From Kim Vu. He also has his own food blog, DC Wrapped Dates. Follow him at@dcwrappeddates or email him at kim[AT]borderstan.com.

I’ve eaten at quite a number of seders, and shabbat and sukkot dinners in my lifetime, and so there’s a special place in my heart for good latkes or braised brisket, or even the taste of charoset.

I’ve also eaten quite a number of meals from Todd Gray and Equinox in my lifetime, and whether it’s a celebration of mid-Atlantic seafood or a ricotta agnolotti in a parmesan truffle butter sauce, there’s a soulfulness that emanates from each bite.

“The New Jewish Table” Cookbook

So what if I told you that you could have the tradition and flavors and culture of Jewish cuisine, but with the seasonality, refinement and elegance that only comes from a brilliant James-Beard-award-winning chef? That’s what jumps out from every page of “The New Jewish Table,” the new cookbook from Chef Todd Gray and wife Ellen Kassoff Gray.

From a pure design perspective, the cookbook is brilliant: the fonts are crisp and handsome, the pictures beautiful and the layout intuitive and friendly. If you didn’t cook from it, you could easily feature it out as a coffee table book. Dishes are organized not only by season — a nod to the Grays’ commitment to seasonal foods — but the book also notes each recipe’s kosher status, so as to warn home cooks about mixing dairy and meat.

The recipes themselves are to die for, and range from modern re-conceptions of old family recipes (the cover is Not Exactly Aunt Lil’s Matzo Ball Soup, for example), to plates straight from the Equinox kitchen (such as the Mac and Cheese).

Our Adventures with the Book

Our fondness for this cookbook is great, both aesthetically and gastronomically. In the span of a few days, we had our own adventure testing out the aforementioned mac and cheese recipe (see below), and had the chance to sample some more dishes at a loving seder thrown at Equinox by the Grays, where they featured three dishes straight out of their Passover menu and cookbook.

All four samplings showed what is best about Chef Gray’s food: bright, crisp flavors that accentuate fresh ingredients, and a deep soulfulness that reflects the chef’s care and precision.

• A roasted beet salad with golden raisins and pistachios conquers even my companion’s beet-ambivalent heart, with warm, sweet bites.
• The beef brisket in red wine sauce on a golden potato mousseline is the best brisket either of us have ever had the pleasure of eating, by a large margin. It perfectly marries tender meat with the cut’s natural oily fat into melt-in-your-mouth goodness.
• A flourless chocolate cake is buoyed by salted caramel ice cream, and reminds you that a dish can temper decadence while still ramping up flavor.
• And the mac and cheese? Let’s just say we gladly made the full six- to eight-person portion, and its three-cheese-and-bechamel base was more than enough to remind ourselves why Equinox holds such a place in our heart.

If you add one cookbook to your shelf this year, give this one some strong consideration. You won’t be disappointed.

The Details

• “The New Jewish Table”
• by Todd Gray and Ellen Kassoff Gray
• St. Martin’s Press

Full Disclousure: I received a copy of the book at no charge to review it for my personal food-blog.

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