Market Memories (and Passover Macaroon Cookies)

I’ve loved markets for as long as I can remember. There’s something very unique in the experience of walking between the packed stands and the calling merchants, smelling fresh herbs and dried spices, eyeing odd looking vegetables and trying new kinds of food you’ve never heard of. One of the first things I do when I explore a new traveling destination is checking to see where I could find an authentic farmer’s market. I experience life through food, so my most vivid recollections have something to do with food, especially those of my traveling in remote villages around the world: French freshly squeezed apple cider and local brioche loaves; Croatian peasant stew; an Irish sheep cheese my sister couldn’t get enough of so we actually drove back to get more, she was crying so hard; Guatemalan oh-so-soft yellow cakes; Chinese steamed bread; Bolivian colorful orn and the list goes on and on. BALKAN BEAT  But nothing beats childhood memories. My mother is of Turkish descent; so we always have a Balkan feel in family meals. In Tel Aviv, there’s a market called the Lewinsky Market. It lies in a neighborhood that used to be populated by many Balkan immigrants in the early 30’s. My mother still remembers when she was a child in the 60’s, how busy the streets were – filled with merchants selling everything from olives to lemonade, Turkish Burkes to different spices. TRAVEL ALERT  Today the market is alive and kicking, beautiful and colorful, but had changed its character from ingredient-driven to culinary-driven. The neighborhood lost most of its earlier residents, so the demand for the local ingredients has decreased and so did the specialty stores, leaving only a few open. But the market is far from gone; today, in its more up-to-date version, you can find many ethnic eateris from different Jewish cultures around the world like Persian, Greek and Turkish foods. You can still find some of the city’s best Burekas there. TWO WORDS ABOUT PASSOVER I don’t like dried coconut chips. At all. And most Passover sweets I know contains it, one way or the other. I’ve always tried to come up with recipes that would make a detour around it so I could also have a bite. No gluten doesn’t mean you have to stop making baked goods, right? So here’s how I came across a divine coconut-free, gluten-and-dairy-free cookie that I still love making any day of the year.. THE LOST WORLD Back to the market. A couple of years ago, on my mom’s birthday, we all went for a walk down memory lane around the old Lewinsky neighborhood, where my mother showed us where her grandmother used to live, the path she took to the now-long-gone grocery store and the playground. Wandering around, we got to a store we didn’t know before but my mother was excited to find again: an old bakery, with no signs on the outside, no name, just an “open” sign on the old milky-glass door and some antique-looking scales in the store front – it really looked like it wasn’t touched for a few decades. We followed her in. Inside we found an elderly couple, the woman hustling around the sheet trays and the man sitting down, with a huge pile of almonds next to him, and two bowls – one filled with water and silvered almonds and one with almond skins. It had a back-in-the-day kind of feel. Many shelves, but most of it half empty, with a selection of only 4-5 kinds of cookies. “This is where we came for special occasions – to get the best Marochinos cookies”. Marochinos is, as I’ve discovered later, the Ladino word for what we now know to be Almond cookies. “we are using only a certain kind of almond that is best for making these cookies. Because the cookie is flourless, the almond flavor is dominant and very important. We use raw almonds, soak it over night and peel it one by one, as I am doing now”. Which explained the piles. Because of the long, manual procedure, the cookies were kinda pricey so we each started with just one to taste. I will never forget my surprise when I took a bite into it; I didn’t really expect to like it, not as much as I did anyway. It was phenomenal. Dense but yet airy, sweet and scented… I knew I had to figure out how to make these. MAROCHINOS//AKA MACAROONS Makes around 30 cookies; this recipe requires a stand mixer.  From the pantry 8 oz almond paste 6 oz sugar 1 oz confectioners’ sugar 2 fl oz egg whites (2 large eggs should yield that) For Show: a little more confectioners’ sugar, to sprinkle decorating options: candied cherries, pine nuts Get Mixin’:

1. Cut almond paste to roughly 1-inch pieces.
2. Combine with the sugars in a stand up mixer, using the paddle attachment. Mix on very low speed for 2 minutes.
3. Lightly whisk the egg whites to break it. Turn the mixer speed a little higher and add the egg whites in 3 additions, scraping the bowl between additions. Mix until the batter unifies.
4. For best results, put in a closed container and allow to age in the fridge overnight. Nothing will happen if you decide to bake it straight away though J
5. Prepare a sheet tray with some parchment. Put the batter is a pastry bag with a ½-3/4 inch tip (you can spoon it too, it will just look different). Pipe / spoon batter onto the tray, leaving 1’’ around each cookie.
6. Using a damp cloth / water spray, moisten the top of the cookies. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar. You can decorate it with sliced candied cherries, pine nuts etc.
7. Bake at 375 for about 10-11 minutes, or until puffed and light-golden. Do not over bake – it will make the cookie dense and sticky. Cool before you try to take it off the tray; it tends to be very delicate when warm.

** Tip: These sweeties tend to stick to the paper. Don’t worry! When cool, lift the paper up and wet the sheet tray with a little bit of water, using wet hands. Wait 2 minutes and it will come off like a charm.