food & dining
Summer Best
Bites L
ast week, Becca Hyman visited me.

She happens to be a friend of my
daughter’s and is also the doyenne
of “Becca’s Best Bites,” a series of cooking
videos on Instagram that features primar-
ily vegetarian and vegan cooking.

I was happy to hand over the kitchen
to her during her visit and enjoyed sev-
eral delicious dishes courtesy of her deft
culinary hand.

When asked how she got into cook-
ing and posting, Hyman answered with
exuberant good humor.

“My hobby is eating! But really, I give
a huge thanks to my mom and dad for
their amazing cooking skills. Because
of them, I have loved cooking my whole
life. For me, cooking provides a way to
de-stress and have fun.”
Hyman came to enjoy vegetarian and
vegan dishes recently: “I started cook-
ing more vegetarian and vegan recipes
during COVID, a time when we all
found some new hobbies. I loved the
challenge of thinking of some of my
favorite dishes and making them with-
out meat.”
When she moved out on her own
following her graduation from Brandeis
University, Hyman further embraced
vegetarian eating.

“I decided to continue to try to eat
less meat because it not only made me
feel good, but it also was surprisingly
cheap,” she said. “As I continued on
this journey, my friends, somewhat
relentlessly, would encourage me to post
about my process. Finally, I decided to
create @beccas.bestbites, and I am so
happy I did.

“I love sharing my recipes and passion
for cooking with the world. Seeing peo-
ple comment and react that I inspired
them to cook something new or just
start cooking in the first place is so
exciting for me.

We enjoyed these Vietnamese-style
summer rolls for lunch, courtesy of
Hyman, who is clearly invited back any
time. The rolls are supremely adaptable
— use whatever fresh veggies you have
on hand, as well as any leftover cold
20 meat or fish. The recipe below suggests
fried tofu, but we had them with leftover
roasted chicken, and they were great.

Vietnamese-Style Summer Rolls
Makes 6 rolls, which serve 2-3 as a
main dish or 4-6 as a side
6 rice paper wrappers
2 cups assorted fresh vegetables,
cut into thin strips. We used
cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots
and red cabbage.

6 large sprigs fresh cilantro, chopped
6 large fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 cup protein of choice, if desired,
such as fried or grilled tofu,
cooked chicken, beef or fish.

Peanut Dipping Sauce
This makes about ⅔ cup; the leftover
is great on beef or chicken satay or
tossed in cold noodles.

½ cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
(such as Sriracha)
2 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon grated ginger
Splash of sesame oil
¼ cup water (or more depending
upon how thick you want the
sauce) 1 tablespoon maple syrup
Whisk together all of the peanut
dipping sauce ingredients, and set
them aside.

Chop the veggies and protein (if
using) into thin pieces about 2 inches
long. Fill a large, shallow bowl with warm
water — it must be large enough to sub-
merge a wrapper without having it fold
over. Make the summer rolls one at a
time: Place one wrapper in the water for
about 15 seconds until it softens to the
texture of a wet noodle. Remove it from
the water, gently shake off the excess,
dab it on a kitchen towel and place it on
a plate or cutting board.

Fill the wrapper as desired with
JULY 28, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
veggies and protein. Fold it together,
like a burrito, tucking the ends in.

Set it aside on a serving plate, and
repeat until all the wrappers and fill-
ings are used.

Note: It will be harder to fold if
you overstuff it, but if the rolls come
apart, it’s not the end of the world. It
will just be more of a knife-and-fork
dish than finger food.

Vegan Potato Salad with
Mustard and Herbs
Serves 8
Hyman also made this potato salad
for a traditional hamburger and hot
dog barbecue one night. Although
our menu was by no means vegan,
this potato salad is.

One comment: I consider myself
an open-minded cook and eater,
but full disclosure, the sun-dried
tomatoes did not really work for me
in this dish. The mustardy/herby/
oniony vibe was heading in one
direction, but the tomatoes were a
bit of a left turn. I was, however, in
the minority, and the other assem-
bled guests thought the sun-drieds
were a great addition.

2 pounds potatoes cut into bite-
sized pieces (we did not peel
them) ¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ cup chopped celery
¼ cup chopped parsley
¼ cup chopped scallions
3 tablespoons finely chopped
oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped dill
Cook the potatoes in salted boiling
water, covered, until tender, about
15 minutes. Cool the potatoes com-
pletely — refrigerate to accelerate
this process, if desired.

Whisk the oil, vinegar, mustard,
salt and pepper in a bowl, and pour it
over the potatoes. Toss to coat.

Add the remaining ingredients,
and toss them to combine. Let it sit
for a few hours if possible to allow
the flavors to blend.

Serve at room temperature or
chilled. JE
Photo by Keri White
KERI WHITE | SPECIAL TO THE JE



arts & culture
Temple Judea Museum to Show
Climate Crisis Exhibit at MCCC
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
T emple Judea Museum’s “Out of
the Whirlwind: Fire, Air, Water,
Earth; Reflections and Forecasts
on Global Warming and Climate
Change” was dreamed up long before
COVID began. For TJM director and
curator Rita Poley, there’s never been a
more apt time to put on the exhibit.

The art exhibit, opening Aug. 26 at
Montgomery County Community
College, is a study on the impacts of global
warming, inspired by Jewish texts replete
with commentary on the subject. A recent
heat wave across Philadelphia, other parts
of the U.S. and Europe only made the
exhibit’s theme more appropriate.

“From the Zohar to the Talmud to the
Bible, it was just this whole unfolding of
beautiful references and thought about
nature as a force,” Poley said. “And that
was how we gravitated to seeing this
theme of the elements and global warm-
ing as a threat to nature as a man-made
problem.” The exhibit from TJM, part of Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins
Park, will feature the works of 17 art-
ists from the TJM Artists’ Collaborative,
a group of professional artists and KI
members, and 14 Jewish guest artists
from the community. MCCC Gallery
Director Patrick Rodgers will help Poley
curate the pieces.

Even a month before the exhibit
opens, Poley and Rodgers are putting
in the hours to organize the show.

Though the weeks leading up to the
exhibit’s Aug. 22 installation are “the
calm before the storm,” “Whirlwind”
has lived up to its name; it’s a show
three years in the making.

In late 2019, Marlene Adler, chair of
the Artists’ Collaborative, approached
Rodgers, a longtime collaborator, about
a show on climate change. Even at the
onset of the pandemic, the commitment
to bringing the exhibit to fruition was
unwavering. “It’s a signal of how important a topic
climate change is,” Rodgers said. “On
top of all that, we’ve just kept at it all
these years.”
Diane Pieri’s “Fire Danger High” about the California wild fires she encountered
while living there in the 1990s
Courtesy of Rita Poley
At this point, artists have submitted
all pieces for the exhibit and are finaliz-
ing the descriptions that will accompany
the pieces. Though Poley and Rodgers
selected each piece specifically for the
show, they will not be able to organize
and curate the pieces in the space until
four days before the exhibit opening.

Despite the crunched timeline, there’s
little Rodgers can do to prepare for the
layout of the exhibit beyond painting
walls and pedestals.

“You never know how everything is
going to play until it’s all in front of you,”
he said. “And that process is just sort of
magical and fun in its own way.”
Though the pieces range from paint-
ings to sculptures, Poley believes they
are all cohesive in their relevance to the
show’s theme.

“It was pretty obvious that the artists
who got it really got it,” Poley said.

“That they were moved by the subject,
moved by what’s going on in our envi-
ronment today.”
The pieces — beyond showing one of
the fire, air, water and earth elements —
also have a layer of commentary, often
somber, about climate change.

“Some artists were submitting artwork
that was like pretty trees,” Poley said.

“I had to say to them, ‘This isn’t about
pretty trees.’”
Diane Pieri, a guest artist for the
exhibit, is showing her series “Fire Danger
High” about forest fires in California,
where she lived in the 1990s. She com-
pleted the pieces in 1997, but according
to Poley, they fit with the theme even 25
years later.

“Fire Danger High” was created on
large sheets of papyrus that Pieri set
on fire, creating splotches of scorch
marks. Gold leaf and flowers adorn the
destroyed papyrus.

“Flowers, to me, represented a kind
of beauty, and the fire wasn’t. It was a
destroying factor,” Pieri said.

The purpose of the pieces is to draw in
the viewer to the gold and floral patterns,
but as the viewer pays more attention to
the piece, they realize its deeper meaning.

Leon Chudzinski, a newer member of
TJM’s Artists’ Collaborative, also uses gold
in his piece “Legacy,” a sculpture made out
of found materials from Chudzinski’s gar-
den and backyard shed, including chicken
wire, stakes and a hose reel.

The sculpture, which was created spe-
cifically for the exhibit, is shaped like
an hourglass and spins, showing off a
moving tornado at the top of the hour-
glass feeding into the bottom chamber
filled with gold “sand.” In addition to
showing the increase in natural disasters
climate change will cause, the piece also
Leon Chudzinksi’s “Legacy” about
the inherited burden of the younger
generation addressing climate change
illustrates that the younger generation
is running out of time to fix the climate
crisis. The gold represents the wealth
the older generation extracted by using
natural resources at the expense of the
environment, Chudzinski said.

“As part of our [Jewish] teachings,
obviously we all should be stewards of
the Earth,” he said. “We all should care;
we all should give back.”
“Out of the Whirlwind: Fire, Air,
Water, Earth” will be exhibited at
MONTCO’s Blue Bell campus from Aug.

26 to Sept. 30. For more information,
visit kenesethisrael.org/out-of-the-whirl-
wind. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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