Chabad of Tucson is hosting an evening with food author and TV presenter Joanne Caras on Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 7:00 PM.
Caras' two cookbooks, "The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook" and "Miracles & Meals," have become a global phenomenon, memorializing vibrant lives lost in the Nazi Holocaust.
The Port St Lucie, Florida, resident has collected over 240 stories of Holocaust survivors from around the world who have shared with her some 500 food recipes from their families and communities.
Her decision to focus on survivors' recipes and stories came after the death of her daughter-in-law's mother — a Holocaust survivor to whom Caras felt intimately connected.
She also saw this as a way to honor her husband’s family from the Ukraine — all of them buried in the mass grave of Babi Yar.
"Right now the demand is so overwhelming that we are on our tenth printing," Caras says. " We have shipped cookbooks from Florida to Canada, New York to California, and all over the world."
Caras hosts her own TV show "Miracles & Meals" which appears on Mondays at 9 PM on JLTV, available in over 36 million homes in the United States.
"We have touched the hearts of thousands of people," she said ahead of her presentation in Tucson, to be held at Congregation Young Israel, 2443 E 4th Street.
Caras will tell how the cookbooks were created and will relate several of the most moving and miraculous stories that appear in the two books. A selection from the cookbooks' recipes will be presented for participants for tasting.
Both books, described by one reviewer as "the most important cookbook you will ever own," will be sold at the evening. Copies can be ordered in advance as well (proceeds will benefit Chabad of Tucson and a soup kitchen in Jerusalem).
RSVP and pre order cookbooks at www.ChabadTucson.com/RSVP