The Okra That Taught Me to Cook: A Story of Food, Family, and Trusting Yourself

Every Jewish woman has her own kitchen story. There is the question of where it all began, what she knew as a young bride, how her skills developed over the years, and what kind of cook she eventually became.

“I have to write about the last batch of okra we had here,” I announced to my husband. “Because hidden behind that okra is the whole story of how I learned to cook.”

Where My Kitchen Story Began

The story could begin two Thursdays ago at Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market. Or perhaps it really began thirty-four years ago, around the time my husband and I first met, when he told me about the woman who used to come from the Aliyah neighborhood in Kfar Saba to help his family in Tel Aviv when he was a child.

She knew how to cook one way: her way. Spicy. Delicious. Full of schug and bold flavors. Nothing like the Ashkenazi culinary tradition my husband had grown up with.

When we got married, it quickly became apparent that I didn’t even know how to make an omelet. I would stand over the stove for what seemed like forever, debating exactly how high the flame should be for a single egg.

Eventually, after we already had two children, we hired a cook. My mother found her for me. She lasted two days.

I watched her carefully as she worked, thinking to myself: What exactly is she doing that I couldn’t do?

The Friend Who Changed Everything

Around lunchtime, my dear friend Einat Natan came over. Today she is a well-known and highly regarded parenting instructor. Back then, we were both barely in our twenties. We worked in the secular media world, but none of that particularly interested us. We shared one consuming dream: a home. Children. Love. And somehow figuring out how to do all of it as well as we possibly could.

“Are you serious?” Einat asked when she saw the cook in my kitchen. “Tell her to go home.”

Then Einat walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She pulled out whatever caught her eye, lit the stove, grabbed a pot, and started throwing things in. No recipe. No hesitation. No fear.

She went from the stove back to the refrigerator, added some water, stirred everything together, then covered the pot and lowered the flame.

“That’ll be ready soon,” she said. “Just leave it alone.”

That was it.

We went back into the living room and continued talking about our dreams for our future families, about relationships and people and life.

Learning to Cook from the Heart

Thank you, Einat.

From that day on, walking into the kitchen became, for me, an act of creative love. Cooking is a little like writing. When I write, I listen to my heart and let the words come. When I cook, I look at what I have and begin combining things.

Thank God, it usually comes out delicious. Everyone here loves Mom’s cooking.

No dish ever turns out exactly the same way twice. Most of my dishes don’t even have names. Because really, who needs definitions when everyone is hungry and the house smells like home and something wonderful is simmering on the stove?

And Then Came the Okra

Which brings me back to the okra.

There I was at Machane Yehuda when enormous piles of fresh okra seemed to be calling out to me: “Buy us! We are the answer. We are what a real balabusta who knows her way around a kitchen cooks. Can’t you see? Buy us!”

At my request, my husband filled a bag with fresh okra, and we brought it home. 

Then I did something unusual. I looked for a recipe. Okra, I decided, was not something I was going to improvise. Okra required expertise. With okra, you had to know what you were doing.

So I carefully trimmed off the tops. My granddaughters were there, and I suggested that they use the little okra caps for an art project. They glued them onto paper and created what we called “okra hats.”

Who knew that one of God’s creations could possess such extraordinary natural adhesive? The girls made wonderful pictures with those little caps, and we hung their artwork up for everyone to admire long before the okra itself was ready to eat.

Meanwhile, I seared the okra in a pan and prepared it for Shabbat with cilantro, garlic, lemon, salt, and the sort of yellow spices that make you look as though you really know what you’re doing.

And it came out fine. Tasty, even.

Five days later, however, the remaining okra was still sitting in the refrigerator, abandoned and unloved. The pieces had begun to shrivel, and frankly, they looked miserable.

Back to What I Know

That was when I understood.

I was going back to the improvisations of my soul. Back to the philosophy of cooking from the heart that my friend had taught me all those years ago. Back to my pasta with olive oil and garlic. Simple.

Because perhaps becoming a good cook was never about mastering the kind of dish that proves you know how to cook. Perhaps it was about learning to trust yourself enough to walk into the kitchen, look at what is there, and create.

No fear. No performance. No need to prove anything.

Just food made from instinct, creativity, and love. The kind that may never have a proper name, but somehow always tastes like home.