When I think of Passover I think of the valiant and resilient survivors I interviewed for my first book, Recipes Remembered. I think of Joan Ferencz who spent the final months of the war in Auschwitz. I listened in awe as she told me how she grasped her sister's hand and pulled her to the line that survived.  She recalled Passover in her home before those dark days where she would run up to the attic to collect the Pesach plates.  It was a memory that brought joy to her gentle face.

I hear Ida Frankfurter as she told me a story of her liberation from the Peterswaldau camp in Ober Silesia.  It was a camp where she worked in the munitions factory having been transferred from Auschwitz and from which she took a souvenir of an empty grenade shell. That shell now stands as a centerpiece on her Passover table to remind her that she too was once a slave.

When I think of Passover I remember the day I sat in the Upper West Side office of restaurateur George Lang. He escaped Hungary in the back of a hearse and became a premier figure in the culinary world. His accomplishments were legendary as is the recipe he gave me for a Passover dish that was dear to his heart.

I recall Freda Lederer's shy and reserved voice telling me how she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen from where she was liberated by the British in April of 1945. She is so proud that she still prepares both Passover Seders at her home in Harrisburg, PA where her entire extended family enjoys her Hungarian cooking.

So, for my monthly column that usually touts the merits of too much meat, I am going in a different direction. No fears, I am not suggesting a vegetarian menu. However, I am going to share with you recipes from "my" Hungarian survivors who shared their stories of hope and faith and their cherished recipes with me.  Recipes where Passover was a cornerstone and the concept of freedom and exile had heightened meaning and tremendous importance.

George Lang

Actually, it turns out that wining is an important aspect of Purim. Not the kind you do when you complain that your Hamentaschen fell apart or a Monn seed got caught in your teeth, but the kind of wining that involves uncorking, unbridled imbibing. It is almost mandated that celebrators of the Purim feast indulge in too much wine.  It harkens back to the notion that King Ahasuerus was more than a little tipsy when he sent away his wife Vashti and began searching for a new member for his harem. That's how Esther got the gig and well the rest is history.

So, in honor of Purim, I will leave the ubiquitous Hamentaschen recipe to someone else. Because I am the resident carnivore, I will ply you with three recipes that pair meat and wine. The rules of cooking with wine are fairly simple and they all begin with the same mantra; Never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink.  That means that the bottle of cooking wine you bought in the supermarket, which is nothing more than a salty, additive laden bottle of liquid, should immediately be tossed.  Any wine that shares real estate with mustard and ketchup is definitely not good enough to drink (and probably not kosher).  The alcohol content is too low to impart any flavor and the saltiness will ruin your dish. I'm not saying you need to invest in a Rothschild bottle, but ask your wine merchant for a moderately priced ($10

There's a simple parable that I retold in my fist book Recipes Remembered, a Celebration of Survival. I find it so true and illustrative of what I love most about my favorite winter

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