Heather Cohen may just have the most food related traditions of anyone I've ever talked to! In this episode she describes many ways she's made events out of food and its provided memories and traditions for her entire family. Heather was generou...

Heather Cohen may just have the most food related traditions of anyone I’ve ever talked to! In this episode she describes many ways she’s made events out of food and its provided memories and traditions for her entire family. Heather was generous enough to share her edible cookie dough recipe-click here for the link to get that.

Takeaways:

Let your family members help choose their favorite meals for special occasions·

Keep a journal noting the company you invite over for meals. You can note what was served, which guests came, etc.
A family cookbook makes a great memento for everyone especially for your kids as they grow
Research restaurants you want to try when you travel to new locations
Annual events can produce big memories for your family and friends

Transcription of Episode

Andrea Heyman 00:00 Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman, and I've been a registered dietitian for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three, so I understand the challenges in tumor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests. We'll discuss family through traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them. Hi, everyone.

It's Andrea Heyman with another episode of adventures and feeding my fam, I want to give you a quick heads up. In another week and a half, I'm offering my five day challenge. This challenge is really for anyone who wants to begin incorporating more plant based meals into their families routine. But I'll help break everything down to make it super easy. So you can begin to get organized to simplify food prep, all that kind of good stuff. And we definitely want to make it so that we're not spending all day in the kitchen. Because we have better things to do, or other things to do, I should say. more of that to come in the next few days on my Instagram account and Facebook group. So keep an eye open for that. You can find me on both of those places, at Adventures of feeding my fam. Now on to today's episode, Heather Cohen is many things. And that includes a party planner, Mama, three, a baker and so much more. I've known Heather for over 18 years. And in this conversation, even I learned new things about her. I think you're gonna really enjoy listening to all of her stories, learning about our parties and other experiences related to food. Let's have fun with this. Today we have Heather Cohen, who is a mom of three and has party planning business called HLC. She's super involved in her community and on numerous committees and boards as well. anyone that knows Heather knows how generous she is. And she loves to bring people together in small and large gatherings. Food is at the center of many of these gatherings. And she's got a lot of traditions that I'm sure we'll hear more about today. Everyone welcome my friend Heather Cohen.

Heather C 02:52 Thank you.

Andrea Heyman 02:53 Welcome. I'm really glad you're here, Heather. So it sounds like you plan out your meals ahead of time. Correct?

Heather C 03:03 I definitely do. I actually, during the school year between August and June, I print a blank calendar. And I plug in first if there's a Jewish holiday, or if we're traveling out of town, or we have visitors because we do have visitors not Corona world, but generally about once a month. So I'll x out those days. And I usually don't cook on those days for our families specifically. And then I'll always plug in a few eat out nights, you know, maybe two or three during the week, you know, maybe every other week, so maybe two or three. And then I plug into this I said like the regulars like taco pizza. I make homemade pizza for some of them. And then I fill in the other dates. And then I put the calendar up on the refrigerator. And anyone can view it of course we change it. It's not like a perfect system. But I do have one kid who will check it and if I change it she's like we were supposed to have chicken parmesan tonight.

Andrea Heyman 03:59 She holds you to it. She drives keeps you honest. Yeah. Yeah. So you said you block out the dates when you have company is that because when you have visitors, obviously pre Corona. You eat differently than or you plan differently or you eat out.

Heather C 04:17 So we definitely eat differently. It depends on who's coming. If I have friends coming in, because we have a lot of out of town friends then we usually eat out almost every meal, maybe not breakfast and lunch, but dinner every meal. And then when my parents come in, we eat out for dinners and again, we probably eat at home for breakfast and lunch. And it's interesting when Howard's mother comes she actually loves home cooked food. So I'll go and pick up things that she likes maybe turkey salad, something really simple tuna fish. She loves wraps so I'll make like sandwich wraps one day. She likes Panini is very simple meals and she much prefer to eat at home. So I'll probably make one nice dinner with like steak and mashed potatoes but all the other They're kind of quick kind of Panini pasta kind of style meals, but she prefers to eat at home. Andrea Heyman 05:05 So I know you've had a lot of gatherings over the years. And that's something that you really, really enjoy doing. Tell us about some of the traditions you have. 05:19 Because a lot of them involve a meal. Most of the traditions we have in this house involve a meal, and most of them sent around the Jewish holidays or Shabbat. And typically I make the exact same meal, every Rosh Hashanah, every Passover, every young people are Friday night, I do try to change it up a little bit, depending on who's coming. And the meal prep for that is extremely time consuming. Probably two to three weeks before any kind of holiday is coming. My husband, I will sit down. We've already invited and know who's coming by then because we do that way in advance. And we'll do numbers and how many vegetarians? How many meat eaters if we have a kosher person, or family, and then meal plan, literally put out different ideas? I'll run it by my husband, I might ask my kids, I asked for dessert suggestions. But I usually make the same soup, I usually make the same main course I usually make salmon every time for those eaters. And I do start shopping and cooking three days in advance. Three days.

Andrea Heyman 06:23 Yeah. And you probably do you have like certain things, for example, you know, you can make your soup really well in advance. Almost stagger everything out.

Heather C 06:34 Yes. And that's part of the reason. It works because I know exactly when to make each each dish. And we usually do two nights for every holiday. So I know I have to make something let's say on a Thursday, that'll be good for Friday and Saturday things and then you just make a huge quantity.

Andrea Heyman 06:50 Because I know you have when you have these gatherings that can be like 20 people or more even.

Heather C 06:57 Yeah, I would say 20. on the low end, it's closer to 20-30, between 28 and 30 when we usually host and then even for sucot. I know talking a lot about Jewish holidays, but that is around. So we have sucot I'll do like a more simple meal, something like lasagna or mac and cheese that beats like homemade mac and cheese, it feeds a ton of people. And we might have 30 or 40 people in a night. But it won't be a sit down dinner. You know, it's more like a buffet, everyone eats when they want and they walk around. I actually my mother in law actually very good advice when I got married. Or actually when I even started dating Howard and we live together, saying every time you host someone write down the date that people why they were there, and then everything you shared. And if something was a favorite, maybe star it and I started that probably 25 years ago. So I have a book of all the meals I've ever served for another family, not when I cook for my own family. And I go back and I know who came I know what they what I served and what we liked. And I forgot your question. That's okay. How has it affected us and so I went actually back into the calendar. And I looked and I have not filled that book out in six months. So we haven't had anyone for dinner and we haven't had anything and it is this huge gaping hole. And it is very sad because I love entertaining. And I love cooking and I love socializing. And it's been a really, really, really, it's affected us a lot. I think mentally and physically because, you know, we stay home when we eat what's in the cabinet. I'm not doing a lot of cooking.

Andrea Heyman 08:35 So I want to talk about the book that your mother in law has. So I've known you for a long time and I've never heard you mention this. This is an amazing tradition. I love it. Do you also what all do you write down the date who came over the meal you served whether they liked it? Do you take any notes about the evening or anything like that?

Heather C 09:01 So I really don't I keep it pretty straightforward. I have a book that actually has a it's almost set up as a journal so it'll have like date and event at the top and then just blank lines on that page. And so at the top I'll put the date and I might just put like mom's birthday dinner or something like that to call what it is Alexis graduation dinner, and then I'll do people underline it right all the people who come including the five of us for for missing someone because of overnight camp or something, and then all the guests and then served and underlying that. And I write literally everything I serve and if someone brings a dish like for instance if you were at my house and you brought fruit I might write Andrea and then in parentheses fruit. So I know like you brought that and that was something that was served but I didn't make it. Or if someone buys cookies, I'll literally write down store bought cookies, Andrea, although you probably don't do that, but I'm just saying. Like I would literally write the details. And then if something's like a really big favorite Then I'll just start it. And I know that's my system. And it's interesting because sometimes after a meal, my husband will come back to me and say, Yeah, I really didn't like the way that marinade sat with the salmon. I might write that down. Most of the guests Don't tell me honestly, everyone says how much they love everything. So he's, So he'll tell me and so I wrote a couple times, if you look through the book, I'll write a note. But more importantly, like if I'm going to have you guys over for dinner, or a family that I have periodically, it's really nice to look back and be like, well, a year ago, I made lasagna, I'm not gonna make lasagna. So I do that I use it.

Andrea Heyman 10:38 Oh, okay. I so I would almost be like, do the opposite. And say, they really liked the lasagna, maybe I'll do lasagna again, when they come over,

Heather C 10:48 right. And I try not do that. Okay, with certain families that come like often enough that I Rill try not to do too many repeats or dessert, because I have a lot of go to desserts that I just make like chocolate chip cookies. And I make that like all the time, if I made it for your family four or five times, and I'm not going to try to make it again.

Andrea Heyman 11:06 Got it. So you've got a lot of food traditions. But do you have when you're around the table? Do you have traditions there or conversation starters, anything like that,

Heather C 11:17 So not what I'm entertaining, really. But on Friday nights, we do go around the table and we say something nice that happened that week can be anything, just to share something nice. We usually go in age order, opposite age order. And then one of my kids complained that they were never first or last no people and people took that answer. Because a lot of times all writers are the same. Especially when you have teenagers, you know, they don't want to think too hard.

Andrea Heyman 11:42 So I remember, I think it was maybe about a year and a half ago. Um, you called me up and said, Hey, I want to bring something over to you. And you came with your cousin. Yes. And you brought this incredible pastry

Heather C 12:03 with strudel

Andrea Heyman 12:04 And you told me a story about why you wanted to bring it over. Can you tell us a little bit more about the significance of that and what it was?

Heather C 12:14 Yes. So when I was a little girl, my grandmother did and great grandmother did a ton of baking. And their baking was a pinch of this and a pinch of that with nothing written down. It was all by heart. And I remember watching my grandmother make the strudel recipe, which is it takes about four hours to make start to finish and then clean up. And I begged her to write down the recipe for me. And she said Better yet, come and cook with me and make it with me and you'll learn how to do it. So we started that tradition and we used to every year, around the fall time, especially when there's a lot of apples because there's a lot of apples in it. We would plan a date I would go over we will go to lunch, and then we would make the strudel and when I was going to college. I went over there one last time to make it with her and I brought it to college. And what she used to do every year was tradition, she only gave me a small part that I was allowed to bring home. And she would take the other probably three fourths of the recipe it makes a lot of strudel and deliver to all of her friends. Of course, she lived in an apartment building. So delivered to her friends was literally walking across the hall. And so I've continued that tradition. I probably don't make it every year, but I make it every few years takes so many hours, and I will deliver it to my close friends. Well, I have a cousin who moved right outside of Monckton, which is close to where I live in Baltimore. And she had never learned the recipe with my grandmother and my grandmother is no longer with us. And she said she's always wanted to learn. So I said come over. Why don't we make it one day together? We so much fun. She loves grandma's strudel. So we made it together. And I said to her, we have to be fitting with the tradition. I said, you can take someone deliver to your friends, or you can come with me and I can deliver it to some of my friends. And she said, Oh, my friends probably won't eat the strudel. Why don't we just do your friends. So I took about three fourths of the recipe. I divided it up, I label it, how many people are in each family, and we've delivered it.

Andrea Heyman 14:10 which you really are someone who has a lot of traditions

Heather C 14:15 We do we really do. I mean, we have more we make a cookie dough recipe in our family. It's raw cookie dough, but it's egg free so you can eat it. And it's a favorite of many, many people. And we do make that quite often and the kids make it too. So do you make cookies out of it? Or just you know, you can't make money out of it. Okay, eat it as cookie dough. Gotcha. Andrea Heyman 14:37 So tell us also, you have another annual tradition of a chocolate party.

Heather C 14:45 Yes, we do.

Andrea Heyman 14:47 Tell everybody about that and how.

Heather C 14:51 So when I was a little girl, my parents were divorced and my dad was invited to a chocolate party. Sammy and Kathy and no kids were allowed, but my dad always had us on Sundays. And he was invited to go to this party. And they said, you cannot bring children. And then they kind of changed their mind and said, You know what, Carl, you can bring your kids, we want you to come. And I would say probably about 10 to 15, desserts, people gathered, and everyone brought one, maybe pie or cookies or something that had chocolate in it. And they laid it out in the dining room table. And as a small child at eight or nine years old, I've never, I had never seen so much chocolate in my life. And I turned to my dad and said, I want to have a chocolate party one day. Yeah. And so eventually, I grew up and eventually I got married. And after my third child was born, I turned to Howard, who's my husband and said, I'm ready. I want to have a chocolate party. I want to do it. So did you talk to him about the chocolate party prior to that? Oh, yes, yeah. He knew he knew through the marriage was coming. Yeah, he knew the story. You know, I always wanted to have one. And it started kind of small the first year, and I learned a lot of things. And by the second year, you know, I think I had it down pretty well. And now, I think march was my 14th year, having it I have it once a year, kids are not allowed. I don't allow people to bring kids like Sam and Kathy, let us go. We have a bartender who serves chocolate alcohol, we have a huge chocolate fountain every year with different things to dip in it. Everyone brings one chocolate dish, not enough for everybody, but just one portion. And then I put Tupperware by the back door. And it's for people who want to bring stuff home to their kids or their babysitters or they love something and they just want to try it another day. And what's really funny is if it's your first year, many times you come in a little bit shy, and you don't grab the Tupperware and you talk to everyone. And then maybe some of the favorite dishes aren't there by the end of the night, because they're really taken home. If you're a close friend, and you've come for many years, usually you walk in and take the Tupperware as you walk in. Yeah. And you take the Oreo cookies first and the popcorn and some of the other brownies and you fill up your containers First, put them down with your name on it and then socialize.

Andrea Heyman 17:08 So just to give us an idea how many people do you invite to this?

Heather C 17:13 So I invite a lot of people and we cast kind of a wide net, because it's just a fun party to have. Typically we have about 100 people.

Andrea Heyman 17:21 Do you ever have meal failures, like anything that you've made that has been kind of a disaster.

Heather C 17:29 So I sometimes will, I'm a bigger Baker than I am a chef and cook. So I do a lot of experimenting with baking. And my family has a family cookbook that we shared maybe 10 to 12 years ago, and I have a copy for each one of my kids. And I usually that's my go to cookbook, but in there is my aunt's recipe for cream cheese brownies. And for some reason and i i will say like I'm a better Baker than I am a cook. So I can say like most people enjoy my baked goods. I cannot make cream cheese brownies to save my life. And I have tried and tried and tried. I didn't call my aunt's and she's walked me through the recipe. She did not do what my grandma did. She doesn't live in town to like walk me through with standing next to me like my grandmother did. But I cannot make cream cheese brownies. I don't know why. So that's my biggest disaster because anytime I ever have tried it's just does not come out. How many times have you tried

Andrea Heyman 18:24 6? Yeah, well, I gotta give you credit for being persistent. Yes,

Heather C 18:32 I've stopped at six.

Andrea Heyman 18:34 So this is changing the subject a little bit. But I remember your husband, Howard a few years back, going on a BBQ tour or going somewhere and going to a whole bunch of restaurants and trying all the food there at the at the local restaurants.

Heather C 18:51 Yes, yes. So his brother Mike researches different kinds of specialty foods or specialty restaurants at a certain city. And they started in Memphis many years ago, they actually went to 34 barbecue restaurants, holy cow in two days. And what they do is they'll only buy maybe one item at each restaurant and everyone tries it. And then they'll drive to another maybe kind of establishment, maybe not even a restaurant, they won't sit down. Sometimes they take it to go. Sometimes it's just a food truck. And they'll try whatever they're known for. And they eat all day. And they've done this and it's impressive. They also didn't eat in Los Angeles.

Andrea Heyman 19:29 And then it's literally just a guy's weekend of eating non stop.

Heather C 19:35 Well, the funny thing about it, yes, it is a guy's weekend non stop. There's the first time I think there were about five people who when they, after they done it a few times they actually started doing a food chart and reading each restaurant. And then after the weekend, Mike puts it all together. And he puts in like which was top rated which was middle which was bottom and they critique the restaurants. I mean, I've asked him before he's totally put a book together but he's not interested.

Andrea Heyman 20:01 That's incredible. Does he have a blog?

Heather C 20:03 He doesn't even have a nap about it. It's just internal. Like he shares it with family and friends if they ever go to the city, like when we went to New York, he did one for us and the kids. And we did not do that many restaurants. But we did use his list for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Andrea Heyman 20:18 Wow, that's really incredible.

Heather C 20:21 He loves checking out all the food too. Yeah.

Andrea Heyman 20:23 So you come from both sides of your family like great food lovers.

Heather C 20:27 Yes. And I have to say that when he was in Los Angeles, because this is kind of crazy. In four days, they did 70 different food establishments, and they literally tried 70 different

Andrea Heyman 20:39 What more story and then we'll wrap up, but I can't remember how many years ago probably 15 is my guess. You were won a contest. And it was in your honor. Yes. With your oldest daughter and you went on TV and demonstrated how to prepare. Tell us about that. And what the dish was, it was like ice cream. Was it cookie dough? It was that cookie dough recipe? And was that cookie dough recipe?

Heather C 21:11 Yes.Um, so Howard's brother Michael, the one who organizes the food tours for the family in these different cities also entered many food contests and invented many recipes. And he saw a mother daughter contest and asked if I wanted to enter it. So he helped with the recipe. And we came up with this cookie dough recipe and also did a cone cookie. That was kind of like a lazy cookie. Yeah. And it looks like an ice cream cone and we put whipped cream and sprinkles on it. Now it just makes a cookie dough itself. I don't really make the cone. Right. Right. But I did it. My my daughter Lex and I did fly to New York. Actually, we took the train, which is a train to New York, I have to remember. And we were one of five finalists and we at FAO Schwarz gave out the cookie dough for people to try and vote. And we did when he said when and yes. Some scholarship money for college.

Andrea Heyman 22:10 Yes.

Heather C 22:11 Which she is now going to.

Andrea Heyman 22:14 She's going this year.

Heather C 22:16 And it's coming full circle.

Andrea Heyman 22:18 Yeah. That's crazy to think about that with so many years ago. I do remember and you were an absolute natural because the local news. TV news they did picked up a story

Heather C 22:31 I was I was I think two or three. We also were on the national nbc news when we were in New York, not just me, but all five of the final contestants. The mother daughter team.

Andrea Heyman 22:42 Yeah, I just remember a piece of you debt really demonstrating the entire recipe and you were amazingly natural.

Heather C 22:49 Thank you. I did I made the recipe while the camera was looking at me and cookie dough.

Andrea Heyman 22:55 Oh my gosh, Heather, you have so many good food stories. So funny. You'll have to tell me if after we end our pot our recording today if you think of any others, but I have had so much fun talking to you. And I've known you for a long time and I've learned some new stories from you. And I look forward to the time that we can share a meal together in person. After Heather and I stopped recording, she went and got her journal where she writes down all the company that she's had and what she's served, she leaves through and found that the first time she had me over for a meal was November of 2002. And it was so amazing. I hadn't thought of that night in ages. But just her description. Her quick description that she had listed in that journal totally reminded me of that night. And she's got a way to to keep the memories alive for years and years to come. So that I think that's a really good I. In addition, I think her other she's got other amazing ideas, including keeping a family cookbook when you travel to other cities, look at the food scene there and where you want to go. And then that you can make annual events into big memories. Heather said she's going to share her edible cookie dough recipe with us and you can find a link for that in the show notes. If you liked this episode, hit the subscribe button so that you can be sure to be notified when the next episode comes out so you don't miss a thing. We've got a lot more coming up in future episodes and I'm really excited to share with you