She is known as the Queen of Kosher around the world and almost 10-months ago she did the unthinkable and decided to move with her family from NYC to Israel. Ron Jacobsohn got to talk exclusively to the Jewish Martha Stewart, Jamie Geller, at her new home in… Beit Shemesh.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
She is known as the Guru of Kosher Cooking around the world and almost 10-months ago she did the unthinkable and decided to move with her family to Israel. JN1 got to talk exclusively to the Jewish Martha Stewart, Jamie Geller, at her new home in Beit Shemesh.
Jamie Geller, Kosher Cooking Guru:
I was the bride who knew nothing, my first book was called “Eating Kosher from the Bride who Knew Nothing”, and that was me, I got married and I didn’t know the difference between a spatial and saucepan and I didn’t really care. I became religious and I got married and my husband wanted dinner so I had to figure out, you know, how to do this. So I think like just really learning with everybody else has somehow made me, ‘the queen of kosher’ but, you know, its I am just like everyone else, I just, I love to serve my family and just write a lot about it, so that’s how I came to be.
Jamie Geller is probably one of the more uplifting positive people you would meet in life. She is a self-made woman who has done it all with her own two hands.
Jamie Geller, The Queen of Kosher
I started my career at CNN working for an entertainment show and I covered everything entertainment for CNN both domestically and internationally. I really thought my life was totally perfect and amazing and I loved it and my mother was so nervous I was going to meet the wrong guy in the wrong place , you know, a non-Jewish man so she started sending me to weekly Torah classes, which were like young successful Jewish singles very professional but trying to connect them both to the religion and you know mingling with other singles and that was the beginning of the beginning.
Today Geller is already a mini-media-empire publishing magazines, books, producing TV shows and web series all around the web.
Jamie Geller, Kosher Cooking Guru
They have called me, you know, ‘The Queen of Kosher’, so I have been in the New York Times, The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, I have been on ABC, NBC, Fox, Martha Stewart Living Radio and magazines all over and its incredible. The brand is called ‘Joy of Kosher” we have a website: joyofkosher.com, we have magazines, “Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller”, I have a book coming out in the fall with Harper-Collins called “The Joy of Kosher”, which is one of the top 3 publishers of the world and my new show is called, “Joy of Israel” and I did a show in the middle called “Joy of Aliyah”. So you see I really just love life and I really love everything that I do.
They famous saying says “the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot”, so we wanted to know from Jamie if this works for her kids too?
Jamie Geller, The Queen of Kosher:
My husband cooks a lot in the house, my kids cook with me, we have frozen pizza at night just like everybody else, it’s a combination just like everyone else’s doing it, in the show we cook dinner and we like to cook together a lot and for Shabbat we cook a lot and we love to have people and have guests so that’s certainly the time when like I am working on all four burners.
So at the peak of her career Jamie Geller decides to do the most unexpected and immigrate to Israel with her family.
Jamie Geller, Kosher Cooking Guru:
So I have this theory when you come to Israel as a tourist every cab driver, every Israeli will stop you and will like ‘nu what’s wrong with you why don’t you live in Israel?’ so now we moved to Israel and I can not tell you everybody from the neighbor to the cab driver to the producer that I am speaking to today ‘so why’d come here?” you know like you can not win!!!
Being she is a limitless resource of recipes, we wanted to get the low down where does she get her inspirations?
Jamie Geller, The Queen of Kosher:
I get my inspiration from everybody around me, from regular people. Every once in a while, sure, I’ll go to a restaurant and I’ll taste something and will go ‘ok, how can I maybe make this at home, make it easier?” but the home cook is the most important thing to me. When I go to people’s tables, I ask everyone almost, I never almost leave without asking for a recipe. I am about let it look gourmet, let it taste gourmet but I am not about slaving in the kitchen, I am like slavery is so yesterday.
Stand-Up Outro
What an inspiring story. These days Jamie is putting her finishing touches on her new cookbook and continues to shot new episodes of her popular web-series all while being a full time mom for her five children. For JN1, I am Ron Jacobsohn in Beit Shemesh
Clips Courtesy of Kosher Media Network