The Rural We: Susan Simon
The food writer partnered with a Catskill rabbi to create a book of recipes and stories that celebrate the Jewish holidays.
“My background is food — and the visual arts,” says Susan Simon in the introduction of her new cookbook, “The Cook and The Rabbi: Recipes and stories to celebrate the Jewish Holidays,” written with Rabbi Zoe B Zak. It’s a hybrid book: Rabbi Zak offers discussion-provoking thoughts on the holiday customs while Simon, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and artist contributes the folk art and recipes. Simon will be signing the book at Paper Trail in Rhinebeck on Saturday, October 14 from 3-5 p.m..
I was grew up in Stamford, Connecticut and in my junior year at Bard College, made up my own study year abroad to Italy. I promised my parents that I’d come back, but I stayed for eight years. Traveling has served me well in all the books I’ve written. Besides Italy, I’ve lived in or traveled to Nantucket, the Seychelles Islands, Morocco, Paris. Wherever I went my interest was more in markets than museums. Food became my medium — my way of expressing myself.
When I moved to NYC I worked for a caterer for two years. I found a cheap rental in East Village, took it and ran my own catering business there for 26 years.
After New York, I moved to Hudson, and wrote for other publications. I met Charlotte Sheedy, a well-known literary agent. She and I decided to go to Kol Nidre services at Temple Israel of Catskill and heard the gorgeous voice of Rabbi Zoe B Zak. When the service was over, we said “We have to meet the rabbi.” We did, with an idea for a book. We presented the idea to the rabbi over lunch at The Maker in the fall of 2019, and she agreed to it. Publishing moved very slowly during the pandemic, but we worked at our own pace, writing our own pieces that worked together.
It's been a journey. All of the books I’ve written are about place. So is this one, about the place I’ve settled, Hudson. I call this book Hudson Valley Jewish, because the recipes are not only the food of my historic ancestors made with local ingredients, but they also include new dishes that pay homage to those ingredients. I’ve been in Hudson for almost 12 years, and have seen enormous changes in the city, most very positive. We have such amazing restaurants and bakeries here.
We’ve received surprisingly good feedback on the book; we were up against fierce competition with a few other Jewish cookbooks that have recently been published. We’re not a matzo ball soup cookbook, but we’re up there.
