No holiday meal is complete without my Bubbe's famous noodle kugel. For as long as I can remember, her savory-sweet creation has blessed our table for Rosh Hashanah alongside our honey and apples, for Hanukkah with our latkes and applesauce, sometimes even for a regular shabbat dinner next to our challah if we're lucky. From its soft, gooey, cheesy bottom to its crispy, crackly, golden-brown top, with plump juicy golden raisins sprinkled throughout like little treasure troves of sweetness, her kugel is perfection on a plate.

    So when she suddenly announced tonight that she's officially too old to make it anymore and this batch would be the last, the family understandably entered an immediate state of pandemonium. Bubbe's three children, three children-in-law, and seven grandchildren all shouted over each other. Aunt Rachel, already frazzled from hosting the crowd of us and corralling the littlest cousins out of the kitchen all night, nearly fainted straight away at the news.

    "Ah, don't worry yourselves so much, my dears," Bubbe waved her thin hands at us from the head of the table, "You have all watched me make my kugel so many times, I am sure you can replicate it by now."

    "But Mama," Uncle Howie ventured, "You've never told us the recipe for your Secret Spice Blend. And you always say it's the most critical component of the recipe!"

    Bubbe smiled with a twinkle in her eye, "Of course, of course. How about a little challenge? At the end of the month each of my children will show me their kugel skills and I will share my recipe with whoever has earned it."

    At this revelation, the uproar reached a fever pitch as everyone exclaimed about the deadline – only two weeks to make a worthy kugel or lose out on the secret recipe! My mother and her siblings eyed each other suspiciously while the rest of us muttered and speculated. I knew that Mom had seen Bubbe make the kugel hundreds of times, but she'd never tried her own hand at it. As the middle child she'd always felt the need to prove herself in the family pecking order, so the stakes were automatically high. She'd have to pull off a miracle to win the contest.

    Mom's first kugel attempt was rather disastrous. The top burned to a charcoal crisp while the noodles at the bottom stayed gummy, and there wasn't enough cheesy filling to keep them from all sticking to each other in an absolutely inedible mess. Her next attempt was a moderate improvement; the noodle texture was nearly there, but the filling didn't taste quite right and the top still burned.

    At the next shabbat dinner, with only one week to go, we grandchildren gathered in Uncle Howie's living room to commiserate while the adults set the table. The gloomy mood in my household sounded typical across the board – Aunt Rachel had nailed getting the top layer crispy without burning but couldn't get the bottom to cook through and Uncle Howie had gotten the raisin ratio dialed in but his filling was too runny. None of the siblings had figured out quite the right spice combination to replicate Bubbe's secret blend; one wasn't cinnamon-y enough, one was overpowered with nutmeg, and one somehow just tasted salty.

    "Between the three of them, they could almost make one passable kugel," joked my cousin Noah. Slowly, every little face in the circle turned towards him, expressions changing from amused to thoughtful as we each considered the possibility more seriously. We elected the youngest cousin, Aviva, to pitch the suggestion to our parents. We all waited in the next room with bated breath and cheered when she came back grinning with success.

    Our three houses were a chaos of collaboration for the following week as one of the kitchens was nearly always occupied by the chefs honing their concoction. Cousins were sent back and forth to fetch replacement ingredients while the rest of us eavesdropped on our parents reminiscing about their collective childhood cooking together with Bubbe. Aunt Rachel's shoulders gradually relaxed as she relinquished the noodle arranging step to Mom, who reassured her that it wasn't about getting complete symmetry at each layer but an overall evenness to keep all the components in balance. Uncle Howie, reminded of his own enjoyment of it when he was too small to even see the top of the counter but still stubbornly insistent on "helping" with his older sisters, distributed pieces of uncooked noodle for us all to munch on while we attentively watched the kugel's progress.

    By the time that Bubbe arrived at my house for the final showdown, her three children had been hard at work together in our kitchen for hours, peals of laughter echoing through the house. She smiled at the sounds of camaraderie and winked at me as I took her coat. We settled down around the table, all eyes on the empty trivet prominently situated in front of Bubbe's seat. Mom emerged from the kitchen flanked by her sister and brother, her oven-mitted hands firmly gripping the steaming casserole dish bearing the fruit of their teamwork. The smell that wafted out when she cut the first slice and adeptly levered it onto Bubbe's waiting plate was transcendent.

    Nobody breathed while Bubbe scooped up a bite, blew on it gently, and chewed carefully, face betraying no verdict as she tasted her children's creation. She set down her spoon, clasped her hands, and finally spoke.

    "It's perfect," Bubbe glowed, "As promised, I will share my Secret Spice Blend recipe. You hardly need it with how good this tastes. But you've all earned it by learning how to work together to make something better than you each could on your own."

    The room erupted into a chorus of whooping and clapping, followed closely by a clattering of plates being passed down to receive their own helpings of kugel. And from then on, a family occasion never went by without my mom and her siblings gathering beforehand to make the noodle kugel together. The kitchen might get crowded and the laughter might turn to bickering on occasion, but the perfect kugel would always be worth it.

 

Recipe for Bubbe's Famous Noodle Kugel

Serves 8

12 oz wide egg noodles

2 eggs

½ cup light brown sugar

1 T. Secret Spice Blend*

2 cups applesauce (or use sliced apples)

8 oz low-fat ricotta cheese

¼ cup golden raisins, plumped

* cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves to taste

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Boil noodles in salted water until soft. Remove from the pot, run under cold water, and drain well.  

Beat eggs until frothy in a large bowl. Mix in sugar, spice blend, applesauce, and ricotta. Mix well.  

Add noodles to egg mixture and stir until well coated.

Arrange in a well-greased 9x9in pan.

Bake at 350°F for 1 hour. Top layer of noodles will get crispy and hard.

Cut and serve while hot.

In the unlikely event of leftovers, serve either warm or cold.