Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.
Keeping kosher in the Bay Area means having a limited selection of certain items. If you’re a parent wanting to buy, say, a Spider-Man or Little Mermaid birthday cake for your child, good luck finding a kosher one.
Jenette Woskow, 39, who started JWCakeDesigns, is making kosher, decorative, nut-free cakes. She was recently certified by Rabbi Gershon Albert of Oakland’s Congregation Beth Jacob and Rabbi Yonatan Cohen of Berkeley’s Congregation Beth Israel. (Under the name East Bay Kosher, the rabbis very selectively grant kosher stamps of approval in the East Bay in an effort to provide more kosher options for their communities.)
Woskow specializes in nut-free because of her son’s food allergies. Her typical flavors are vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon and sugar, lemon cake with raspberry filling and chocolate chip. The majority of her cakes are dairy, but she’ll do parve on request.
Woskow is a stay-at-home mom and self-taught baker. She grew up in a kosher home, and now keeps one. A member of Conservative Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, she has two kitchens in her home; the one specifically for her business has been inspected and certified.
“The mashgiach came and he kashered all my pots and pans and my countertops, and brought some stuff to the mikvah,” she said. (Certain dishes need to be dipped in a mikvah to render them kosher.)
Woskow, who initially came to the Bay Area to attend art school, said decorating her cakes is where she really gets to express her creativity. A sneaker, a mermaid and a law book are some of the cakes she’s made by request; she has also made Barbie ball gown cakes.
Making her own kids’ birthday cakes inspired her to start selling them, which she began doing in 2022. It was only recently though that she decided to make them available to the kosher community.
Given her recently acquired kosher approval, she was busy over the High Holidays, with her cakes being served in some East Bay family sukkahs. Woskow can be reached on Instagram (@jwcakedesignsoakland) or via her Yelp page.
Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook will be at the JCCSF from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 12 to celebrate the release of their new cookbook, “Zahav Home: Cooking for Friends & Family.” The two partners own Zahav in Philadelphia, plus numerous other restaurants. The new book features simplified versions of Zahav dishes that can be made at home, such as pistachio sticky buns and twice-baked sweet potatoes with labneh. Cosponsored by the JCCSF and Omnivore Books, the event costs $45, which includes the book.
Straus Family Creamery, the Jewish-owned dairy in West Marin County, is having a moment on TikTok. The phenomenon was first reported by Jennifer Graue in the Santa Rosa–based Press-Democrat. According to Graue’s article, a local content creator, Peggy Xu, first posted a video of herself using a spoon to poke through the solid cream found atop the milk in bottles of Straus whole milk. The cream — which forms just under the cap when milk is not homogenized — is something most consumers, especially young ones, have never seen before. Matter of fact, members of Gen Z haven’t seen milk sold in reusable bottles, either.