Thank you, golfer. Cooking is definitely one of my main hobbies, other than the cantorial arts and writing.
Half a chicken in the pot with veggies, lokshen, kreplach, kneidlech, and a good crusty corn rye is one of my favorite meals. My mother makes a really yummy chicken and rice soup for Passover that I look forward to every year.
Chicken soup is truly Jewish penicillin.
I even read in a cookbook that at the 2nd Avenue Deli, the Chinese waiters would take the chicken soup broth, and eat it with long noodles, sliced brisket, and scallions, in a sort of Asian kosher noodle soup dish. I’ve even eaten that, and I fortified the broth with a little ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I had a cold and I woke up feeling like new.
People lambaste Ashkenazic food; I think it has a very warming feeling (and I am Sephardi). I think Yiddish and its cultural shtick is also very valuable; you can’t hear Yiddish without laughing sometimes. It’s a funny language.