We brought back our summer Mother Daughter book club with the fun historical fiction, All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. All of a Kind Family is about a family of five American Jewish girls growing up in a tenement building on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1912. They find adventure in visiting the library, going to market with Mama, even dusting the front room.
Our girls really enjoyed learning about the how different life was in the early 1900s and life in a tenement building. They also enjoyed learning more about Jewish culture and holidays. It was also fascinating to learn that they had to quarantine (just like us) when the girls came down with Scarlet Fever. My incredible friend, Megan Monaghan, put together slides and links for the girls the to learn more about the time period. Lastly, the tenement museums website was fascinating to explore and learn from.
For the book discussion we decided to make Hamantaschen a Jewish pastry that they enjoyed during Purim. In the book Mama makes hers with a poppy seed filling, but to make it a little easier we used the Smitten Kitchen recipe that uses jam. They were delicious and the girls had fun trying different jams for them.
In the book the girls buy pickles when they went to the market with Mama, so we thought it would be fun to make homemade pickles! They were super easy (I cannot believe I have never made them before)! We used the Cookie and Kate recipe as a base, but the girls decided to keep theirs a little more simple and put in the bare minimum.
Basic Pickle Ingredients:
How to Make Pickles
These pickles are so easy to make!
- Slice your cucumbers as desired.
- Whisk together a basic brine made of water, vinegar and seasonings.
- Pack the cucumbers into a jar, add garlic dill and mustard seeds (if including), and pour the brine over it all.
- Refrigerate until the pickles taste sufficiently “pickled!”
The Tovla Jr kids knives came in handy for chopping!
As a comparison we made a mom version that used maple syrup instead of sugar and included the dill and mustard seeds and it was fun to taste the difference. They were both equally delicious, but I must say I really enjoyed the balance the maple syrup gave vs. the sugar.
While the pickles marinated and we enjoyed the cookies and we did some text to self questions to compare similar and differences of life for the girls in the book to the present day and to our own personal lives.
For more Mother Daughter Book Club ideas check out our other adventures here.
