I love carbohydrates.

Almost all carbohydrates.

But especially those carbohydrates we could label “Jewish carbohydrates.”

It’s been that way since I was a child in our house on the South Shore of Long Island in the east end of Suffolk County when my reward for sitting through Friday night dinners was a linzer tart from Stanley’s Bakery. Now linzer tarts are not solely a Jewish delicacy, but for me the almond cookie, smothered with tart-sweet raspberry jam, topped with another cookie, and the whole thing covered in an obscene layer of powdered sugar, was and is the taste of Shabbat.

Then there’s rugalach (my favorite in case you’re putting a shipment together is cinnamon-walnut) and nothing really can beat a salt bagel filled to overflowing with whitefish salad. These carbohydrates compete for my attention with the simplicity of a bialy (with that onion poppy seed center) topped with a schmear of cream cheese and really good Nova Scotia smoked salmon. But what propels me faster to carbohydrate heights is a good noodle kugel and my mother’s noodle kugel defines what a kugel should be. (It is adapted from that of Evelyn Burns, who was one of the matriarchs of our small synagogue in Bay Shore, Long Island- recipe below.) Food kindles memory – and this kugel is the taste of childhood celebrations of Shabbat, Rosh HaShanah, and Yom Kippur Break-the-Fast and the best part of that kugel: the slightly burnt corners.

And then the jelly donuts became part of our vocabulary. I really don’t remember when it happened, but at one point “sufganiyot” became a part of our Hanukkah table. “Sufganiyot” made their way from 15th century Germany, then to Po[1]land, and eventually to Israel, where they became associated with the oil-centric holiday of Hanukkah. The word “sufganiyot” is said to be derived from the Hebrew word for sponge “sfog” and the Talmudic word for a spongy dough “sfogga.”