By Diana Brement, JewishSound Columnist
“Just look on the cover,” was Rachel Almeleh’s response when I asked what her favorite recipe was in her just-published cookbook, “A Legacy of Sephardic, Mediterranean, and American Recipes.”
There, a plate of lightly browned bourekas, plump with potatoes and two kinds of cheese, tempt the reader and the cook.
As the title reveals, this is Rachel’s tribute to her triplet heritages. Her parents were raised on the Isle of Rhodes, came to the U.S. with Italian passports, and met and married here. Growing up in a multi-lingual household, it seems natural that Rachel became a Spanish and French teacher.
At age 12, when her mother died, Rachel and her sister took over cooking for the household, so this book is a tribute, too, to her aunties and cousins who taught her traditional Sephardic and other recipes.
Rachel used LifeRich Publishing, the self-publishing arm of Reader’s Digest, to bring out her book. Under their guidance, Rachel did almost all the work on the book herself, including the photography, which took two tries to meet the publisher’s standards.
“It was a labor of love,” in every sense, she says, even requiring her to learn how to create an index in Microsoft Word — not as easy as it sounds.
Rachel says her recipes are simple and incorporate “a lot of tips…from my aunts and my cousins.”
Released this month, the book has sold well through the Ezra Bessaroth ladies’ auxiliary and their recent Purim bake sale. Rachel is the secretary of that “busy group.” And Purim means Passover is not far behind, so I also had to ask about the author’s favorite Passover recipe, which is “megina,” a matzoh meat pie.
Rachel’s website is www.sephardicdelicacies.com, where she’ll start blogging after Pesach. She’ll make another book presentation at the May 5 general meeting of the Renton South King Retired Teachers — she’s co-president of that group, as well. The book is also available on Amazon.com.
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They’re no relation at all, but their common last name led to neighboring lockers at Bastyr University in Kenmore, which is how they met. Throw in a dash of growing up in New York and Susan Price Gins and Dr. Lisa Price soon became friends. Now they have published “Cooking Through Cancer Treatment to Recovery: Easy, Flavorful Recipes to Prevent and Decrease Side Effects at Every Stage of Conventional Therapy” (Demos Health).
“Dr. Price had been seeing cancer patients for quite a while, and they always asked her about what they should eat,” says Susan.
Studying at Bastyr, Lisa to become a naturopathic doctor and Susan a nutritionist, “we’d worked on projects before,” says Susan.
When Lisa wanted to write a book to help patients “eat in a way that supported them while they went through treatment,” she asked Susan for help.
They found an agent and publisher quickly, which helped a lot.
“We felt like we were going with the flow,” Susan says.
Though there are other cancer cookbooks, theirs is distinguished by its organization by treatment phases.
“Say you’re going to see a friend [who is] going through radiation,” Susan says. “You look up radiation and it lists all the recipes that have nutrients that help when you are going through radiation.”
Recipes use readily available ingredients (with online resources for those living outside urban areas) and are deliberately simple to avoid putting “any additional burden on someone who is going through…treatment,” Susan says.
Dishes are anti-inflammatory, free of gluten, soy, sugar and dairy. Susan cooked them all and says everyone who has sampled them has been happy with the taste.
Each recipe has a health tip and a nutrition fact. “Sesame Noodles,” for example, includes the fact that tahini (sesame paste) is rich in calcium and copper, great for bones and cartilage.
Susan grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and arrived in Seattle just after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980. She remembers walking out on the lawn and having her shoes covered with dust. Before returning to school at age 47 she was a custom fabric artist known for her hand-woven bath towels. She maintains offices in Madison Park and Issaquah.
Lisa has a private practice and is part of the integrative medicine team at the True Family Women’s Cancer Center of Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
This book, available on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and elsewhere, has a trailer! Just type “YouTube cooking through cancer” in your search engine, and you’ll find it. Find the authors’ blog, with recipes, at www.cookingthroughcancertreatmenttorecovery.com.