Wax Elastic: All Your Favorite Holiday Hits.

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April 09, 2004

All Your Favorite Holiday Hits.

It's funny to see Jewish singers making Christmas albums. There's no question why they do it. You have an audience. That audience loves you. They also happen to love Christmas songs. "Loves me, loves Christmas songs. Me. Songs. Me. Songs. Ahhhhhhh...."

Neil Diamond is my favorite example of this phenomenon. He's had a Christmas special on HBO, as well as two successful Christmas albums. Don't forget this is the same man who starred in The Jazz Singer. He's not alone. Barbara Steisand is another HBOer who did a special. But look deeper and you will find that many of those classic Christmas songs were actually written by Jews. Mel Torme wrote "The Christmas Song", Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas", and Johnny Marks wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas". Even "O' Holy Night was written by a Jew.

So why do I bring this up? Simple. The tables should be turned.

While sitting at my Seder table, one of my non-Jewish friends, Amy (MP3), really caught on to the songs' melodies, and frankly, she was excellent. We suggested that she make an album of only Jewish holiday songs. She was into it, and when it goes on sale, I'll let you know. (We're still shopping for an album title).

Who would object to Ann Murray singing a pan-pipe version of "Chad Gadya", or "I Had A Little Dreidel"? I'm sure we could get Tony Bennett to do snappy rendition of "Hava Nagila." If there's an audience going one way, I'm sure there's an audience going the other.

CHRIS WATTS' CHAROSET RECIPE:

Chris altered a classic Ashkenazi recipe to give our table a little flare.

The list:

8 Macintosh, spy or other similar apples (no red delicious)
4 blood oranges
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup walnuts
½ cup pistachios
1 tablespoon cinnamon
¼ - ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup blackberry kosher wine
Kosher salt to taste
Black pepper taste
Juice of one lemon

Dice apples into cubes and place in bowl, add juice of one lemon and toss to prevent browning. Peel and chop blood orange. Chop walnuts, pistachios and cranberries, add all to apples. Add cinnamon, sugar, cayenne pepper and wine, toss to combine. Add salt pepper and taste.

Mixture will be very hot at first but will mellow after about ½ hour. Taste after 1 hour and adjust spices and seasoning as necessary, remember you can always add but never subtract. Mixture should taste sweet and earthy then hot.

Tangerines or navel oranges can be substituted for blood oranges if they are not in season.

Yield: enough for 12 people.

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