The cover image of Sonya Sanford’s debut cookbook, Braids, depicts a braided crown of challah, golden brown and shiny. But the word “braids” also refers to the strands that make up the author’s life and experiences (and, sweetly, to her preferred childhood hairstyle of two long braids).
One major strand of the book weaves in the Seattle area, where Sanford grew up, and the Portland area, where she lives now. She braids together the Eastern European Jewish comfort foods her Ukrainian grandmothers taught her how to make with the produce-heavy dishes one would find in the Pacific Northwest and across the Jewish diaspora. Divided into six sections — “Morning,” “Deli Salads & Spreads,” “Soups,” “Vegetables & Sides,” “Mains,” and “Baked & Sweets” — the book contains recipes for stuffed cabbage, pelmeni, rugelach, and potato kugel, as well as vegan carrot lox, summer squash-and-quinoa salad, and spring asparagus and peas. Braids has a friendly, relaxed tone that is complemented by lush, bright photography and approachable recipes. Sanford, who is both a food writer and a culinary educator and podcaster, writes that these recipes were designed to be used as guides and jumping-off points for readers’ own experiments. And this idea of serving as a meeting point seems to have been at the heart of Sanford’s Portland restaurant, Beetroot Market & Deli.
Sanford began searching for a space in which to house her Jewish deli in 2018. She writes that Beetroot’s intention was to celebrate “Jewish food in all its forms” and give vegetables and salads pride of place alongside meatier favorites. Beetroot shut its doors in 2020 amid the pandemic; and while Sanford describes the closure with great sadness, she also likens the year that followed to a Shmita year, a time of release and rest in the Jewish tradition. As a result, she “was able to create space for new seeds to be planted.” The restaurant had been a place for the community to find nourishment and comfort. Could that dream continue, Sanford wondered, “without a physical space”? The answer in Braids seems to be a definite yes.
