[St. Petersburg, FL – 30 October 2023] – The Florida Holocaust Museum will host an exclusive dinner event on November 11, entitled “Rescuing Recipes: Bringing Holocaust Family Meals & Memories Back to The Table.” The meal will feature a mix of traditional and contemporary flavors inspired by Holocaust survivor family recipes, prepared by Chef Elana Karp and Vintner Rachel Lipman.
In a pre-meal discussion moderated by FHM Chairman Michael Igel, Karp and Lipman will discuss how they have explored their families’ harrowing journeys through food and drink, along with why carrying family recipes forward is so meaningful.
Curated by Chef Elana using her family’s recipes, the multi-course menu will reach back through the decades, with each dish paired with Loew Vineyards wine or mead. The dessert will feature baked goods prepared from the recipes of FHM founder and Holocaust Survivor, Walter Loebenberg, who was an apprentice baker prior to the Holocaust.
Understandably, Karp and Lipman’s grandparents didn’t always want to discuss their traumatic experiences. In preparation for this event, food discussions have turned into intimate storytelling sessions, where these grandchildren of Holocaust survivors have gained a new level of understanding about their families’ grit strength and grit.
“We didn’t get into the business because we love wine… We got into the business because my grandfather felt haunted by this sweet smell of honey wine fermenting in barrels,” Lipman said.
This dinner marks the first in the project series, and is the kickoff to Museum’s chosen culinary theme for this year. Event attendees will experience a unique interaction between food, wine, family, and memory.
”What’s nice about the recipes is that while everyone’s grandmother has their own variation, it’s a very familiar menu. The hope is that when you taste the dishes and you’re sitting at the table, enjoying the meal, that it brings up memories and opportunity to share stories about everyone’s family and their experiences growing up eating those dishes and making them with their grandparents,” Karp said.
About Rachel Lipman and Elana Karp
Rachel Lipman is the Vineyard Manager of Loew Vineyards and the youngest winemaker in Maryland. Her family has been vintners and meadmakers since the mid-1800s, when they lived in what is now Western Ukraine. During the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered her entire family except for Rachel’s grandfather Wolfgang Löw, who survived two concentration camps before immigrating to America. There he started a new life, and in 1982 established Loew Vineyards in Frederick County, Maryland.
Elana Karp is an award-winning entrepreneur, chef and cookbook author. She is currently the Co-Founder and COO of Kittch, a live-streaming platform for chefs and culinary brands. Prior to that she was the Co-Founder and Head Chef of Plated. An award-winning chef and founder of Plated, she is also the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Her grandmother lived in the same region as the Loews, but fled East as the Holocaust began. She and other refugees settled in the fertile farmland of Uzbekistan, where they lived for the rest of WWII before immigrating to the United States. Her grandfather was a farmer in the same Polish region, escaped from the ghetto in Przemysl, Poland, hid in the forest and joined the Polish resistance fighters before ultimately immigrating to America.
Please join us in exploring the intersection of heritage and gastronomy at this exclusive event. RSVP at https://www.thefhm.org/event/the-rescuing-recipes-project-bringing-holocaust-family-meals-and-memories-back-to-the-table/.
About The Florida Holocaust Museum
One of the largest Holocaust Museums in the country, and one of three nationally accredited Holocaust museums, The Florida Holocaust Museum honors the memory of millions of men, women, and children who suffered or died in the Holocaust. The FHM is dedicated to teaching members of all races and cultures the inherent worth and dignity of human life in order to prevent future genocides. For additional information, please visit www.TheFHM.org.