Time Travel Kitchen

An Anniversary, Pastry for St. Joseph’s Day and more from World Central Kitchen

Next week marks my one-year Anniversary here on Substack. I want to thank you so much for traveling with me and for all of your thoughtful comments along the way. I’ve logged over 50 posts this year and look forward to a second year of ‘Time Travel Kitchen’ and hope you do too.

Thanks also to Substack for their robust ongoing support and guidance.

I’m taking a short break and will return on April 8th with new posts and to introduce some additional options and content that will be available to you starting in mid-April.

Again, many thanks and I’ll see you on April 8th.

Jolene

But first….

St. Joseph Zeppole via Weber’s Bakery Instagram

Celebrating St. Joseph’s Day

March 19th, which is Saint Joseph’s Day, is celebrated in Italy with family and food. It’s a Father’s Day holiday and honors the quiet carpenter and patron saint of workers and families.

Special pastries, St. Joseph Zeppole and Sfince, are also available at bakeries around the U.S. on March 19th. The feast is often celebrated with Saint Joseph’s Spaghetti, a dish with garlic and olive oil and sometimes anchovy, covered in toasted breadcrumbs to represent the sawdust on the carpenter’s floor.

I know a lot about St. Joseph because it was the name of the school I attended from first grade straight through high school and I was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph.

I don’t recall any of the nuns mentioning pastry, though.

A Sicilian Tradition

Cooking teacher and author of seven books on Italian home cooking, Domenica Marchetti wrote about the history of St. Joseph’s Day a few years back for the Chicago Tribune, complete with recipe. Here is the link:

St. Joseph’s Day Treat: Make fried Sicilian pastry called sfince

Domenica also writes a terrific weekly newsletter on Substack, Buona Domenica .

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More from World Central Kitchen

Three weeks ago, I wrote about Chef Ievgen Klopotenko ( Klopotenko Recipes) pictured below, who owns a restaurant in Kyiv and sees Borscht as a unifying dish for Ukrainians, especially now.

This week he is in Lviv making hundreds of liters of borscht at a time with the tireless members of the World Central Kitchen team, serving thousands of refugees daily who are fleeing to the safety of Poland.

Chef Klopotenko testing the Borscht in Lviv photo from video via Instagram

I’ve learned this week that founder José Andrés and his team are also working in Odessa to ensure that there is food and drink for those still sheltering there. WCK had also set up in Moldova, Romania and Hungary.

To learn more about how to support their critical work, here is the link:

World Central Kitchen

World Central Kitchen

Thanks again, everyone and see you, April 8th.

Jolene