Attention IKEA shoppers… only minutes away from your favorite Swedish furniture mecca — and down the street from the Striar Jewish Community Center — is Eastern Massachusetts’s newest kosher spot. Accoridng to an e-mail sent to members of the Young Israel of Sharon, Deja Vu Cafe at 516 Washington Street, Stoughton (Route 138) is under the kosher supervision of Rabbi Mendi Horowitz from the Canton Chai Center (Chabad). The cafe serves Israeli food and ice cream.

I’m sure this is a welcome development for South Shore Jews.

Work’s been insane lately, and my wife is both quite pregnant and doing a surgical elective at Man’s Greatest Hospital, so I hope you’ll understand if I’ve been lax in posting. But I just had to stay up late and share this glowing specimen of suburban Jewish life:

(Stolen from Audrey.)

The upcoming edition of Sugar High Friday will take place at A Veggie Venture (of all places). The theme is “surprise inside.” I can’t guarantee that all the recipes will be kosher, but dessert recipes are usually at least very easily adaptable. If you have any applicable recipes, submit them by September 22nd (Erev Rosh Hashanah — easy to remember). Either way, be sure to tune in the following week and indulge your sweet tooth!

My submission is a fluffy, cream-covered torte:

Here’s the “surprise” inside:

Of course, it won’t be a surprise if you tell your guests that it’s called “berry meringue torte.” There’s also no surprise as far as taste is concerned. If you like meringue, berries, and whipped cream, this dessert is for you.

Here’s the recipe:

3 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups berries (any combination)
2 cups whipped cream* (or a nondairy substitute, if necessary)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees Farenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt with an electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar while continuing to beat. When egg whites form soft peaks, add vanilla. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.

Spoon the egg white mixture onto the cookie sheet in a circle, flattening out the center and building up the sides. Bake 1 1/2 hours. Turn off oven and leave in with door closed 1 additional hour. Remove from oven.

Combine berries and 3 tablespoons sugar. Place berries in hollow of meringue. Use a rubber spatula to spread whipped cream over the top. Refrigirate up to 24 hours.

*From one cup heavy cream and 2 tablespoons sugar

I’ll be hosting the tenth Kosher Cooking Carnival at Apikorsus Online. If you have any recipes, restaurant reviews, essays about kosher food — basically, anything of the Kosher Blog genre — please send them to Batya (shilohmuse at gmail dot com) or me (navelofwine at comcast dot net), or use Conservative Cat’s form or the Blog Carnival form. (You don’t have to have a blog to submit material by e-mail.) Holiday recipes are especially welcome.

You can read more about the carnival here. Please help make it a good one!