Schnitzel Sandwich Board

The schnitzel sandwich board from my new book, A Year of Jewish Joy, is simply too good to sit quietly inside the book until publication day. So I’m sharing the idea here! My schnitzel recipe, though—the actual heart of this whole situation—is staying right where it belongs. If you want that, along with the full breakdown of everything that makes this board work, you’ll have to preorder the book. (You can do that here.)

But! In the meantime, we can at least chat about schnitzel for a minute. For starters, this is a dish that has always been adaptable: It was born as Viennese veal, reworked as German pork, and, in Jewish kitchens, recast into the chicken cutlets that have since become weeknight staples for so many families.

Growing up, we ate schnitzel almost every week around my Baba’s tiny table on the Lower East Side, squeezed into vinyl chairs that left imprints on our thighs, our ears tuned to the hourly chimes of her wooden kitchen clock. Baba’s clock—still ticking, but retired from chiming—hangs in our dining room now. Beneath it, I serve schnitzel to my own children nearly as often as she served it to us.

I’ve updated her recipe, and to be honest, the ingredients in my version would have startled Baba. But after decades of schnitzel research, and at the wizened age of [redacted!!!], I’ve learned that schnitzel, like life, gets even better when you break a few house rules.

Sorry, Baba—but I like to think you’d still recognize your schnitzel in mine.

(Someone throw that on a Hallmark card.)