Grandma Ethel’s Braid is an epic and engaging story of culture, family, love, romance, and adventure. In Part 1, the story follows three generations of a Jewish family as they journey from oppressive Russia in the early 20th century to freedom in America. Once in America, Ethel and her family carve out a new life. Ethel marries and has a daughter. In Part 2, Ethel, her daughter, and her granddaughter face more modern challenges well into the 21st century. A story you won’t forget!

A rare mix of wit, social satire, and suspense, along with characters who leap from the page to speak directly to the reader, As Husbands Go is a moving story about a love that just won't give up. Call her superficial, but Susie B Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten assumed her marriage was great—and why not? Jonah Gersten, MD, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon, clearly adored her. He was handsome, successful, and a doting dad to their four-year-old triplets. But when Jonah is found dead in the Upper East Side apartment of second-rate “escort” Dorinda Dillon, Susie is overwhelmed with questions left unanswered. It’s bad enough to know your husband’s been murdered, but even worse when you’re universally pitied (and quietly mocked) because of the sleaze factor. None of it makes sense to Susie—not a sexual liaison with someone like Dorinda, not the “better not to discuss it” response from Jonah’s partners. With help from her tough-talking, high-style grandma Ethel, who flies in from Miami, she takes on her snooty in-laws, her husband’s partners, the NYPD, and the DA as she tries to prove that her wonderful life with Jonah was no lie. Susan Isaacs brilliantly turns the conventions of the mystery on end as Susie Gersten, suburban mom, floral designer, and fashion plate, searches not so much for answers to her husband's death as for answers to her own life.

Abandoned by her father and rejected by her mother, 4 year-old Jennie is taken without explanation from her kindergarten class and driven through the night to live with her grandparents. They live on a farm where gophers pop out of the ground, turkey gobblers give chase, the bathroom is in a little house near the woods, and which is austere and culturally limited. Almost from the beginning she tries to run away back to live with her mother in Minneapolis. But her grandparents, although undemonstrative, steadfastly support her. Grandpa helps her with her homework at night sitting around the kitchen table lit by a kerosene lamp, she sits on his lap, while riding the binder, and curls up with him on the sofa at nap time. She helps her Grandmother with the chickens, picking eggs and feeding the pigs. But conflicts arise. Especially with her aunt , Hilda who is spiteful and humiliating. Jennie wants to run away and find her father in Canada but all her attempts fail. As far back as in kindergarten, Jennie liked to draw. So in first grade when she was asked to draw the picture placed on the blackboard in front of the class, she worked hard to copy the exact likeness. The picture was The Last Supper. After that, she became known as the class artist. Hilda felt Jennie was wasting her time drawing and discouraged her. Reading, another of Jennie's interests, was also considered wasteful. All through high school Jennie continued to be the school artist. During this time she became attached to Frank, a future farmer with a kind, uncomplicated view of life. He loved her but knew her dream was to leave the farm and go to study art. After graduating from high school Jennie is offered a job in Washington, D. C. Her grandmother slips her thirty dollars and urges her to leave at once, before Aunt Hilda can interfere. Her new life in the city is a shock and a revelation. Jennie discovers art galleries, takes her first real art lesson using pastels, and begins to acquire a new set of goals and values. Two years later, she returns to Minneapolis and enrolls at the University of Minnesota in art. Life is a struggle as she has to work to support herself and pay for her education. While working at one of the her jobs, she meets Jim, a young psychology student who is using the G.I. Bill to attend university. Soon they marry, unknown to either Jennies' mother or her aunt Hilda. Jim is very supportive of Jennie's interest in art. Between leaving the farm and starting university a series of tragedies occurred. Her grandparents died—first her grandfather, then her grandmother. Earlier a favorite uncle shot himself. Another uncle died under questionable circumstances and her mother becomes committed to a mental hospital while her father remained a mystery in spite of efforts to locate him. After graduating from university, she paints and exhibits her work, exploring new directions of expression. It is not easy to find success. When galleries are either hanging her work upside down or failing to pay her, they disappear from sight. Her first real success comes from entering a painting in an exhibition in New York. Titled Subjective-Objective, the painting and received first prize. From then on Jennie's goal to become an accomplished artist plays an important part in her life. Still, she couldn't forget the farm where her uncle now lives. One day, she decided to go back to the place she'd grown up and had wanted to escape. Seeing the faded wallpaper on the upstairs hall the stippled paint walls, the empty bookcase, Jennie becomes aware she has slowly moved from the austere and culturally limited setting of the farm to a new world, one of painting, art, and intellectual interactions. She'd left the farm and could not return. Back in Toronto, Jennie walked into their condo, past th

Got kugel? Got Kugel with Toffee Walnuts? Now you do. Here's the real homemade Gefilte Fish – and also Salmon en Papillote. Grandma Sera Fritkin’s Russian Brisket and Hazelnut-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Aunt Irene's traditional matzoh balls and Judy's contemporary version with shiitake mushrooms. Cooking Jewish gathers recipes from five generations of a food-obsessed family into a celebratory saga of cousins and kasha, Passover feasts – the holiday has its own chapter – and crossover dishes. And for all cooks who love to get together for coffee and a little something, dozens and dozens of desserts: pies, cakes, cookies, bars, and a multitude of cheesecakes; Rugelach and Hamantaschen, Mandelbrot and Sufganyot (Hanukkah jelly doughnuts). Not to mention Tanta Esther Gittel’s Husband’s Second Wife Lena’s Nut Cake. Blending the recipes with over 160 stories from the Rabinowitz family—by the end of the book you'll have gotten to know the whole wacky clan—and illustrated throughout with more than 500 photographs reaching back to the 19th century, Cooking Jewish invites the reader not just into the kitchen, but into a vibrant world of family and friends. Written and recipe-tested by Judy Bart Kancigor, a food journalist with the Orange County Register, who self-published her first family cookbook as a gift and then went on to sell 11,000 copies, here are 532 recipes from her extended family of outstanding cooks, including the best chicken soup ever – really! – from her mother, Lillian. (Or as the author says, "When you write your cookbook, you can say your mother's is the best.") Every recipe, a joy in the belly.

Twelve-year-old Kelly and her younger brother Brandan are grieving the loss of their grandparents. When they visit their grandparents' home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to help pack up the belongings, they discover items hidden away and realize their grandfather was a man with secrets who may not have died from natural causes. Discoveries in an abandoned mansion and secrets from the Civil War create a mystery that Kelly and Brandan must solve in order to find the truth about their grandfather's death.

As the holidays bring new adventures, the Brooksville kids learn about sharing, honesty, and God's love from their parents and Grandma Bagley.