthday cakes and Purim baskets customized to your theme. My newest venture is children’s baking workshops and birthday parties for lower-elementary-school-aged children. Those are a lot of fun. I sell homemade ricotta cheese as well.
Where would you like to see your business in five years? I would love to have my own kitchen storefront to sell takeout and baked goods and a web site where people can order meals for their friends and family overseas. I would also like to expand to personal chef work.
What would you recommend to someone interested in catering? It isn’t just making good food. You need a strong business sense, willingness to put in a lot of unpaid/unrecognized hours, and you have to be a real people person. You must also be a stickler for detail, and be an extremely organized person. As Ina Garten says, it doesn’t matter how good the cake is if they don’t have forks to eat it with.
Riva Ben-Ezra started Dulce Catering as a means of serving the smaller events in people’s lives – Shabbat dinners, birthday parties, Sheva brachot*, and other small gatherings. Based in Hashmonaim, Israel, Dulce Catering makes mouth-watering meals for small groups, artistic dessert platters, and eye-catching birthday cakes for your special occasion. All food is strictly kosher. Dulce also packages gift baskets for Purim and all year round.
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