Kosher Cookbook: Sammy Davis Jr.-Greens (Collard)

My way
   Food has never really been that important to me, as you can tell by my hulking hundred and fifteen frame-soaking wet. For me, it has always been a question of eating for survival or purely social reasons. When I find myself getting hungry, which is normally at very odd hours in the morning, I generally pick myself up from bed very quietly, so as not to disturb Altovise, tiptoe out of the room. As soon as I pass the threshold. I hear a voice from beneath the blankets, "The chicken soup is in the big pot, and the vegetable soup in the little one."
   Then I trot into the kitchen and put the pot of my choice on the stove. Sometimes, when I desire a real gourmet treat, I mix the two soups together-"Ain't no soul food ever tasted like that!" In a way, eating kosher food comes close to soul food for me, and since I've been in show business, I've eaten more kosher dishes than black-eyed peas.

Greens (Collard)
   6 bunches of collard greens
   4 pounds flanken
   1 green pepper, diced
   2 onions, diced
      pinch of sugar
      pinch of baking soda
   4 whole dry red peppers
     salt and pepper to taste

Method: Cook flanken in water to cover for about 3 hours, until meat falls off bones. Reserve meat. Wash greens 5 or 6 times in salt water, break them up in pieces and cook them in broth from the flanken. Then add peppers, onions, sugar, soda, red pepper. Cook for 45 minutes.
   Add meat or serve it separately with strong white horseradish and cornbread. Dunk bread into soup.
  

Kosher Cookbook: Elke Sommer-German Coffee Cake

   Icing
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 pound confectioners' sugar, sifted (scant 3 cups) salt
4 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla rum
finely chopped pecans
  
   Method: Cream butter and sugar with hand beater until fluffy. Add salt and stir in milk. Keep beating until very fluffy. Add vanilla. Cut cake into 1 1/2 inch squares. Pour a generous teaspoon of rum on each cake square. Spread icing on all sides and roll in chopped fresh pecans. The icing part is pretty messy, but it all comes out beautifully as you roll it around in the chopped nuts. I use a chopping bowl for this. You can substitute moist coconut for nuts and you have Snow Rum Balls instead of Pecan Rum Cakes. Or, if you leave out the rum, you have plain Snow Balls, which are great too. Make them 2 1/2 inches square and you have a dessert dish instead of an accompaniment. Makes about 44 little cakes.

Elke Sommer

The Fifth Question by Joe Hyams

   Elke never had kosher food until I took her to a seder at my friend, Marshall Flaum's house. Not wanting to embarrass Elke, Marshall and I decided to read the service in English so she could follow along.
   Elke didn't say anything. We read the Hagaddah in our native tongue and when we came to the traditional blessings, we were careful to point to the transliteration.  When we came to the four questions, we honored Elke by asking her to read them. She rose regally, turned the transliterated part over and set her sights on the Hebrew. As I was about to caution her that she was looking at the wrong page, she began, "Ma Nishtana Halailah Hazeh, Mikol Halelot..."
   Marshall and I sat flabbergasted as she read the Hebrew flawlessly.
   Marshall recovered his composure first, "How, where?" He hadn't recovered that well.
   "My father was a minister. He studied the Old Testament in it's original. He taught me how to read Hebrew."
   "But," I interrupted , "You never told me you knew how to read Hebrew."
   Elke looked at me with her soulful and tantalizing eyes, "You never asked," she said simply, as she sat and began reading the answers for the four questions in Hebrew.

   German Coffee Cake                                                                         Serves 8
3 cups flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Method: Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, spices and sugar. Work vegetable shortening into dry ingredients. Add eggs combined with milk. Stir until smooth. Pour into a greased shallow pan (8 by 12). With fork, blend the first five ingredients below and spread smoothly on top of batter; then sprinkle with nuts:

1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts

   Bake in 350-degree oven  30 minutes.