Deep-fried doughnuts

The recipe seems to be from my great-grandmother. But I’m not entirely sure!

In my childhood, these doughnuts were always there. My mom would bake them for Hanukkah and occasionally just because.

Now, I bake these doughnuts every year and invite friends over to enjoy them during Hanukkah.

Eyal’s lemon pie

Over the past year, there have been too many losses. But those we hold dear will always stay with us, even when we cook their favorite dishes. This was Eyal’s favorite dessert, and we will remember him too.

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pastry

Moldovan pies vărzăre (from Sonya Kopylova)

My grandparents lived in Tbilisi (my grandfather was a Tbilisi Armenian, and my grandmother, a Jew on her mother’s side, evacuated to Georgia from Kharkiv as a teenager and stayed there). When I was little, in the 1980s, every winter, they would send us a package from sunny Georgia to our home in the Moscow suburbs.

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meat

Yozhiki with the story from Dasha Tsivina

Dasha’s magical yozhiki that mend quarrels - her grandmother’s meatballs in tomato sauce. When Dasha was little and upset, her grandmother would say that the yozhiki would take all her troubles away. Now, Dasha makes them for her grown-up children, and they still work wonders, especially when served with mashed potatoes!