My Favorite Despotic Tyrant Cookie or How I Learned to Love Prune Filling
My favorite thing the Jews ever did was make a cookie in honor of a genocidal maniac. If that's not hilarious and proof of a sense of humor well... then... I've no second half to that sentence.
Purim’s coming, and with it hamantaschen. I just love these three pointed cookies that have been a fixture of all my life. As a kid, we’d make them every year, filling them with canned cherries, mun (a poppy seed filling that came in a jar) and lekvar (prune puree) which was my favorite! Making hamantaschen is one of the few, functional childhood memories left clanging in my brain. We used Mom Mom’s recipe, it called for orange juice in the dough and it was the first family recipe of which I was aware.
Hamantaschen are named for Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story. Haman was a power hungry and genocidal anti-Semite. Sort of a proto-Hitler whose technological capacity was limited to extra-large gallows rather than industrial gas chambers and railroads. At least that’s how I learned about all this as an 8-year-old kid in Hebrew Day School. Though they did wait until I was 10 to show us the newsreel footage of emaciated bodies being bulldozed into mass graves and walking skeletons flashing their numbered arms through barbed wire.
The triangle-shaped cookie, I thought, was fashioned after Haman’s hat, a popular style in ancient Persian, as well as colonial, times. But I just read on wikipedia, literally just now, that hamantaschen means “Haman’s pockets” in Yiddish. No matter. In Hebrew, they’re called oznei haman which means “Haman’s ears.” Imagine if we honored Hitler with a cookie shaped like his ears… or his mustache! “I’ll take a box of hasafam shel Hitler,” you’d say at your favorite Hebrew bakery.
But all this despotic tyrant pastry glory got me thinking what I would cook if each course at a dinner was in honor of my favorite genocidal maniacs. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s a niche dinner party that appeals to few. But I wrote the menu anyway!
The Demagogue Dinner by Chef Ari Miller
HAMAN - Boudin Noir Hamantaschen
This might look like a classic chocolate filled but instead it is pastry folded to three points around citrus-seasoned pig’s blood. Dusted with cacao to complete the illusion.
BIBI NETANYAHU - Gold Leaf Embossed Falafel & Foie Gras Mousse
Gold leaf celebrates this psychopath who employs hell in pursuit of his own survival.
Served with a classic Arabic salad, though most American-Jews would call it Israeli.
ADOLF HITLER - Semmelknödel in Smoked Liver Ragu
Old bread is given new life in these dumplings, not to be confused with kneydl.
Please mutter “may his name be erased” under your breath with each bite.
VLADIMIR PUTIN - Herring & Potato filled Green Pelmeni, Sour Cream & Caviar
The handmade dill dough is filled with traditionally cured fish and potatoes.
Topped with caviar, we should enjoy something nice while waiting for the Cossacks.
DONALD TRUMP - Steak, Sunchokes, Huli Huli & Herr’s Cheese Doodles
Well cooked, not well done steak can be dipped in Poi Dog’s Huli Huli sauce,
because let’s support a small, woman-owned business and not use fucking ketchup.
Sunchokes offer a silent prayer of his demise. Cheese doodles are sourced locally (in PA).
EL GUAPO - Hamantaschen filled Piñata
Sure the meal was delicious but it’s time to beat the hell out of something!
Filled with hamantaschen to honor all our genocidal maniacs. Fuck.
As much as I’d like to actually cook this dinner someday, I did actually make those boudin noir hamantaschen back at my bakery in Tel Aviv. You can read about it in the Pork Memoir archives.
And despite no plans to cook The Demagogue Dinner anytime soon, I am cooking two upcoming dinners of which I’m particularly proud. First, is on Saturday, March 23rd with one seating at 7:30pm. It’s a tiny bit of a Musi revival in collaboration with Emmett at Lillians. It’s kind of an underground scene, so if you’re interested you have to fill out a Google form and reach out to them. I’m just the guest chef. Here’s the menu, no mods are available and I think there’s maybe 6 seats left.
This is the first mention I’m making of it, but Kiki and I are hosting another private dinner on Saturday, March 30th with two seatings at 6pm and 8:30pm. But instead of me and Kiki cooking, this time I’m cooking with Joe!
If you follow on Instagram you might have seen that Kiki and I were just in Italy for the Parabere Forum. While in Rome we had dinner with Joe, who was a cook at FrizWit and Musi. After working for me, he went to work for Marc Vetri. From there he moved to Rome. He’s back in town for the month, so we’ve put together:
Ari & Joe’s Italian Escapade - The menu will feature a sour cherry spritz to start, a bevy of antipasti, three pasta courses, a secondi of grilled meat glazed with figs, agridulce ribs, and roasted cheese and finish with dessert, of course.
We’ll have the menu details finalized in a day or two when I’m sure I’ll start posting the hell out of it. Dinner is $150 per person for omnivores only. If you’re interested in securing a seat at the table already, just reach out to say so.
Finally, an old friend of mine from Gaza has started a Go Fund Me in support of his family’s current situation. If you can donate or not, I ask that you read his story. Nidal and I first met as participants in a conference for Israeli, Palestinian, and German journalists held in East Jerusalem back in 2008 or so. He has lived in Germany for at least the past decade and recently welcomed the birth of his first child. I’ll leave this request here and again ask that you click over to read his story.
For the paid subscribers I’ve recently set up my channel on Kittch and will soon be scheduling my first stream there. It’s worth setting up an account there for the ease of participation. But I’m just figuring this all out, but we’ll get there.
Ok then. Thank you for reading this, I appreciate you.