Piping hot soup, chock full of vegetables, meat or both, is the best cure for cold weather blues. But who has time to spend hours chopping and simmering for the perfect taste and texture? Ronen Abergel, aka the Family Culinarian, does. Abergel turns out weekly soups from his kosher kitchen in Tenafly so you can have the best of both worlds—homemade soup packed with flavor that didn’t take you all day to make. Abergel emphasizes that his soups are not just a cold-weather comfort staple—you’ll love them year-round.
Abergel first began making soups commercially years ago at his restaurant Soma Soup on the Upper West Side. He had a dedicated following but fiscal constraints in New York City made the restaurant unsustainable. Now the recipes have a new life, with updated tweaks. And the soups really are homemade—right in Abergel’s kosher kitchen.
Each Thursday, Abergel puts out a menu with three soups—he calls it “Sunday Soups for the Week.” Select and order through his WhatsApp group by Motzei Shabbat and pick up your soup Sunday night. Some of Abergel’s irresistible creations include: Virgin Vegetable, a mix with a butternut squash foundation, based on his mom’s recipe; Tiger Lentil and Yellow Split Pea, both made with classic Indian spices; roasted Organic Chestnut Soup; Casablanca Chicken, a Moroccan style soup with eggplant and toasted coconut flakes; California Carrot Ginger; Baked Idaho Potato; Roasted Cauliflower; Beef Congo, an unusual beef-based soup thickened with banana chips; French Tomato; Souper Noodle Chicken and Mystic Matza Ball, just to name a few. To accommodate dietary needs,
Abergel will make vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free versions of many of these recipes that taste almost exactly like the original.
Abergel also does catering for individuals and groups. A member of Tenafly’s Kesher community, he offers weekly Shabbat menus and is thinking of launching a weekday lunch-to-go option, like his line of soups. He is a fabulous baker who creates exquisite cakes with precision decoration for birthdays, corporate events or any special occasion. He made a cake for his wife, a ballet dancer, with a Swan Lake theme complete with white chocolate swans. He worked at one time for a life science investor relations firm and made a cake for a colleague’s book launch party. The cake was so realistic, it looked like you could turn the pages. Judging from a photo Abergel has of the almost completely devoured cake, everyone enjoyed the unique blueberry lavender flavor and ultra creamy pareve buttercream frosting.
Ronen calls himself the Family Culinarian because he’s too humble to think of himself as a chef, since he never officially trained at a culinary school and has too much respect for the industry to use the title officially. But that’s what he is. He has had a varied career but cooking has been a part of his life since childhood. As one of six siblings, everyone pitched in—he often observed his mom cooking delicious Mediterranean dishes. Another influence was seeing his friend’s mom come home to cook after a long day at work. Abergel was just 13 years old, but he decided then that he would have enough skills in the kitchen to cook for his future wife. He has taught himself through YouTube videos and the best teacher of all—trial and error experimenting, followed by practice to achieve consistency. True to his vision, his wife, Dena, who grew up in Englewood, is now a very busy mom and teacher with the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet, and very much appreciates her husband’s cooking skills.
You can see Abergel’s beautiful creations on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/familyculinarian. Get the weekly soup menu and QR code to join his Family Culinarian WhatsApp group, or ask about catering an event, by calling Abergel, the Family Culinarian at 646-710-0774.
