In the JNF Kitchen: Passover macaroons + halva = 'halvaroons'

This recipe of the week comes to us from La Boite, a biscuits and spices shop in New York City owned by Israeli chef and spice blender Lior Lev Sercarz. 

Lior and La Boite have gained international fame for mixing spices in a unique way and selling some of the world's rarest blends. Lior opened his culinary superstore after traveling and studying around the globe, and he dreams of establishing a cooking school in Israel's north along with JNF. Lior was one of our first guests on the JNF podcast, IsraelCast. You can hear more about his journey on that episode.

On Passover, the importance of including the invisible fifth son

The author and his son, who's teaching the family that every child has unique abilities.

By Yossi Kahana, director of JNF's Task Force on Disabilities

We open the Seder with an open door, "Ha Lachma Anya": inviting in the hungry, the needy, and the enslaved, offering up the matzah as part of our welcome, a beautiful message offered freely, and inclusively to all. Then we read about the four sons, each representing a different type, a cross section of the Jewish nation. What links the four together, despite their very different personalities and levels of observance, is the fact that they are all an intrinsic part of the Jewish people. At Pesach, we celebrate together with them, as they all join us at the Seder table.

But there is also a fifth son -- one not mentioned in the Haggadah, and not discussed at the Seder, because he is usually not sitting with everyone else.

In the JNF Kitchen: Passover cocoa bites, an easy and tasty dessert

Margot Alfie, a JNF board member in Atlanta and personal chef extraordinaire, shared this recipe for a super easy, and super tasty, Passover dessert.

In the JNF Kitchen: Margot's scrumptious date Passover charoset

Margot Alfie, a JNF board member in Atlanta and personal chef extraordinaire, will be celebrating her 26th Passover in the United States this year.

Alfie's grandparents emigrated from Syria to Mexico at the beginning of the 1900s. "My parents and I were born in Mexico. Therefore we are Mexican, Syrian, and also Jewish," she says. "Growing up in a Middle Eastern Mexican home, I developed a very unique culinary taste. Sometimes we had a Syrian meal, sometimes a Mexican meal, but sometimes we had an absolutely delicious fusion of the two."

Margot has graciously shared with us her special Passover charoset recipe, made with dates and sweet red wine. Charoset is a non-negotiable part of the Passover seder, symbolizing the mortar used by slaves in Egypt. In Ashkenazi tradition, it's most often made with apples. But for Alfie, charoset isn't charoset if it's not made with dates, the ubiquitous fruit of the Middle East.