Sugar, eggs, cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, yellow raisins, egg noodles, a pinch of salt — and plenty of connection. That's the recipe for kindness that a volunteer group at Bet Shalom in Minnetonka bakes and delivers each month.
In just two hours, Kugel Kindness volunteers stock the synagogue freezer with 20 kugel dishes to deliver to fellow congregants in need of a little help — after welcoming a new baby, following a death in the family or while dealing with a health issue.
"It's making that connection for both the good times to celebrate and for the times where they need a little lift," said Kugel Kindness organizer Debbie Locketz, whose husband is a senior rabbi at Bet Shalom.
"What we've seen is that we create community in many different ways. While we're making the kugels, we create a small community. Delivering them also creates this amazing one-on-one connection. It feels really good, and it's something tangible that we can be doing," she said.
Locketz came up with the idea for Kugel Kindness after volunteering with the international nonprofit Lasagna Love, which connects cooks with neighbors who could use a meal.
Locketz wanted to create similar connections within Bet Shalom's congregation using the ultimate Jewish-American comfort dish — the baked noodle pudding or casserole called a kugel. She enlisted friend Renee Paulnock, and the two of them came up with a plan of action before delivering their first kugels in February.
"We've been trying to figure out the smoothest way to do this. And I think we've got a pretty good system now," said Paulnock.
Because their synagogue has a commercial kitchen, they knew they could turn out a significant number of baked dishes in a relatively short period with about eight other rotating volunteers. They decided to set up a monthly SignUp Genius, welcoming everyone — even folks without any previous kugel-making or baking experience.
But first, the Kugel Kindness team had to choose a recipe — and decide an age-old kugel question: sweet or savory?
After a synagogue bakeoff and taste testing of two sweet versions and one savory, the volunteers chose Locketz's grandma's recipe. Sweet and simple carried the day.
"It's really good and easy to make, and that's what we were looking for," said Locketz. "We didn't have to do a lot of chopping. We didn't have to do a lot of anything but mixing. Anyone can come and do that. It doesn't matter if they are standing or sitting, if they're old or young — we are being inclusive to all of our congregants."
A slow start
Their first forays ended up in the garbage. It turns out that trying to mix everything in a single batch in one giant pot does not work. Now, when volunteers come in, they have one job: to mix in 10 separate bowls. Paulnock is in charge of measuring and distributing ingredients.
"She goes down the line and she dumps in like sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar," said Locketz. "The volunteers are just mixing and talking. They don't have to be thinking, so they're chatting. That's part of it — building this community."
Meanwhile, Locketz boils the noodles — turning out enough for just two kugels at a time — before they go in the oven. Cooled, the entire stash goes in the freezer.
"Sometimes you have teenagers, and they're helping with their mom, sometimes it's older people. ... It's just kind of fun to see the dynamics that happen every time we get together and make kugels," said Paulnock.
For deliveries, the group relies on getting information from clergy about members of the congregation who might need a little comfort. They don't wait for people to ask or tell them they need help, but match addresses with their spreadsheet of delivery volunteers and send someone out with a kugel, just in case.
Looking back at nearly a year of kugel-making, Locketz and Paulnock say they've learned and streamlined a lot — and have gotten wonderful feedback from those who received kugels.
They are thinking about adding vegan or gluten-free options to their deliveries. They inspired Locketz's parents' synagogue in Toronto to start a Kugel Kindness group of their own. And they've also become skilled at listening to new volunteers' suggestions and gently holding firm, Locketz said.
"Everybody has their own recipe. Every single month, people come to me and they're like, 'Oh, my recipe is really good.' And I'm really good at saying, 'That's great, but this is the one that we're using,'" she said.
"You never really know who's going to show up, but there's always a lot of opinions. There's a lot of opinions, but at the end, we always get comments like, 'Oh, this was done really well.'"
