Homemade salmon herring, two types of pickles, and lemon meringue pie — here I come!

The Man

Yehuda Goldman, age 33

3 children

Runs a kashrus agency Yerushalayim

The Plan

Friday Night: Store-bought Challah, Roasted Garlic and Techinah (plus some dips that I didn’t make), Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls, Pistachio Encrusted Salmon with Honey Mustard Sauce, Cranberry Brisket, Roast Chicken for the kids, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Broccoli with Portobello Mushrooms, Lemon Meringue Pie, Store-bought Cookies

Shabbos Lunch: Challah and Dips, Herring-Style Salmon, Liver and Egg, Salad, Deli Roll and Pickles, Coleslaw, Cholent

Shalosh Seudos: Challah and Dips, Gefilte Fish, Guacamole, Nish Nosh, Salad, Sliced Fruit

When I came across the column Man with a Pan, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to partake in. Two of my grandparents were in the catering business, and in my job running a kashrus agency, I deal with food production on a daily basis. When a friend of mine successfully completed the challenge in a previous issue, it was time to throw my hat into the ring.

The rules were simple: Do it yourself (Family Table), have fun (mine), and clean up after yourself (my wife). While I fulfilled the first two, the clean-up part didn’t go exactly as planned. Something must always go wrong, right? When it came to the menu, I kept it simple and chose foods that wouldn’t pose particular difficulty. Ultimately, as the cooking went along, items were swapped out and new dishes made their way in. My goal was to enjoy the experience and simply go with the flow.

Step by Step

The fun began on Tuesday evening when I started preparing the fresh salmon to be cured into herring-style salmon. It takes a couple of days, so I needed to get an early start. Wednesday morning, I placed a produce order.

Later Wednesday, I prepared the brine and vegetables, and put up two large mason jars of homemade half-sour pickles (spicy and regular). While cutting up the garlic cloves, I decided to prepare a couple more heads to make some roasted garlic in olive oil (plus a dash of sea salt and coarse black pepper) — something not originally planned for.

That evening, I continued with the salmon herring and did a quick check of the pantry to ensure we had everything needed for the next day. Who wants to get stuck without an ingredient mid-recipe?

Thursday morning, once the kids had been dropped off at gan, it was all systems go. I hadn’t planned it this way, but it turned out to be six hours of nonstop action, crossing off one item after the other from the list. Fortunately, it (almost) got all done by the time the sun started rising in the USA and my normal workday began.

I started with the chicken soup, as I knew it would take time to cook. There are different ways to prepare soup, but in yeshivah, we always just threw it all in and turned on the fire. Don’t mess with success. We weren’t taught to skim the fat off (although I ultimately did, so as not to transgress minhag hamakom). I dropped in the chicken, followed by the celery, sweet potato, onion, and garlic cloves; then I turned on the fire.

My wife was still snooping around at that point and said, “I’m not helping you, but just want to remind you that our kids’ favorite part of the soup is the carrots!”