It’s summertime grilling season. Here are some winners that will make your next family get-together or backyard barbecue a huge success. Enjoy!

Shwarma Chicken

Before we get to the barbecues, here is a one-pan effortless dish that is perfect for Shabbos. Your house will smell amazing as it is baking.

1 pkg. family-size chicken thighs or 1 whole chicken

4 T. Pereg shwarma seasoning

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. paprika

1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed

1 jar green olives, drained, or one can Israeli olives

1 T. vegetable oil to grease pan

Dear Dr. Kidorf

I have two young teenage sons as well as younger children. On Shabbos, they go to shul with their father. On the way home, my husband stops at a few different homes to shmooze and make a lechaim. The boys just talk to their friends, if any of them are around, and wait until he’s ready to go home. My husband never gets drunk, just a little “happy,” and we proceed with kiddush, where everyone in the family gets wine.

 One night last week, I went out and came back earlier than expected. I walked into the living room and saw my two boys having a little lechaim. I was rather shocked and asked them what they were doing. They answered, “Nothing, we’re just trying it.”

I was 14 years old, a Bais Yaakov of Baltimore student, when I opened up the Where What When for the first time – back when Chinese slippers, Steve Madden platforms, and messy buns were “in,” and “tamagachis” were all the rage. Memories come to mind of sitting around with my then-best friend Emily on Shabbos afternoons passing the time. The two of us would sit by the bay window in her house on Fallstaff Road and talk about “all the things” – from homework to teachers to friends to who’s walking by at the moment to what we were going to do on motzaei Shabbos – and then, in what started as a one-time thing and turned into a tradition, we opened up the Where What When. During those long Shabbos afternoons, we flipped through page after page of articles. Scouring the magazine for something interesting, we came across articles with titles like, “Ten Ways to Promote your Gut Health!”  (What even is a gut?!), “To Refinance or Not To Refinance” (Is this from that Shakespeare play Mrs. Toso just read?), “How to Keep Kids Occupied on Long Trips” (Why do they even need an article about this; duh, just get us the latest thing!), and “Amazing Flax Seed Muffin Recipes” (Does it come in chocolate chip?). As teens, we quickly gave up our search and settled down with the shidduch column. At least that was nice and juicy!

I had the privilege of interviewing Shimon Apisdorf at his apartment in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem on May 18, 2022. I have three of his books, including the Passover Survival Kit, with its hilarious cover illustration of people asleep at the Seder table. Shimon Apisdorf is a writer, educator, and former publisher. He is affable and unassuming. But he is a man with big plans. Rabbi Apisdorf is not just a seeker, not just a visionary, but a doer.

With the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States and the Democratic party shifting towards the radical left, I began to wonder about the future of American Jewry. Looking at the beautiful, barren hills in Samaria and the Negev, I had daydreams about a nucleus from Baltimore being transplanted in Israel with its own institutions intact. When I heard that Shimon Apisdorf is working to make those hazy dreams of mine a reality, I was very excited to take on the assignment from the WWW to interview him.

When I was a junior at Towson State College (now Towson University), I joined a group from the Jewish Students Association to catch a glimpse of President Lyndon Johnson visiting the John Hopkins campus. I held a huge sign, “Lyndon B. Johnson for President” behind a crowd as President Johnson walked towards his helicopter. He must have seen the sign, because suddenly he stopped and said to the boys in front of me, “Let that girl shake my hand.” Me? The President of the United States wants to shake my hand? After that, I attended rallies for Johnson and got interested in politics. Unlike the dedicated leaders who are running in Maryland’s upcoming gubernatorial primary on July 19, however, I never ran for political office. But I’m grateful to those who represent us in the Jewish communities where we live. Here’s who’s running:

Israeli Iced Coffee

When I was in seminary in 2012, iced coffee was very popular. There was an ice cream shop across the street from my school. The owner once said he did most of his business when the students came. Unlike American iced coffee, the Israeli kind is like coffee ice cream in a cup. I looked forward to treating myself to some as a Rosh Chodesh treat. When I got back from Israel, I knew I had to figure out how to recreate it. This is a dairy-free version.

1 tsp. instant coffee

5 scoops parve vanilla ice cream

1/4 c. soy milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine in a blender or food processor fitted with the S-blade. Blend until smooth.

Our son is engaged to a lovely girl, and we are planning the chasana. I have already made two weddings. For both of our daughters, we and mechutanim were more or less on the same page as far as what kind of simcha we were comfortable with. Now we are dealing with the girl’s parents, who are well to do and have higher expectations for the wedding. I realized when the couple were dating that she came from a higher standard of living but thought it wouldn’t be a major problem. I guess I wasn’t thinking about the wedding.

Having just completed this article, which references him, I learned of the petira (passing) of my mentor, my friend, and my rebbe, Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, zt”l. By the time you read this, shiva will have been completed. I therefore decided to add this short introduction to honor my Rebbe’s memory.

Rabbi Stolper was responsible for changing the landscape of Torah outreach in North America beginning in the early 60s. NCSY and Rabbi Stolper were synonymous. NCSY was without a doubt on the cutting edge of kiruv (Jewish outreach) when it began its work over 60 years ago. NCSY succeed in reaching out to the huge numbers of young Jews who were rapidly being lost to assimilation. The word Shabbaton, which is now in common usage, was coined by Rabbi Stolper to describe the weekend teenage gatherings that gave many high schoolers their first taste of a real Shabbos, which included learning, zemiros, and dancing. Following a musical havdalah, there was a fun-filled melava malka with great food and entertainment.

Once again, just as in pandemic and even pre-pandemic days, Baltimore’s community organizations, businesses, and individuals came together; this time to tackle the baby formula needs of the community. Everyone collaborated to ensure infants were fed and parents’ minds were at ease knowing they would not have to suffer the consequences of the nationwide shortage crisis.

Just for some background, in September 2021, an infant in Minnesota became ill with a potentially lethal bacteria after consuming baby formula manufactured at the Abbot plant in Michigan. Shortly after, several more infants fell sick, and, tragically, two infants died from infection. The infections were under investigation, and after an FDA inspection of the Abbot facility in February, there was a recall on several batches of formula. Then the factory ceased production.

As we suffer from soaring temperatures and merciless humidity, there seems to be no refuge for our overheated lives. Since we can’t cool down the outside, a chilly interior is the next best thing. Ice cream makes people feel more comfortable and carefree; it’s hard to resist. With hundreds of variations to choose from, the hardest thing about eating ice cream is which flavor to pick. National favorites include vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, chocolate chip cookie dough, and mint chocolate chip. There even exist some horrific flavors like garlic, pizza, and mustard! Setting that thought aside, ice cream has been the “go to” food of choice for Americans nationwide since the colonial era.