A minor Jewish holiday, Tu B’Av is celebrated as a holiday of love. This year, it begins on the evening of Sunday, August 18 and ends at nightfall on Monday, August 19.
There are few gestures that say “I love you” quite like making someone a meal. But as a chef, I have a problem. I usually end up doing all the cooking in a relationship, so I rarely get to experience that. When I do, I feel like my partner feels like I am judging her meal when I am really just overjoyed to have someone cook for me. I don’t care what it tastes like.
This unevenness in the kitchen is true for many relationships, and so for this upcoming Tu B’Av, a Jewish “Valentine’s Day” gaining mainstream popularity in Israel, I am suggesting an easy-to-make meal for the less culinary-inclined person to show how much they care to the person they love.
Recently, someone I follow on Twitter asked what we would say is the male equivalent of giving a woman flowers?
After some thought, I said, “a steak.”
This is just a light-hearted joke. Of course, there are women who love steak just as much as I can appreciate flowers as a man, and yes, there are men who are vegetarian. Yet, I feel like there is some truth to it often enough.
But steak as we, in America, know is not quite the same as enjoyed in Israel. When I first moved there, I kept hearing “entrecote, entrecote.” Thanks to Google, I figured out that it’s just another term for rib-eye.
Still, enjoying a steak by itself, just salt and pepper, maybe some garlic and rosemary, is simply not the Middle Eastern way. They have to jazz it up and use spices and marinades. They have to make it distinct. So, generally, Israelis like to eat their steak in kabob form with the steak marinated and grilled over hot coals – often eaten with rice on the side, maybe some tahina or hummus and pita.
I remember on Fridays, Yom Ha’atzmaut, and Shavuot, people would crowd the beach with their cheap mini-grills. Fanning the flames of ignited coals is perhaps an unofficial sport in Israel. However, if you don’t have a grill or want to fuss with one, you can roast a kabob in a high heat, preferably with a convection setting. You might not necessarily need to skewer your meat this way, although you can roll some aluminum foil into little beams to rest a skewer in the oven. And if you do grill, make sure to soak your skewers in water ahead of time to prevent them from burning. A digital thermometer helps to determine doneness – 145 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds for beef is perfect.
Kabob can be made in so many ways, and for exact recipes, I suggest Jamie Geller’s website.
But for the truly culinarily-handicapped (and I know a few in my family, so I am writing this with their skill level in mind), I might suggest having a backup plan in case your efforts don’t work out. If so, the ultimate quality, easy meal is bread, cheese, and wine – maybe with some olives, fruit, nuts, and smoked fish on the side. You really don’t need much else.
So, whatever you do to celebrate Tu B’Av, understand that providing food for someone is how we encourage someone to “keep going” and persevere because we believe in them. It is a love language of its own.
Eitan Altshuler can be reached at the Humusiya at the Sandler Family Campus or at
ealtshuler@ujft.org.