Eat already! It's getting cold

We have established in the past that The Pedant and I come from Eastern European cultures with distinctive food tastes (i.e., not very spicy and fairly salty). The Pedant recently posted about how our shared culture hates savory foods that are made sweet. His tirade on raisin and blueberry bagels was perfectly pedantic and poignant and I whole-heatedly agree. I do, though, as a lover of the sweets, love sweet kugel as much as I love savory kugel.

Kugel is one of those things only people who have clogged arteries, family histories of clogged arteries and live in a shtetl can appreciate. But, mmm, is it GOOD. Often it comes in the form of potato and noodles. I personally prefer noodle kugel, and was taught by my great-aunt (a Jewish mother par excellence) how to make it with the right amount of love and guilt.

The basic recipe is something like this:

• 1 pound egg noodles
• 6 whole eggs
• 2 sticks of butter
• salt and pepper (savory)
• apples, raisins, sugar (sweet)

See how the arteries clog? She probably put in schmaltz just the way they did in the old country.

I like it sweet, so I'll cut up apples and put in raisins, and the like. Although I haven't made it since high school because a slice of it has the same nutritional value that eating a spoonful of fat.

There has been some advances to the kugel. It seems that the Food Network is even branching out on the traditional kugel. Even Emril has a recipe. But he only puts in 5 eggs. That isn't enough. What, I should go to the store, buy a dozen eggs, make two kugels for 10 people for the holiday and have 2 eggs leftover?! I should just take the money and flush it down the toilet.