Welcome to my home on the web and thank you for the opportunity to connect with you.
I’m Debra Q—mother, grandmother, caterer and restaurateur, perpetual student, writer, massage therapist, gardener, croning hippy, poet, and now … mistress of the web.
I never cease to be fascinated and enthralled by the extraordinarily unlikely thing we call existence.
Come join me on my journey to discover and celebrate.
DQ in the kitchen
I have a cupboard that is overflowing with books on cooking and eating. From Alford, Batali, Beeton, and Child through Vongerichten, Waters, and Zakarian, there are literally hundreds of them. I admit to having read them all, cover to cover, with the fervor that one might associate with reading a great novel. I refer to them often, sometimes to follow a recipe exactly, but more often to gain technical advice, spark my creativity, and put my own twist on someone else’s concept.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by the art of cooking, a time when I wasn’t romanced by texture and taste. Most of my earliest memories are about food. It was a central part of life in my family, and my brother and I grew into it naturally as we grew to adulthood.
The Best of Both Worlds.
Our maternal grandmother, Grandma Lee, was born in a little shtetl in Eastern Europe, and her cooking reflected her roots. The food was simply prepared, nourishing, plentiful, and richly flavored. Unless it was a holiday, service was casual at her Brooklyn apartment, located directly above Grandpa and Dad’s store. We ate in the kitchen, crowded around the little Formica table (but always with a tablecloth, at my grandfather’s insistence), while Grandma busied herself at the stove. There was usually a soup, followed by meaty pot roast, or perhaps roasted chicken, and the giant, sweet matzo meal pancake she called a “bubeleh.”
Our paternal grandmother, Grandma Ethel, was American-born and a cosmopolitan New Yorker. Dinner at her house in Manhattan was in the formal dining area of her studio apartment kitchen in Murray Hill. There was barely enough room for two people to stand, let alone gather a family for casual dining. Service always included china and crystal. Out of that tiny kitchen came soft shell clams, lamb roasts studded with garlic, fresh sautéed mushrooms, and steamed artichokes with melted butter. Exposed to both old-country traditional cooking and 1960s haute cuisine, we truly had the best of both worlds.
And the Caterpillar Asked,
“Who are you?”
I am Dvorah.
Five sigils of light and
Life swirling, whirling,
Unfolding
All around me,
Revealing my essence, casting their
Spell upon my shadow.
I am sower of circles,
Brewer of potions,
Gypsy of journeys,
Weaver of dough and of words.
I am she who talks with bees and
Rolls their honey on her tongue.
I am she who sits beneath the palm
And waits.
She who hears the voice in the wind,
She who knows but sometimes forgets.
I am the fire lighter,
Keeper of cats,
Mistress of the broom.
She who begets her realm with a dream.
Croning, saging, always becoming
She who grinds grain and paints it
With rainbows. She
Who wrestles with angels; I am
She who hides; she who
Huddles with You in darkness
Beneath her tallit,
Then bares her shoulders and lifts
Her face to Your Radiance.
I am she who braids Your words
To her flesh.
I am mother. I am lover.
I am Priestess. I am
Your daughter.
I am Dvorah
THE EXTRAVAGANT LITTLE COOK
By the time I was a young adult, Grandma Lee had moved in with my parents, and I was living in the apartment over the store with my new husband and infant son. Grandma Ethel took the subway to Brooklyn every day to help my father in the store, and she often came upstairs to visit in the afternoons. She watched me prepare dinner, saw the ingredients I used, and always issued the same remark, “You’re an extravagant little cook!” She said it so often that it became a family joke. In fact, The Extravagant Little Cook was the name of my catering business on Long Island.
My answer was assuredly not a joke. Each time, I’d say, “You can’t get more out of a dish than you’re willing to put into it.” For the best results in cooking, one must always use the highest quality, freshest ingredients that one can afford and obtain.
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
My brother took the next step and went to the French Culinary Institute to become a real chef. I’ve had no formal training—I’m what’s known as a “home cook.” That said, I’ve owned and cooked in a restaurant, run a small catering business, and hold the title of “family chef” for all our holiday and Shabbat dinners.
I’ve tugged at the apron strings of several trained chefs. I’ve also trained with the best—Just look at the names of my teachers lined on my shelves. What’s more, I’ve had the extraordinary fortune of being cooked for by many of them.
With every morsel I cook and every morsel I taste, I’m constantly learning and refining. Cooking, like intellect and spirituality, must always be evolving.
So, please come into my kitchen. We’ll cook, we’ll talk, and we’ll learn from one another.
I don’t identify as orthodox; I was raised mostly non-observant. I claim no authority and welcome respectful sharing of thoughts and opinions that may differ from mine. Except for where I attribute something on this site to a particular teacher (everyone’s a teacher), the words and thoughts are mine alone, and I take responsibility for them.
If you like my pages and choose to read several, or all of them, you’ll find that sometimes I repeat the same concepts in one place that I’ve already expressed in another. The reason is that the same concept is often relevant to different topics, and I want each page to be able to stand independently of the others. I thank you for your indulgence.