Some of Jake Cohen’s fondest memories are of times spent with friends and family dining on delicious foods, making connections and sharing traditions.
It’s a concept he shares with readers in his cookbooks, “Jew-Ish Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch” and “I Could Nosh: Classic Jew-ish Recipes Revamped for Every Day,” which will be released in September.
Cohen, 29, remembers following his grandmother around the kitchen as a child, but it wasn’t until high school when he decided to try his hand at cooking and began hosting dinner parties for friends. Although he admits to being obsessed with The Food Network as a teen, he laughs when recalling his early culinary efforts.
“My first dinner parties were terrible, but with practice they improved,” Cohen says. “For me, the best part of the dinners was always the bonding and sense of community.”
Growing up in New York, Cohen says he was fortunate to have an Ashkenazi Jewish family that prioritized the High Holy Days. On Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the day of Atonement, known as the holiest day of the Jewish year) his extended family would come together to enjoy dishes including his aunt Susi’s baked brisket and his great-aunt Lotte’s meringue cookies.
His love of food led Cohen to enroll at the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. While attending classes, he honed his cooking skills at popular New York eateries including Daniel and ABC Kitchen. After graduating in 2014, Cohen took a job with Saveur magazine where he led recipe testing, before going on to work in food media at Tastingtable.com, Time Out New York and FeedFeed.
Photo Courtesy Of Jake Cohen
“It was a learning curve to go from cooking to writing recipes,” Cohen admits. “I had to learn how to make readers feel comfortable making my recipes, while also ensuring they get the exact same results.”
In 2015, Cohen met his future husband, Alex Shapiro. While the two had a lot in common, their experiences with Jewish food weren’t the same. Shapiro had never had gefilte fish or babka and when Shapiro’s family served ghormeh sabzi, an herb-laden stew, Cohen realized there were many Jewish foods and traditions he had yet to experience.
“While I grew up in an Ashkenazi family, Alex comes from a Mizrahi family and our experiences weren’t the same,” Cohen explains. “I wanted to learn how to make the Persian and Iraqi dishes Alex enjoyed while growing up.”
Cohen learned how to cook many of his husband’s family recipes by following Shapiro’s mom and aunt around their kitchens.
“Many of the recipes from both of our families have never been written down,” Cohen says. “So, I’d record an oral history of how they created each dish in order to preserve family so the recipes can live on.”
Today, Cohen blends the signature recipes from both his own family and Shapiro’s when they host the Seder, a ritual feast held at the beginning of Passover.
“We took each of our traditions and recipes and made them our own,” he says.
Bringing Friends and Family Together Through Food and Creating New Traditions
Although Cohen didn’t grow up with Shabbat (a day of rest and celebration that begins on Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday after nightfall), he and Shapiro became involved with the nonprofit, OneTable. The organization encourages millennial Jews to host their own Shabbat dinners, celebrating and creating their own traditions with old and new friends.
“After Alex and I were married in 2018, we began looking to make friends as a couple, especially gay friends,” Cohen says. “When we learned about OneTable, we loved the idea of bringing people together, to share food and build community.”
Cohen held his first Shabbat, preparing food for 12 guests. He invited several people he had come to know through Instagram, while also encouraging guests to bring a friend.
Not only was his first Shabbat a success, it also inspired Cohen’s first cookbook, “Jew-ish Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch.”
In cooking for friends, Cohen recreated the brisket he’d enjoyed as a child. While his aunt made brisket with tomato sauce, Cohen’s recipe drew inspiration from French onion soup and used caramelized onions, garlic and apple brandy. He also explored the foods his husband had grown up with, including “hadji bada,” (Iraqi almond cookies).
Yet beyond cooking some of their families’ favorite recipes, Cohen also puts his own modern twists on some of the classics and says he never knows when inspiration might hit.
“I was recently at brunch when an idea came to me,” he says with a laugh. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to combine these certain spices to chicken schnitzel fingers?’”
For latkes, he adds a creamy lemon-horseradish ricotta topping and he’s discovered how to celebrate birthdays in style with his festive birthday babka.
He also continues to host his weekly Shabbat with the menus regularly changing depending on who might be attending on any given week.
Photo By Michael Marquand
“My recipes are all rooted in history and nostalgia,” he says. “I might make a Mediterranean feast featuring a fennel and citrus salad, za’atar-crusted salmon with roasted winter Israeli couscous and tahini-swirl brownies for dessert or design a menu around comfort foods.”
Cohen loves sharing his recipes with others. He has over 991,000 followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on TikTok (@jakecohen on both sites), where he demonstrates how to make everything from matzah pizza to creamed corn pasta. He also frequently does in-person appearances, such as the Women’s Philanthropy Spring Fling event in March in Boca Raton, sponsored by The Boca Raton Observer. The event, presented by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, featured Cohen revealing his secrets for making the perfect challah.
“Most of my recipes can be made in less than an hour and I show people how they can turn their kitchens into the center of hospitality and feel more confident in the kitchen,” Cohen says. “I describe my cookbooks as being for Jews who love food and for foodies who love Jews. I think people see themselves in me and my family whether they’re Jewish or not.”
With the release of his second cookbook, “I Could Nosh: Classic Jew-ish Recipes Revamped for Every Day,” Cohen is excited to take readers on a new culinary journey featuring some of his favorite reimagined recipes he makes on a regular basis.
With challah bread, Cohen’s creativity shines. He has developed recipes for Chall-zones, Pletzel, monkey bread, babka and sufganiyot (jelly donuts). He also reimagined his mother’s Thanksgiving stuffing by replacing traditional whole wheat sandwich bread with sourdough and challah, while keeping her signature apples. Today, he sells many of his challah and babka creations on Goldbelly, allowing them to be shipped across the country.
“There’s something special about creating bread from scratch and sharing it with others,” he says.
When it comes to noshing in his own home, Cohen admits he always has cookie dough and soups in his refrigerator and lots of pasta on hand.
“Nothing gets people excited like a freshly baked dessert,” he says, and although he notes on TikTok that he tries to keep his cookie consumption constant throughout the year, he does turn up the heat for special occasions.
For Hanukkah, for example, Cohen demonstrates how to make cookies in a blue-marbled vodka glazed icing and for Passover he has a video detailing how to create Lotte’s meringue cookies with walnuts and dark chocolate.
“My goal is to help people incorporate food and rituals into their lives that are delicious, but don’t require too much work,” he says. “Every one of my recipes was tested at Shabbat and they are all decadent dishes that are meant to be shared.”
Photo By Amanda Reiter