Chabad Blogger in Wall St. Journal

By LUCETTE LAGNADO – Wall Street Journal

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Chanie Apfelbaum has been busy preparing for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights known for simple old-fashioned pleasures, including lighting a menorah, spinning a four-sided top called a dreidel, and eating lots of latkes, or crispy fried potato pancakes.

In her spacious kosher kitchen, Ms. Apfelbaum, a food blogger and gourmet cook, stays true to tradition. She grates onions and potatoes by hand, then cracks eggs and adds matzo meal to make batter that she doles out carefully into a pan filled with sizzling oil. The result: a tray of round golden brown latkes like her Bubbe, or grandmother, made.

But tradition ends there.

“I want to take latkes to the next level—I want a gourmet latke,” declares Ms. Apfelbaum, reaching for a pot of thick flavorful brown gravy that she proceeds to slather on top of the pancakes. She sprinkles ringlets of cheese that melt into the sauce and voilà: “poutine latkes”—a variation of the popular Quebecois french fries.

Hallowed Hanukkah traditions are spinning out of control faster than a whirring dreidel. Even the venerable menorah, shaped like a candelabra, has been reinvented with families buying some that resemble their favorite pet dogs, a moose, or in the case of car lovers, a pink Cadillac.

Then there is the most radical change of all: The extreme makeover of the latke.

The humble, centuries-old dish, popular among Eastern European Jews, is made with three basic ingredients: eggs, potatoes and flour, with maybe some onion thrown in. These days, Jewish gourmets are determined to give it a makeover.

“My grandparents are rolling over in their grave,” says kosher food maven Jamie Geller, who oversees a cooking empire called Kosher Media Network that includes cookbooks, a magazine, and an online kosher cooking network that features 40 bloggers, including Ms. Apfelbaum.

“Welcome to the 21st Century,” says Ms. Geller. “No longer is a classic latke enough.” She opines that as American Jews have become “foodies,” they are no longer satisfied with grandma’s beloved potato latkes.

Ms. Geller can rattle off all the newfangled latkes that align with one trendy diet or another. There are vegan latkes, made without any eggs, and low-carb latkes. There are gluten-free latkes. There are even “Paleo” latkes—named after the fashionable Paleolithic Diet—and which are both low carb and Gluten free, and don’t allow the use of white potatoes. (Sweet potatoes are permitted, but there is some debate about that too.)

For Nina Safar, a Los Angeles-based kosher food blogger, the liberation of the latke is a godsend. “By the second night everyone’s bored with traditional latkes, and I want to spice it up to keep it exciting,” says Ms. Safar.

That is why she has spent weeks trying out new recipes on her family. For Hanukkah, Ms. Safar has devised a menu consisting of eight different latkes—one for every night of the holiday. They include grilled cheese latkes; sausage hash brown latkes; latke “sliders” made with barbecued chicken; and of course poutine latkes.

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