I whipped up a pretty fabulous Red Lentil Sweet Potato Soup without having to go out to grocery store last night, and I started thinking maybe I was something special. But then this Jewish culinary savant emails me, asking if I’ve seen her blog, Cooking With Yiddishe Mama.

Not only is it full of scrumptious recipes from the Old Country like warm tomato salad and honey chicken, it’s written in charming Russian-accented English and contains this wisdom to stop us in out in our instant-latke mix tracks: Cooking is not just a bunch of recipes, it’s our history, and we might know our history better. Let’s try to learn!

The Yiddishe Mama is actually Ukraine-born and Minneapolis-based Alla Staroseletskaya, and she’s got one impressive resumé — cooking’s only her hobby, for Pete’s sake. Stop by her place for mouth-watering holiday ideas.

Hey Alla, can we come to your place for Chanukah? I’ll bring the soup…