Joshua Silverstein is an award-winning actor, comic, writer, allergy-culture advocate and food lover.

Silverstein’s creativity clearly lends itself well to the kitchen, especially since he needs to work around his many allergies.

“My relationship with food has been challenging, it’s been exciting, it’s led to a lot of interesting stories,” Silverstein told the Journal. The executive director of Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp, he is also a staple writer-performer at The Braid Jewish Theater Company. Silverstein’s The Braid’s shows include “True Colors,” “What A Surprise” and the upcoming “Hold Me, Heal Me,” as well as a solo show.

“Because I’m a father with a multicultural family that leaves room for a lot of experimentation [especially since] my children also have allergies,” he said.

Silverstein attributes his love of food to his paternal grandmother.

“She would make to this day, unbeatable, the best French toast that I ever had in my life,” he said.

Silverstein said his traditional Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents were very enthusiastic about making sure he understood his Jewish heritage. He did not realize till later that his grandmother altered her Jewish cooking for his benefit.

“She was changing the ingredients of her brisket … her latkes … all these foods that my father and his brothers had grown up eating, so that I could eat,” he said. Silverstein’s grandmother’s latke recipe is below.

“My mother’s family comes from the south, so I was exposed to that and I love that food too,” he said. “But I don’t think that I really took a liking to collard greens and black eyed peas and stuff like that until I got older.”

Today, Silverstein’s allergy-friendly kitchen is also overflowing with culture.

“My wife is from Nayarit – she’s Mexican – and my mother in law will come over and she makes Spanish rice and all kinds of different dishes from her culture,” he said. “So the kids are growing up with being Jewish and latino and having a father who’s African American.”

For instance, he said, their youngest son loves chicken, fried foods, hamantaschen and potatoes, but is still unsure about vegetables.

“Because of this melting pot of various backgrounds and stories, our children are growing up with this wealth of different taste buds,” Silverstein said. “And we try to do – what I feel like my parents and my grandparents did – is try to put as many different options on the table as possible.”

Silverstein said his grandmother’s latkes were his all-time favorite recipe.

“When she passed away, I had been invited to a party where we were supposed to bring a recipe that best represented our culture, so I chose to bring latkes,” he said. “Because I felt that latkes are always best made right there on the spot, I [decided to] make the latkes at the party.”

He showed up with the ingredients – he obtained the list from his father – along with a cast iron skillet and a blender.

Silverstein was told that most Jews don’t use a blender when they make latkes, but his grandmother did.

“Because they’re pancakes, she made them really, really thin,” Silverstein said. His batter was essentially chunky onion soup.

“I poured them in the cast iron skillet with olive oil, and I almost started a fire in the kitchen,” he said. “I almost burned my face off and I did not do a good job.”

They were wet in the middle, but he ate the whole thing.

“I’m not a quitter, so I’ve tried a few times,” he said. “Then Natasha [Feldman, author of “The Dinner Party Project”] came over to our home and perfected my grandmother’s recipe; [she] got them pretty darn close to what they used to taste like; she added a little twist and she didn’t use a blender.”

Silverstein said cooking creatively – especially when dealing with dietary restriction – means you get to be a “mad scientist” in the kitchen.

“The kitchen should be a place of play and fun, and that’s a privilege,” he said. “Not everyone has the luxury of being able to [have] the ingredients to play with.”

Combine the mindset of exploration with being inclusive.

“Food is supposed to be about bringing people together,” Silverstein said. “Whatever your tradition is with food, whatever the recipe is, [consider] how can you include others in that experience, how can that meal be about bringing people together.”

In Silverstein’s home, everything they eat is a community-based project.

“Everyone has an opinion, everyone has an idea,” he said. “We’ve given them too much agency in our kitchen – we messed it up a long time ago – so everyone has a say.”

As the kids have gotten older, they get assignments: Prepare this, chop this, heat the pan, pull this out of the fridge. It’s a family affair!

The kitchen is a great way to take care of one another, to practice showing up for your family, which is great training for showing up for others.

“My hope is that they’re going to carry the tradition into whatever their lives look like outside the house, wanting to feed … and take care of the people in their lives,” Silverstein said.

Learn more at thejoshuasilverstein.com and CazFamilyCamp.org.

For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:

Watch the interview:

Joshua’s Grandmother’s Latkes

makes about 20

30 potatoes, chopped in small pieces

1 whole onion, grated

4 large eggs, beaten

2 tsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp sea salt

1 Tbsp pepper

1/2 cup chives, finely chopped

1/4 cup rye flour

4 cups of olive oil

A pinch of rosemary and thyme

Heat a large, cast iron skillet. Add 4 cups of olive oil. Keep at medium heat.

In a blender, mix potatoes, onion, eggs, garlic powder, salt, pepper, chives, rye four, rosemary and thyme. Blend on a low setting. Keep at a chunkier consistency. Note: Blender is optional; you could also mix by hand.

Ladle batter into the skillet. Let fry and flip to achieve golden brown color; about 2 – 5 minutes per side.

Serve with applesauce.

Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.