food & dining
I Keri White
tagged along with my husband on a
recent boondoggle to Miami Beach.

While roaming, I stumbled upon Time
Out Market, a venue that brings the best
local culinary talent together under one
roof in a carefully curated — for lack of a
better term — food court.

But before you turn the page, envision-
ing a mall setting populated with Orange
Julius and Cinnabon, hear me out.

TimeOut Markets, the brainchild of
TimeOut Magazine, are located in trendy
areas, often in historic buildings, and
showcase everyone from Michelin-
starred chefs to up-and-coming culinary
innovators. They serve on real china,
generally contain a few festive bars and
you don’t bus your table.

Each chef runs a small kiosk (think a
higher Reading Terminal Market) and
patrons can sample dishes from a wide
variety. Launched in 2014 in Lisbon,
TimeOut Markets have subsequently
opened in Miami, New York, Boston and
Chicago. Should you find yourself in any of
those cities, I highly recommend a detour.

Needless to say, I spent most of my
time in Miami Beach sampling the goods
in TimeOut Miami. I had vegan Chinese
dumplings, Venezuelan arepas, Mexican
tacos, all-American chocolate chip
cookies, Cuban coffee and Spanish pan
tomate. I also had the good fortune to score
a reservation at Lur, the creation of
Michelin-starred chef Aitor Garate
Berasaluze. This eight-seat-only Friday
night special offers a multicourse meal
served at a counter
overlooking the bustling
kitchen. The activity was
staggering — chef and
his assistant delivered
world-class, beautifully
presented cuisine and
wine pairings, all while serving custom-
ers at the counter who ordered dishes
from the tapas menu.

The tasting menu showcased dishes
from Berasaluze’s native Basque Country
in Northeastern Spain. I did not have
sufficient chutzpah to ask for his recipes,
but the following are a decent approx-
imation of courses adapted for home
cooks. If you are squeamish about raw
egg, you can coddle it or poach it before
serving, or just give the mushrooms a
drizzle of best-quality olive oil instead.

Cauliflower Soup | Dairy
Serves 4
Chef served the soup with bonito
flakes, which are dried tuna flakes.

These are not for everyone; you can
skip the garnish entirely or add some
toasted garlic, toasted almond slivers,
a sprinkle of fresh parsley or a drizzle
of olive or truffle oil.

1 head cauliflower, cut into small
pieces 1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 potato, peeled if desired, and
chopped 1 teaspoon salt
White or black pepper to taste
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
Garnishes: toasted almonds,
chopped fresh parsley, truffle/
olive oil or toasted garlic slices
In a large pot, melt the butter and
sauté the onion until fragrant. Add the
salt, pepper, cauliflower and potatoes.

Stir to coat. Add vegetable broth, and
bring it to a boil. Lower the heat, cover
and simmer for 30 minutes until the
24 FEBRUARY 23, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Monika / AdobeStock
A Culinary Trip to Basque
Country Via Miami Beach
vegetables are totally soft.

Using an immersion blender, puree
the soup until very smooth. Add cream,
taste for seasoning and serve as desired.

Basque Seared Mushrooms |
Pareve Serves 4
The traditional way to serve this is
with a raw yolk in the middle of the
mushrooms — you break the yolk,
and stir it into the cooked mushrooms
before you dig in — the theory being
that the hot mushrooms “cook” the
egg. If you do go this route, be sure to
use a fresh, organic egg.

1 pound mushrooms (chanterelles,
king oyster, et cetera), sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
Handful fresh parsley
4 egg yolks (discard whites or use
for another purpose)
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil
and sear the mushrooms over medium
to medium-high. Add the salt and
pepper, and continue cooking for about
5 minutes, turning once. When the
mushrooms are nicely seared, lower
the heat to medium, add the garlic,
and continue cooking for another 3-5
minutes. Remove the skillet from the
heat and add fresh parsley and more
salt and pepper, if needed.

Divide the mushrooms among four
shallow bowls, leaving a space in the
center of each. Carefully place the yolk
in the center, and serve immediately. ■
Keri White is a Philadelphia-based
freelance food writer.




synagogue spotlight
Temple Judea Remains a Spiritual
Center for Doylestown-Area Residents
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Photo by Lori Bergman
W hen it opened in 1959, Temple Judea
of Bucks County became “the fi rst
synagogue in Doylestown” and “the fi rst
Reform synagogue in Bucks County,” according to a
2019 Bucks County Courier Times article. Today, the
shul has 150 member families and a building at 38
Rogers Road in Furlong, its home for the last 10 years.

But in 2023 and 2024, the community will fi ght for
its life.

A decline in membership since 2019, from almost
200 households to the current number, has made the
Furlong property “too burdensome,” Treasurer Joel
Weiner said. At a congregational meeting in January,
shul leaders informed members that they were going
to look into selling the building by the end of 2024.

The almost two-year timeline would give the congre-
gation time to fi gure out its next move.

But it was what happened over the rest of that
meeting that gave everybody in the room hope. One
after another, people got up and said they wanted to
fi gure out that next step. It was important to them to
“stay together and continue the tradition of Temple
Judea,” according to President Len Saff ren.

“No matter where we were in the physical space, we
were a community,” Saff ren recalled of the message
he got from congregants. “I found that to be the most
heartening piece of information.”
It also made practical sense. Sixty-four years on from
its founding, Temple Judea plays the same important
role that it did in 1959. It’s a spiritual center for the
Reform Jews of Warwick, Chalfont, Warrington and
other towns in the Doylestown area. Central Bucks
has a Jewish population but not many synagogues.

Lower Bucks has Shir Ami in Newtown, Ohev Shalom
in Richboro and several others. But as you drive north
in this county of more than 600,000 residents, it’s
Temple Judea, the Conservative Tiferes B’nai Israel in
Warrington, the Reconstructionist Kehilat HaNahar in
New Hope and the Chabad Lubavitch of Doylestown.

That’s it.

So even though Temple Judea’s membership is
declining, it is getting younger, according to Weiner.

The base includes 86 religious school students and
50-60 religious school families. Weiner estimates that
a third of the shul’s congregants are Hebrew school
families. There are also 156 kids in Temple Judea’s
Small Wonders preschool, though not all of them are
synagogue members.

Temple Judea of Bucks County
The Bucks County synagogue is also attracting a
key group in Jewish community life today: interfaith
families. Saff ren said 35-40% of Temple Judea’s
congregants are interfaith households.

“We play a very signifi cant role in Central Bucks,”
he added.

Tom Gibson, 45, is Catholic but he’s been a member
of Temple Judea for 20 years. As Gibson explained,
he married a Jewish girl, his wife Kim, and while he
was not comfortable converting, he was secure in
raising their three children Jewish. Today, Gibson is a
board member at Temple Judea, and his fi rst two kids
have celebrated their bar and bat mitzvahs there. His
youngest daughter is 11 and on her way to starting that
same process.

“I want to make sure this community stays in place,”
Gibson said.

Janna Fisher, 43, feels the same way even though
she only joined last year. Her 9-year-old daughter and
7-year-old son just went through Small Wonders. But
now that Fisher’s daughter is in third grade, the family
has to join to send her to the Hebrew school, accord-
ing to synagogue policy. The Furlong resident is
happy to do it. She had a Jewish community growing
up and she wants the same for her kids.

In Hebrew school, you make Jewish friends who
understand you. It’s not public school where you
always have to explain yourself. Fisher believes that
it’s important to have that safe haven, especially in an
era of rising antisemitism. The Central Bucks School
District in recent years has been too permissive of
a culture of antisemitism, according to some Jewish
parents in the district. And district leaders took down
a poster in a school library that showed a quote from
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, only to apologize later
and put it back up.

“When there’s so much going on in the world, it’s
nice to have a central place where other people
have similar beliefs as you, similar traditions as you,”
Fisher said.

The synagogue’s plan moving forward, according
to Weiner, is to sell the Rogers Road property and
use the equity to pay for a new home. It will be in the
Doylestown area since that’s where most congre-
gants live.

“People want this temple. They want to be a
community. And that’s not going to go away,” said Lori
Bergman, the temple’s director of education. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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