La Rabinessa takes pupils on culinary journey to North Africa

LYNN – She draws on her Italian and kosher heritage to vary her cooking but Liora Kelman is more than willing to travel around the world from her kitchen when it comes to introducing palates to new tastes.With her husband Rabbi Avraham Kelman assisting, she launched the schedule for her 2008 cooking class with an introduction to Moroccan cuisine.The afternoon class in Temple Ahabat Sholom’s synagogue offered participants a taste of North Africa’s fusion of Arabic and Spanish tastes ranging across vegetable, meat and fish dishes.Her previous classes crisscrossed the globe with an Algerian and Moroccan meal that included fruit, a Greek cooking class featuring milopita and “Riot in Rio,” a South American culinary introduction focusing on rice and meat dishes.Kelman drew on her Italian background to host a Venetian cooking class including gnocchi.Kelman teaches group and private cooking classes and offers themed children’s cooking parties. The mother of three draws on her own multi-cultural culinary training and takes inspiration from Ahabat Sholom’s Russian congregation and its tastes.She also caters Jewish community functions and offers instruction in kosher holiday preparation. Her other recent cooking endeavors in the last two years have included Ladle to Table kosher meals prepared with partner Judy Kaplan.