Life with Flavor
Chef – Author – Educator – Traveler
Journalist – Philanthropist – Maven
Judy Zeidler was a teacher and authority on kosher cuisine. In addition to her nationally syndicated cooking column for the Los Angeles Times, Judy was the host of the Jewish Television Network show Judy’s Kitchen and author of numerous cookbooks, including The Gourmet Jewish Cook, The 30-Minute Kosher Cook, The International Deli Cookbook,… She and her husband were co-owners of many well-known Los Angeles restaurants including Citrus, the Broadway Deli, Capo, Cora’s, the Brentwood, Rooster, Brass Cap and served as consultants for Zeidler’s Café in the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
They traveled extensively, visiting restaurants and food and wine purveyors, collecting new recipe ideas and food inspirations along the way that Judy shared with her many followers. The Zeidlers prided themselves on supporting upcoming artists, especially Los Angeles artists, and even involved them in her cookbooks. The Gourmet Jewish Cookbook’s illustrations are by Peter Shire; Italy Cooks’ are by Suzanne Dunaway.
Born in the Boyle Heights (City Terrace) area of Los Angeles in 1930, Judy and her family moved to Eagle Rock and then Leimert Park, where she graduated from Dorsey High School. As a teenager, she met Marvin Zeidler at a B’nai Brith Eight Ball Dance. They married a few years later in 1950.
Judy barely knew how to cook when she and Marvin began their life together. They delighted in cooking and learning about food together. Thus began her love of cooking and enjoying good food.
In 1963, with four children and another on the way, Judy and Marvin moved to a ranch in Topanga Canyon, complete with farm animals, Shetland ponies and a peacock. Introduced by a neighbor to the wonders of yeast, her favorite pastime became baking bread, coffee cakes and desserts, delighting her family with the wonderful aromas of baked goods when they arrived home from school and work.
Her cooking career kicked off when she baked her signature strudel for Marge and Rich Dehr, the owners of the Discovery Inn, a local organic restaurant that was also a gathering spot for Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix and many other artists from Topanga’s music scene, and they asked if she could deliver it daily.
“When the owners tried my homemade strudel, they were hooked and commissioned me to make it for the restaurant — my first entry into the professional food world.”
Soon after she began teaching (kosher) cooking classes in her home kitchen. She loved teaching others to cook, believing that everyone should know and enjoy cooking as much as she did. “It’s so easy,” or “It just takes five minutes,” she was often quoted as saying. Her cooking classes became quite popular, and she regularly donated cooking classes for many organizations, including Planned Parenthood and The Skirball Cultural Center.
Judy was always thinking of new ways to engage people in cooking and trying new recipes. When a new neighborhood magazine called “The Brentwood” showed up in her mailbox one day, Judy quickly contacted the publisher and was asked to contribute to the Dine In section every few months.
In 1975, Judy was brought in as the home economist and recipe tester for The Farmers Market Cookbook, the first of a series of cookbooks by Florine Sikking. She and Florine coauthored the next two books, The Knotts Berry Farm Cookbook and The Disneyland Cookbook in 1976, featuring many popular and creative recipes highlighting each venue.
Because of her contemporary approach to the preparation of Jewish holiday foods, Judy was asked to write a series of articles for the Los Angeles Times. Judy wrote for The Los Angeles Times for more than two decades (1977 to 2000) as the Times’ Jewish food writer, her cooking column eventually becoming nationally syndicated and in later years she wrote articles as a special contributor. Readers everywhere looked forward to Zeidler’s Jewish holiday articles; in fact, her Potato Latke recipe won a Los Angeles Times Best Recipe Award.
Later she was asked to write for and became a longtime contributor to The Jewish Journal (1994-2017) and then Tribe Magazine. Judy was always (scheming/hatching/coming up with/thinking) of new ways to engage people in cooking and trying new recipes. When a new neighborhood magazine showed up in her mailbox one day, Judy quickly contacted the publisher and offered to contribute to a Dine In section every few months.
In 1978 Julia Child was giving a cooking demonstration and book signing in La Jolla to benefit the University of California San Diego Medical Center. Judy attended and before the session began, she approached Julia and explained that she was having fun adapting Julia’s recipes to conform to kosher cooking,
“…especially her bouillabaisse recipe, which always includes shellfish. I also mentioned that I often make her Bouillabaisse de Poulet (Chicken Poached in White Wine with Provençal Vegetables). She thought that was “just marvelous.” After she finished teaching the class, we met again when I was in line to have her autograph a cookbook for me. Julia remembered the conversation that we’d had earlier in the day, and she wrote the following: “Bon Appétit to Judy who will make all of this […] kosher! Julia Child.”
A year later, Julia donated a cooking class to Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles. She contacted Judy to make sure she was attending and asked if she would assist her. Of course, she was delighted.
“I later visited her in Santa Barbara and even joined her for lunch at La Super Rica, her favorite Mexican restaurant. Many years later, I was her guest at the 80th birthday party that chef Michel Richard gave in her honor at Citrus restaurant. It was lovely sitting next to her as we reminisced about our first meeting. I still have the photo taken when we first met and the apron and champagne glasses that were made to commemorate her birthday event.”
In 1985 Judy was offered her own television program on Jewish Television Network – Judy’s Kitchen. “Judy’s Kitchen” initially featured Judy demonstrating how to make classic as well as innovative recipes adapted for a kosher kitchen. Her popularity grew – interested readers and viewers wrote and telephoned for advice on everything from menu planning to researching old family recipes, where to purchase a special kosher ingredient or how to adapt a recipe to kosher cuisine.
Later she developed the idea of hosting many of L.A.’s best-known chefs on her show, making kosher versions of dishes from their restaurants and demystifying kosher cooking. Chefs included Thomas Keller, Michel Richard, Joachim Splichal, Evan Kleiman, Michael McCarty, Josie Le Balch and Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton as well as Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken in their first television appearance. Many of the recipes were later compiled in her book, Master Chefs Cook Kosher.
In 1988 Judy published The Gourmet Jewish Cook. Judy often credited Julia Child as her inspiration to write her first Jewish cookbook, and in it she shares several of Julia’s recipes which she adapted for the book (— the seafood Bouillabaisse With Rouille, which she dedicated to Julia.) It was followed over the years by five more cookbooks. Judy’s other cookbooks include Judy Zeidler’s International Deli Cookbook and 30-Minute Kosher Cook. She also co-authored Home Cooking with a French Accent with French chef Michel Richard.
Her final book, Italy Cooks, was in many ways a memoir of her 35 years of travel with Marvin through Italy and includes recipes from many of their friends. These friends were top restauranteurs throughout Italy, such as Massimo Bottura, Nadia Santini and Dario Cecchini, whom the Zeidlers befriended when he had a little butcher shop in Panzano.
“Judy’s discerning taste buds, her relish for the simple yet spectacular, and her enthusiasm about eating made every encounter with her an adventure.”
– Carole Stein, Living Brentwood