"He was always calling me for recipes," says Doralee Patinkin about her son, Mandy Patinkin. "As a child, the extent of his culinary accomplishment was chocolate chip cookies. Now, all of a sudden, he loves to cook. So, every holiday he'd be on the phone. How do you make the brisket, the turkey, the sweet potatoes?"
"She'd given me the recipes a million times. I kept losing the pieces of paper," Mandy laughs. "So I told her I was sending her a computer and printer and she was going to write them down." It was then Mandy realized his mother should write a cookbook.When Mandy was growing up, he thought his mother lived in the kitchen. As he got older, he realized the kitchen was her kingdom -- her passion. He credits her with passing on that passion to him.
His first cousin (and close friend) Daryl Shapiro corroborates: "As a child, it seemed that all my mother and aunts ever thought about was food. The meals were incredible. And Doris (the name Doralee was called by the Patinkin side of the family) was an amazing baker.
"In our family there was great pride attached to cooking. It was your worth, your career. It was how our mothers showed us love."
Which is exactly what Doralee did every time there was a Bar or Bat Mitzvah (coming of age ceremony when a child reaches 13). It didn't matter in what city the ceremony was held. She'd fill suitcases with her baked goods, schlep them to the party and lay out sumptuous spreads of sweets. Her motto was, "Have suitcase, will travel."
Mandy gently teases his mom. "Her sweets are to die for and they'll kill you. If you eat them often, you'll be dead before your time, but you'll have a great time getting there. If you don't like them, send them to me and I'll eat them -- I'll even give you my FedEx number."
Although Mandy claims "Anything my mom makes tastes like it came out of a five-star restaurant," Doralee says her food isn't gourmet; the cookbook is made up of old-fashioned, Jewish-style dishes, that most Americans -- Jewish or not -- know and love.
Of course, for Mandy, his mother's cookbooks are more than just recipes. He loves hunting through the pages looking for his childhood. The greatest thing about these books, he says, is that this part of his childhood isn't lost.