Rosh Hashanah

This kuchen would be terrific made with all types of stone fruit, so feel free to substitute any of your summertime favorites for the plums.

In another case of less is more, at-their-peak green beans—an old favorite—are paired with a quick vinaigrette that sparkles with a generous amount of minced sweet onion.

Direct Heat I love short ribs, but I've always been a braising person, convinced that you couldn't just grill a short rib and make it wonderful to eat. While writing this book I became obsessed with creating a simple, grilled boneless short rib recipe. The key is to trim the connective tissue that holds the bone to the meat. I found that often when you buy boneless short ribs, this tissue is still there, and it's tougher than a pair of Marine boots that have marched across Iraq. After that adjustment it's a matter of being patient at the grill. You want them nicely caramelized but you don't want to overcook them. They need to be pink inside to be tender enough to eat and enjoy. Serve with pinto beans cooked with garlic and cilantro or atop grits or mashed potatoes.

This rich Belizean pudding, or pone, is delicious warm or chilled.

The mild heat and deep flavor of Maras and Urfa peppers are wonderful not just in kebabs but also in soups and stews.

The color yellow symbolized joy for medieval Arabs, who were cultivating saffron in Spain by 960 c.e. Sephardic Jews were equally inspired by the coveted spice, and golden rice became a holiday and Sabbath tradition. This version, made with basmati rice, is punctuated by caramelized onion, currants, and fried almonds.

"Koreans are short rib masters," says Chou, who lived and cooked in Korea for several years. "It's their favorite cut." While some ribs are sliced thin, marinated, and grilled, others are reserved for stews and soups. Kalbi jjim, one of the country’s best-known concoctions, shares some ingredients with a European beef stew—namely, carrots, onions, and potatoes—but here the brothy, slightly sweet dish gets its robust undertones from dried mushrooms, soy sauce, fish sauce, and molasses, plus a dollop of hot red-pepper paste. Though it is rustic-looking, the meat's tenderness and the broth’s amazing depth make clear why this dish is a national treasure.

In my take on the French classic, chicken with forty cloves of garlic becomes brisket with thirty-six cloves. All that feisty garlic turns sweet and mellow with gentle braising; when pureed, it forms a seductive gravy, which is finished with a zing of chopped raw garlic and lemon zest. Why thirty-six cloves? Beginning with aleph, which equals one, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet stands for a number, and so every word has a numerical value. All multiples of eighteen, the numerical value of the Hebrew word chai, life, are considered especially auspicious, which is why donations to charity and wedding and bar mitzvah gifts are often given in multiples of eighteen.

Cutting up a whole chicken is both economical and easy. (For a video of food editor Ian Knauer cutting up a chicken, visit gourmet.com.) Here, the pieces are simply tossed with spices and sweet onion before going into the oven.

Editor's note: This recipe is from chef Wolfgang Puck. Braising is a great way to coax tenderness from tough cuts of meat. The term applies when the main ingredient is a relatively large cut and the amount of liquid is relatively small. The moist, gentle heat gradually breaks down the meat to melting softness while releasing the big flavor that hardworking muscles develop. Beef brisket is one of my favorite candidates. The cut comes from just under the first five ribs, behind the foreshank. Large and stringy, brisket is usually sold cut into halves, one relatively square and the other tapering to a point. Both are delicious, but the point cut, as it is known, has more flavor because it is slightly fattier. Here I braise the meat in a combination of beef broth and red wine, with aromatic root vegetables and dried apricots, a popular Eastern European flourish.

To intensify the flavor of the compote, Jeanne cooks the plums with their pits. Any leftover compote would be delicious spooned over vanilla ice cream.

Chopping by hand or using a meat grinder will preserve the homemade, chunky texture of this traditional chopped liver.

This irresistible honey cake is moist, lightly spiced, and scented with coffee, fresh orange juice, and rye whiskey.

Meatballs in Tomato Sauce Served with rice, this is one of the homely everyday dishes of virtually every Sephardi community. We called them "blehat." In Turkey they call them "yullikas." In the old days people fried the meatballs first, but now you often find them poached in the sauce. Sometimes they are briefly roasted in the oven at high heat to brown them slightly and firm them before stewing.

Anne Whiteman was the mother of Michael Whiteman, a Brooklyn native and the business and creative partner of the legendary Joe Baum in designing and operating many restaurant projects, among them the food services of the World Trade Center, including Windows on the World, and the restoration and operation of the Rainbow Room. If this is the kind of food Michael grew up eating, then it's no wonder his palate is so finely tuned. This recipe is typical of highly evolved dairy noodle kugels, in that it is dessert-sweet and topped with corn flakes, although it doesn't call for the canned crushed pineapple that so many less refined recipes do. Here, the cottage cheese is pureed with the sour cream, milk, and eggs to form a silken custard to hold the noodles. Michael and I are not certain how his mother arrived at the odd amount of sour cream, but I have decided not to change it. It is called "birthday kugel" because his mother made it mainly for those celebratory occasions.

Serve with crusty bread.

In the a.m., put the ribs into a 5-quart slow cooker to eat in the p.m.

A refined rethinking of a bagel-shop favorite provides a no—cook, imaginative way to appreciate the traditional flavor pairing.

The intense flavor of grilled plums is delicious with roasted duck.

Wine and dried fruit bring a sweet richness to this humble cut of meat.