"For anyone looking to put the chutzpah in cooking," Cantor Mitch is your man. The singing, cooking cantor offers a guide to his lifelong "personal triangle"--music, spirituality and food--in Kosher Cuisine for a New Generation, a cookbook of straightforward recipes that he hopes will inspire cooks to think about old favorites in a new way.
Mitch wants readers to "make eating a holy and thoughtful act every day," and while not all the recipes are prepared in strict kosher fashion (which often means from scratch), they keep kosher by calling for premade items that bear the Orthodox Union's mark (the circled U) on the label. While erudite, "the Singing Chef" is far from stuffy in his pairings of recipes with songs. He suggests singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" while serving Louisiana Black Bean Soup, and "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof with Mama's Jewish Chicken Soup. A golden cheese quiche mated with the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine"--what's not to like? You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Cantor Mitch's cuisine. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco