Funders
Sue King’s ancestors, the Gladkes, were founders of the first Jewish house of worship in Elmira, Temple B’Nai Israel, in 1862. Sue was raised in Scarsdale with her mother and stepfather, returning to Elmira every summer to visit her father, and finally settling in Elmira as an adult with her own family in the 1970s.
“My mother was a fabulous cook. My mother grew up in a home where her mother was Austrian, but they also had a full time cook who was from Hungary. And the first time I ever saw numbers on somebody was Anna. And she had been through the war. But my grandparents had a Hungarian cook in the house. So did I eat – Weiner Schnitzel and heavy cream and all those things they used to cook with. So my mother learned to cook watching Anna. And I learned watching my mother. So it wasn’t anything specific to Elmira other than moving here and a young couple and just cooking like we all do and we get married and say ok mom’s not cooking dinner tonight, it’s me. How do I make a meatloaf? I started writing those things down at some point in my own cookbook. As my mother made things [….]
The Weiner Schniztel. And I remember her making that with veal which I don’t eat anymore and haven’t for many years, because I can’t stand the way veal comes into the world. I remember when my mother told me it was unborn calf. And I was old enough – it blew me out of the water. And it’s so cruel. I haven’t eaten veal in one hundred years. But Anna used to make Weiner Schnitzel with the marrow bone in it [….]
My grandparents ate in the dining room. They had a beautiful home in New Rochelle. And under the table – under the carpeting under the table, was a bell. So it was just a question of putting your foot on this particular piece – and it was where my grandmother sat. And so when they were ready for the next course, she would just ring the bell, which you didn’t hear in the dining room. And Anna would come out and clear what was and bring out the next. So there were a lot of pastries. [….]
And along those lines when we moved here, I never bought packaged bread till we moved here. My mother didn’t. We had a deli around the corner, and we had a true European bakery. So between both of them, nobody ever bought packaged bread. It was like being in France where you go buy a fresh loaf everyday. So we had rye and challah was incredible that they made every Friday. And brioche.. you know it wasn’t Wonderbread out of the package.
During her years as a young mother in Elmira, Sue participated in the lively social world of Temple B’Nai Israel, which included an active Sisterhood and Brotherhood. Despite – or perhaps because of – their exclusion from other social clubs within the city, Jews cultivated their own lively arenas where people shared ideas, food, and fellowship:
“So we had Sisterhood luncheons every month, with a program. And we would take turns within the congregation, within Sisterhood, being on a circle, which was 8-10 women which planned, bought, and cooked the lunch that particular month. We had progressive dinners. We had art auctions. We had antique auctions. We had a consignment shop once a year. The progressive dinner was neat. Everyone got dressed up. You had hors d’oeuvres at one house, and another. And so people were all over. And everyone would meet back at the Temple for dessert. It was wonderful. It was before women were working. it was when Jewish people still tended to congregate with Jewish people socially because we weren’t out there. Those days were still – the City Club and the Elmira Country Club – they were all closed to Jews. They didn’t do that. So we had a wonderful time, and we often talk about how active Sisterhood was, and there was an active Brotherhood at that time in the Temple.”
“My mother was a fabulous cook. My mother grew up in a home where her mother was Austrian, but they also had a full time cook who was from Hungary. And the first time I ever saw numbers on somebody was Anna. And she had been through the war. But my grandparents had a Hungarian cook in the house. So did I eat – Weiner Schnitzel and heavy cream and all those things they used to cook with. So my mother learned to cook watching Anna. And I learned watching my mother. So it wasn’t anything specific to Elmira other than moving here and a young couple and just cooking like we all do and we get married and say ok mom’s not cooking dinner tonight, it’s me. How do I make a meatloaf? I started writing those things down at some point in my own cookbook. As my mother made things [….]
The Weiner Schniztel. And I remember her making that with veal which I don’t eat anymore and haven’t for many years, because I can’t stand the way veal comes into the world. I remember when my mother told me it was unborn calf. And I was old enough – it blew me out of the water. And it’s so cruel. I haven’t eaten veal in one hundred years. But Anna used to make Weiner Schnitzel with the marrow bone in it [….]
My grandparents ate in the dining room. They had a beautiful home in New Rochelle. And under the table – under the carpeting under the table, was a bell. So it was just a question of putting your foot on this particular piece – and it was where my grandmother sat. And so when they were ready for the next course, she would just ring the bell, which you didn’t hear in the dining room. And Anna would come out and clear what was and bring out the next. So there were a lot of pastries. [….]
And along those lines when we moved here, I never bought packaged bread till we moved here. My mother didn’t. We had a deli around the corner, and we had a true European bakery. So between both of them, nobody ever bought packaged bread. It was like being in France where you go buy a fresh loaf everyday. So we had rye and challah was incredible that they made every Friday. And brioche.. you know it wasn’t Wonderbread out of the package.
During her years as a young mother in Elmira, Sue participated in the lively social world of Temple B’Nai Israel, which included an active Sisterhood and Brotherhood. Despite – or perhaps because of – their exclusion from other social clubs within the city, Jews cultivated their own lively arenas where people shared ideas, food, and fellowship:
“So we had Sisterhood luncheons every month, with a program. And we would take turns within the congregation, within Sisterhood, being on a circle, which was 8-10 women which planned, bought, and cooked the lunch that particular month. We had progressive dinners. We had art auctions. We had antique auctions. We had a consignment shop once a year. The progressive dinner was neat. Everyone got dressed up. You had hors d’oeuvres at one house, and another. And so people were all over. And everyone would meet back at the Temple for dessert. It was wonderful. It was before women were working. it was when Jewish people still tended to congregate with Jewish people socially because we weren’t out there. Those days were still – the City Club and the Elmira Country Club – they were all closed to Jews. They didn’t do that. So we had a wonderful time, and we often talk about how active Sisterhood was, and there was an active Brotherhood at that time in the Temple.”
“One of the unique things about Elmira Sisterhood, or Elmira Jewish community – we make everything. Even when we have Oneg Shabbats on Friday night, which is like dessert after Services. In those days, we had a long table, we had two beautiful Silver – they weren’t carafes, they were the big silver things with the nobs here. One end was coffee, one end was tea. And if you sponsored an Oneg for a reason, in memory or whatever, you brought one lemon, half and half, you had to bring a pound of coffee. tea we always had there. So you had to bring cream, a lemon, a pound of coffee, an d then whatever you wanted to serve. It could be cookies, cakes, fruit, but you were responsible for it. So if I did an Oneg Shabbat tonight in your honor, I would have to bring all those things.”
“I remember the first year we were here and I wanted to make matzah balls, and where I grew up in Shopwell or Gristidis, you could get a glass jar of chicken fat. And so that’s part of making a matzah ball. So i had said something to my mother, something about the chicken far, and she said just go buy it in the store. I didn’t know what rendering chicken fat was, I mean I’d heard of it but I didn’t know what that was. Chicken fat came in a jar. So I went to Super Duper down on Gray Street – on Grey and Hoffman. There was a wonderful Super Duper store there, and that’s where I shopped. So I went in, and I spoke to the dairy guy, and I said do you have chicken fat, and he said yeh we do. And I went Whew! And he said it’s in a box right there. And I thought to myself – ok. I didn’t think a lot about it, because I had only seen chicken fat either taken off the soup after my mother made it, or in a jar. So I thought ok – it’s in a box like a pat of butter. No problem, So I go home and I open up this box, and there is chicken fat. And I called my mother and said, what do I do with this? You have to render it, which means you fry it. And the fat that comes off of it is your chicken fat.”
“I do the Chicken Soup. I’m the chicken soup lady. And the matzoh balls. And I love making it. Between you and me, I didn’t grow up being Kosher. I will say that for me to follow Kosher at the Synagogue is no big deal, and I would rather do that for me than ask people who have kept Kosher since they were born to NOT be. SO I’ll tolerate that. But I don’t like Manichevitz as well as I like other things that I start with. The Kosher chickens are more expensive, etc, etc, etc [….]
It’s my mother’s recipe. It’s the way she made her chicken soup and matzoh balls. So it just kind of fell in my lap. And I’ll be doing it again soon. I think I’m going to do the soup [ahead of time]. I’m also not a big freezer person. But the bigger we get, and the more that we add, those last four days become very hectic. I won’t do the matzoh balls until the end [….]
I love my chicken soup, and others do too. And there’s all kinds of recipes for Matzoh balls. To be honest with you, I’ve never had a matzoh ball as good as my mothers or mine […] when I make them at home, I still use chicken fat. And they’re delicious.
