Detours & Destinations with Rabbi David Ingber

Adeena Sussman – From Cooking to Connection

Aug 18, 2026

In this episode of Detours and Destinations, Rabbi David Ingber sits down with cookbook author, food writer, and culinary storyteller Adeena Sussman to explore a life shaped by food, migration, reinvention, and the search for belonging. Raised in a deeply communal Jewish home in Palo Alto and later immersed in New York’s food media world, Sussman spent decades helping chefs, celebrities, and publications translate flavor into narrative before ultimately finding her own voice through Israeli cooking and storytelling.

The conversation traces her journey from cookbook collaborations and food journalism to her life-changing move to Tel Aviv in 2015. Along the way, Sussman reflects on the Carmel Market as a creative and emotional home, on Israeli cuisine as a living mosaic shaped by migration and diaspora, and on the deeper meanings of hospitality, ritual, and nourishment.

Against the backdrop of October 7 and its aftermath, the episode explores how food becomes a language of resilience, consolation, and connection during moments of rupture and uncertainty. Through her bestselling books Sababa, Shabbat, and most recently ZARIZ, Sussman considers what it means to simplify, to feed others, and to create spaces of calm and joy in chaotic times.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about much more than cooking: it is about identity, home, memory, sensuality, Jewish life, and the emotional and spiritual power of gathering around a table.

This program is part of the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life.
Categories:
Tags:

© 2026 The Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association

All Rights Reserved.

All material accessed via the 92NY website (“content”) is protected by copyright under U.S. Copyright laws and is the property of The Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association or the party credited as the provider of the content. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, display, perform, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any such content, nor may you distribute any part of this content over any network, including a local area network, sell or offer it for sale, or use such content to construct any kind of database. You may not alter or remove any copyright or other notice from copies of the content accessed via 92NY’s website. Copying or storing any content except as provided above is expressly prohibited without prior written permission of 92NY or the copyright holder identified in the individual content’s copyright notice.

If you are a rights holder and have found your material on our website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), please contact us so that we may obtain and document accurate rights-related information. Upon email request to archive@92ny.org, we will temporarily remove material from public view while we address any rights issue and will honor takedown requests from authors who do not wish to have their work published.