50 | SEPTEMBER 26 • 2024 
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anda Weinstein Feldman taught for almost 
40 years between Detroit schools and 
Walled Lake schools, so she knows the value 
of staying organized. Since retiring, she’s taken her 
organizational skills and three-ring binders — and 
her desire to educate future generations — and 
combined them with her interest in carrying on 
traditions. The results are neatly kept family recipe 
binders and professional-quality family history 
books.
Randa is featured in the latest episode of the 
Bubbie’s Kitchen video series making stuffed cabbage, 
a dish she learned from her mother, Anne Yetz 
Weinstein, and that she continues to make each 
year for Rosh Hashanah and Pesach. The recipe 
she’s used for Rosh Hashanah includes rice in the 
meat mixture, but, for Pesach, her mother taught 
her to use grated potato instead, since Ashkenazi 
Jews customarily avoid kitniyot (a class of food that 
includes rice) on Pesach. 
In recent years, Randa decided it’s easier to use 
grated potato year-round so that her stuffed cabbage 
is always the same, and leftover rolls prepared for 
Rosh Hashanah could potentially be frozen for use 
as extras on Pesach. The family’s potato holiday 
hack has thus now become the standard.
Anne Weinstein’s stuffed cabbage recipe, and 
hundreds of other recipes, are stored among six 
binders that Randa assembled. The binder library 
includes “Salads,” “Soups,” “Entrees,” “Apps/Snacks/
Carbs/Sides/Breakfasts/Beverages,” “Desserts/
Sweets” and “Jewish.” 
It’s the “Jewish” binder that holds many of the 
most meaningful recipes for Randa, though some 
recipes could logically fit in more than one. Once, 
when Rabbi Chaim Fink of Partners Detroit was at 
her house, Randa showed him her binders and the 
rabbi asked whether chicken soup would fall under 
“Soups” or “Jewish.” “Soups!” she exclaimed.

LIVING AND LEARNING
Randa wasn’t always the cook she is today. As she 
was growing up, her mother and bubbie handled the 
kitchen work, and Randa kept busy elsewhere. After 
she was newly married at age 21, she tried making 
hot dogs, but found they were still cold inside after 
she prepared them. Not knowing where she went 
wrong, she called one of her brothers for help. “I 
said, ‘I made hot dogs, and they’re cold!’ and he 
said, ‘Just put them in water to boil them.’ I said, ‘I 
did, but they’re cold inside’ and he said, ‘Well, you 
didn’t leave them in long enough.’” 
Randa had been removing the meat as soon as the 
water boiled.

JOSHUA GOLDBERG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ROSH HASHANAH
BUBBIE’S KITCHEN

Randa Weinstein Feldman uses 
books and binders to ensure the 
culinary legacy of her family.

Passing Down
Traditions

PHOTOS BY JOHN TRIPP

Joshua Goldberg 
and Randa 
Feldman in the 
kitchen

continued on page 52

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