If you are looking for more sources of home-cooked recipes, the city of Los Angeles will soon release a cookbook just for you.

Jewish Family Service LA (JFSLA) was one of several organizations honored for their role in the first Intergenerational Cookbook Challenge held by the Los Angeles Department of Aging. Students in First through 12th grade and seniors around the city submitted recipes to compile the book, intending to compile recipes from Angelenos with diverse ages and cultural backgrounds.

The goal of the event was not only to celebrate the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles but also to help combat social isolation in the senior community. An event was held Wednesday at Pan Pacific Senior Center in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District to celebrate the official release of the cookbook with many of the seniors who submitted recipes to it. The book will be available physically and online in the coming weeks.

“It’s a journey that takes us through the kitchens of Los Angeles and into the hearts of the individuals of [the city],” Josephine Thomason with the non-profit Alliance for a Healthier Generation — one of the organizations recognized for their role in the creation of the cookbook — said at Wednesday’s event. “It’s a celebration of Los Angeles’ rich culinary heritage and a testament to the power of community and cultural diversity.”

JFSLA — originally founded as the Hebrew Benevolent Society — has been involved in the Los Angeles community for 170 years. They provide a variety of social and mental health services to the public, but also run an extensive food distribution program that includes 16 dining sites spread throughout Los Angeles — Pan Pacific Senior Center being one of those sites.

Unfortunately, those sites were closed during the pandemic, and JFSLA Director of Senior Nutrition Siri Perlman told Westside Voice that it has taken several years for them to reopen. Pan Pacific is the final JFSLA site to reopen, and the celebration marks JFSLA’s first event at the site since its reopening back in mid-February.

“This is not only a celebration of a cookbook, but it’s also celebrating that this vital community resource is now reopened,” Perlman said.

These food distribution sites are an easy way for seniors in need to receive a meal. Seniors can come to Pan Pacific or the other 15 dining sites that JSFLA operates Monday through Friday as part of a grant-funded program and receive a meal. The current traffic of 10 to 15 people per day is much less than the approximately 40 to 50 people who visited these sites daily before the pandemic.

It is also there that the first Intergenerational Cookbook was to be revealed and celebrated for the first time to seniors at an event featuring a celebrity chef — with students having seen it at an earlier event. Submissions were opened last September for eligible Angelenos to submit their recipes for the cookbook and remained open until February.

Several recipes were previewed at the event, from a jambalaya by a home chef living in an Indigenous Pueblo in New Mexico to a beef tongue dish from the General Manager of the Department of Aging. JSFLA had the most submissions of any of the participating organizations with 15, ranging from “melanzane mizrahi” — a stuffed eggplant dish — to the Iraqi cholent and a chicken adobo originating in the Philippines.

“Each recipe is a testament to the power of food as a connector bringing people together,” Thomason said.

All that was asked to be included with submissions was the ingredients, the recipe for the dish, and a story associated with it. For Lillian Mizrahi — who works at JFSLA and submitted the recipe for the melanzane dish — it was a dish that her late mother-in-law made that she felt inspired to share back with the community.

“I was happy to hear that they were doing this book,” Mizrahi told the Westside Voice. “I love sharing my recipe all over.”

While the cookbook will mainly feature submissions received from members of the community through organizations like JFSLA, Perlman says that a few of the recipes in the book will be from prominent celebrities like Rachel Ray and Camila Alves McConaughey — wife of actor Matthew McConaughey.

Representatives for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky came to present commendations to the people and organizations that made the cookbook possible including JFSLA, Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and the Woodcraft Rangers Afterschool Program.

“I am so proud to be able to acknowledge all of you,” Katy Yaroslavsky Field Deputy Thao Tran said at the event. 

On top of that, chef Mario Reyes — who was Corporate Executive Chef for Nestle North America for 24 years before getting into cooking for seniors — made an appearance at the event to cook a recipe for a paella that he included in the cookbook. The seniors at the event watched eagerly and attentively as Chef Reyes explained each step in the process, from how to cut peppers to when to add peas to the dish.

While Wednesday’s event was not open to the public due to limited space, the cookbook will be available to the public online at the Department of Aging’s website at the end of May with a physical version first being given out to those who submitted recipes.

Photo by the author.