Sarah is a firm believer in small investments that have big payoffs.
“There are so many things you can make from scratch, even when you are short on time. Don’t just throw in a can of tomato sauce. Instead, open a can of tomatoes and add in olive oil and fresh spices. It will take five more minutes, but you can’t compare the taste.”
While Sarah herself grew up in a home where the kitchen was off limits, she finds that the food preparation offers great bonding opportunities with her young daughter, Tunie B.
“I had to train myself to get her involved and now she loves to sit next to me,” observed Sarah. “She sits with her little plastic fork and she really learns about food and gets into it. Cooking is
a great relationship builder. Our days are so busy but that quality time that I get to spend with my daughter is priceless. I can’t have her help me when I am on the computer but in the kitchen, I can give her a mushroom and a plastic fork and let her go at it.”
Recipes on The Patchke Princess are heavy on flavor and relatively short on prep time. Skimming through them, Sarah’s message comes through loud and clear: the fact that our days are beyond hectic doesn’t mean we have to skimp on taste. Sarah’s pre-Pesach cooking binge, hash tagged #EatItOrCleanIt, a self-created challenge to use up whatever food she had in her pantry, freezer and fridge, was proof positive that she is every-mom and, like us, is just trying to do the best she can with whatever challenges life throws her way.
Sarah finds that much of the feedback on The Patchke Princess comes in not via comments on the site, but rather as private messages.
“I get a lot of emails from readers,” said Sarah. “I find that people relate to what I am going through right now. When I put up a blog post, it feels good to hit send. It is cathartic. But sometimes you forget that people are reading what you write and if feels good to hear that people are making your recipes and sharing your food with their families. The people I hear from aren’t my fans, they are my extended friends and The Patchke Princess is really an extension of my community.”
Sarah recently released the first kosher cookbook produced only in e-book format, with fellow food bloggers Whitney Fisch, Amy Kirtzer and Liz Reuven. The 400-plus page book called 4 Bloggers Dish Passover was the number-one selling kosher and holiday e-book on Amazon. Sarah is also hard at work on Dairy Gourmet 2, which she hopes to release in time for Chanukah and another volume titled Party Gourmet which will feature recipes and tips from party planners and is tentatively scheduled for August 2015. Sarah, who plans on relaunching Kosher Street this summer, has also spent the last three years working as a recipe developer/food writer and stylist and as a restaurant consultant, focusing on start-ups and revamps.
As always, all of Sarah’s books share a common thread, taking traditional foods and updating them with a modern twist.
“The Patchke Princess shows kosher in a new light,” explained Sarah. “Kosher isn’t just the food your parents gave you and it isn’t just potatoes. It just means that you can’t put milk and meat together, but it doesn’t mean that you are condemned to a life of old-style products. The sky is the limit.”
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