The other day, I got a message on Facebook from myself. Well, at least that’s what it looked like. I had gone 30 years thinking I had a completely strange name that only my hippie parents could come up with. I suffered through all the mispronunciations and misspellings and mocking from kids who thought my name was similar enough to “Tomorrow” to sing.

But it turns out there are several Tamara Keiths out there, and one of them went through the trouble of finding me. My friend Rob Sachs thought this was so funny he decided to do a podcast all about people who have the same name.

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Yummy latkes.

If there was a Tamara’s Greatest Hits album, this story would be on it.  Luckily for all of you no such album exists.  Learning to Make Latkes is a funny little story – and more like a personal essay than anything I’ve done since my teenage years as an essayist for Weekend Edition Sunday.  Here’s the audio from the version of the piece that aired on The California Report:

The story was also featured on the NPR Holiday Favorites album.

This may be the ultimate parable of Jewish cooking tradition. Growing up Methodist in a small, central valley town, my first introduction to latkes was through my college boyfriend, Ira, when I went to visit him at his parent’s house in L.A. during Hanukkah.  The whole house had this distinctive scent of grease and potatoes – and it was sort of fishy.  The potato pancakes Ira’s mom and sister made were terrific.  They were crispy and warm and dunked in apple sauce for that perfect balance of grease and fruit.

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