Kinethic California: Dancing Funk and Disco Era Kinships documents the emergence of new forms of black social and vernacular dance invented by youth living in 1970s California, who helped build the foundations of contemporary hip hop/streetdance culture. Naomi Macalalad Bragin weaves interviews and ethnographies of first-generation (1960s-70s) dancers of strutting, boogaloo, robotting, popping, locking, waacking, and punking styles, as it advances a theory of dance as kinetic kinship formation through a focus on techniques and practices of the dancers themselves. She offers that the term given to these collective movement practices is kinethic to bring attention to motion at the core of black aesthetics that generate dances as forms of kinship beyond blood relation. Kinethics reorient dancers toward kinetic kinship in ways that give continuity to black dance lineages under persistent conditions of disappearance and loss. As dancers engage kinethics, they reinvent gestural vocabularies that describe worlds they imagine into knowing-being.

The stories in Kinethic California attend to the aesthetics of everyday movement, seen through the lens of young artists who, from childhood, listened to their family’s soul and funk records, observed the bent-leg strolls and rhythmic handshakes of people moving through their neighborhoods, and watched each other move at house parties, school gyms, and around-the-way social clubs. Their aesthetic sociality and geographic movement provided materials for collective study and creative play. Bragin attends to such multidirectional conversations between dancer, community, and tradition, by which California dance lineages emerge and take flight.

When Laura Silver’s favorite knish shop went out of business, the native New Yorker sank into mourning, but then she sprang into action. She embarked on a round-the-world quest for the origins and modern-day manifestations of the knish. The iconic potato pie leads the author from Mrs. Stahl’s bakery in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to an Italian pasta maker in New Jersey—and on to a hunt across three continents for the pastry that shaped her identity. Starting in New York, she tracks down heirs to several knish dynasties and discovers that her own family has roots in a Polish town named Knyszyn. With good humor and a hunger for history, Silver mines knish lore for stories of entrepreneurship, survival, and major deliciousness. Along the way, she meets Minnesota seniors who make knishes for weekly fundraisers, foodies determined to revive the legacy of Mrs. Stahl, and even the legendary knish maker’s granddaughters, who share their joie de vivre—and their family recipe. Knish connections to Eleanor Roosevelt and rap music? Die-hard investigator Silver unearths those and other intriguing anecdotes involving the starchy snack once so common along Manhattan’s long-lost Knish Alley. In a series of funny, moving, and touching episodes, Silver takes us on a knish-eye tour of worlds past and present, thus laying the foundation for a global knish renaissance.

Producing flavorful and appealing kosher desserts has been a challenge in Jewish households throughout the ages. Without access to butter, cream, milk, cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products, creating a tasty and memorable dessert for family and friends requires more than simple substitutions and compromises. Now pastry chef and teacher Paula Shoyer provides the inspiration and innovation to turn the age-old challenges of parve baking into delectable delights in her one-of-a-kind kosher cookbook. The Kosher Baker is your indispensable kitchen companion to a wide range of dairy-free desserts, from family favorites and time-honored holiday classics to stylish and delicious surprises of Shoyer’s own careful creation. It even includes desserts not usually found on a kosher table, such as creamy key lime pie, luscious flan, and rich tiramisu. You’ll find everything from cookies, biscotti, breads and muffins to pastries, tarts, fancy cakes, and mousses. Shoyer guides you through more than 160 mouth-watering recipes and expands every non-dairy baker’s repertoire with simple, clear instructions and a friendly yet authoritative voice. The Kosher Baker is organized as a tutorial into three primary sections—Quick and Elegant Desserts, Two Step Desserts, and Multiple Step Desserts—allowing the busy home baker to choose a dessert based on both taste and time constraints. The first section presents the fundamentals of simple kosher baking in the form of everyday treats like Amaretto Cookies, Orange Tea Cake, and Apple Pastry. The next two sections teach increasingly more challenging desserts, from a Challah Beer Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce to Chocolate Babka. A special fourth section includes chapters on baking Challah, Passover desserts, and no-sugar-added desserts. The Kosher Baker has something for everyone in the Jewish household for any occasion or holiday. It spills over with detailed information, including tips on storage, freezing, and thawing; tools; must-have ingredients; and tips and techniques. Anyone baking for those with special dietary needs such as food allergies or diabetic concerns will also find recipes to love in this comprehensive collection. It even includes recipes for nut- and gluten-free desserts, and vegan desserts. No Jewish home should be without this essential cookbook!