My grandparents survived the war without any family. When they came to America, the Bergers became their family. I remember the Berger family at our Chanukah parties; we played dreidel with lots of gelt and took turns frying donuts in the kitchen. On Purim, we’d match our costumes and have a gala seudah together.

On Passover, the girls from my family and the Berger family got to work together. We would collect all the recipes we wanted to try and then switch off nights in each other’s homes, where we would experiment until the wee hours of the night, giggling, tasting, and filling up our mothers’ freezers. I’ll never forget those Passover meals, where we had the satisfaction of knowing what we produced, which recipes were keepers, and which had to go! This is one of my favorites from those nights of cooking with the Bergers.

If you do not eat store bought products, make your own macaroons. (I did, and I can assure you, homemade macaroons will change your macaroon attitude.)