Two Purims ago, Amy Fischer Smith decided to bake hamantaschen for friends and neighbors. “They didn’t want the ones from the store,” Smith said. “They wanted something homemade and delicious, and baked by someone they actually knew.”
This year at Purim, she decided to do it again. And then came chocolate-covered matzah for Passover. And now, for Rosh Hashanah, she’s offering round challah, date cookies, honey cake and mini apple cakes.
All are available to order on the Amy’s Jewish Kitchen website and can be picked up from her Lafayette home.
In the case of Rosh Hashanah, she said, “Serving the Jewish community through food is my way of practicing teshuvah, or a return to the right path.”
Smith, 38, has found that baking and cooking Jewish foods has been part of her own growth as a Jewish adult, as her parents were both Jewish but unaffiliated when she was growing up in Delaware.
She has no culinary background or training. While her mother was a passionate foodie and avid restaurant-goer, she wasn’t much of a cook.
Smith first developed her love of baking as a pre-teen. Though she was much more likely to make chocolate chip cookies than hamantaschen back then, she regularly held bake sales to raise money to donate to the Children’s Hospital, where she was treated for Crohn’s disease. “That was my way of giving back, to thank them for the care I received,” she said.
Her first job out of college was at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. At that time, it was mounting an exhibit called “Chosen Food: Cuisine, Culture and American Jewish Identity.” (A funny aside is that Smith’s own wedding cake topper — two bichon frisés in wedding attire — ended up as part of the exhibit).
The themes of that exhibit continued to resonate for her.
When her son Benji was in second grade, she accompanied his class on a field trip to the Reutlinger Community, a Jewish senior residence — now run by the nonprofit Eskaton — in Danville.
“At least 90% of the residents there said that their strongest Jewish memories were around specific foods at the holidays,” she recalled. “We heard person after person say the same thing.”
Smith and her husband have three boys. The older two attend Contra Costa Jewish Day School. She’s also an active member of Temple Isaiah.
Smith said her increased Jewish involvement began taking shape with the birth of the couple’s first son, and with that, she came to realize that something like baking challah, for her, could be just as powerful a ritual as prayer.
“Baking challah is one of the ways I observe Shabbat,” she said. “For me, baking challah and holiday treats are Jewish rituals. It’s one way I express my Judaism and build community.”
Smith listed a number of culinary influences, including cookbook authors Joan Nathan and Ina Garten, but she also cites local cookbook authors (and J. columnist) Faith Kramer and Beth Lee as influences, too.
Smith’s tiny operation isn’t for financial gain. Rather, she said she’s doing this for community building — both within her Jewish community and also with her non-Jewish friends and neighbors. (The items aren’t kosher.)
“The most meaningful part has been the community connections,” she said.
She shared a story about one of her non-Jewish neighbors who fell in love with her apricot hamantaschen. Though the man has since died of cancer, she continues to share her baked goods with his widow, seeing it as a way to share a bit of Jewish culture with those who might not know much about it.
Smith isn’t sure how large she’ll grow Amy’s Jewish Kitchen. Right now, she’s limiting it to holidays, but she is fine seeing where the business takes her. She’s just happy to be that conduit for people accessing their Jewish memories, one bite at a time.