Stacy Rose (North Bend), is a traditional Jewish cook and baker, Israeli folk dance teacher, and musician. Rose shares her knowledge of traditional dance with her congregation and the greater south coast community. A traditional and innovative cook, she is known for her bagel brigade and matzoh ball soup, which she delivers to those who need their comfort and sustenance.
Bio
Stacy Rose is a traditional Jewish cook and baker, Israeli folk dance teacher, and musician. Rose, who grew up in Philadelphia, the child of first-generation American parents raised in Eastern European Orthodox Jewish families, came to Oregon to visit her sister in the early 1980s and stayed. Her Jewishness is part and parcel of her ethos, and she joyously shares her knowledge of traditional dance with her congregation and the greater south coast community. A traditional and innovative cook, she is known for her bagel brigade and matzoh ball soup, which she delivers to those who need their comfort and sustenance. Sharing is at the center of who Stacy Rose is and what she does. When she first came to Oregon, she and friends "started the South Coast Folk Society and out of that we started doing community dance, including Israeli folk dancing. From there, it was easy to make the transition of sharing that passion for Israeli folk dancing with the Congregation Mayim Shalom. . . . We always have live music and dancing, and it's just a part of who we are . . . . It's great to join hands in a circle with your friends and feel that energy and share that connection. . . . When we get out there and people hear the music and some of them have this oh, I remember when we used to do this and it brings back and they join the circle. … it touches an old place and . . . it just triggers something." Like music and dance, Jewish food traditions also touch people in a deep way. Rose, whose maternal grandmother emigrated from Lithuania, recalls, "my first memory of Jewish food goes way back to when I was growing up in Philadelphia area, and my bubbe [grandmother] would come from Chicago . . . with a suitcase filled with ingredients . . . . And I remember walking home from elementary school and opening the door just a crack and smelling the cooking. . . . Smelling her food . . . meant she was there." Rose especially remembers her grandmother's borscht (beet soup) and matzah brei (fried matzah and eggs). "The only time we ever had borscht was when bubbe came. … One thing that she always made for breakfast was fried matzah. . . . And I like to make fried matzoh for my grandsons. I never make it for myself, but I always make it for them. And they have been a part of that, making it, too, so that the two older ones know how to make it now." Besides the traditional dishes she makes for her family, Stacy Rose is known locally for her matzoh ball soup and her bagels. "I like to make matzo ball soup. I find comfort in that. I tell people it really does heal, it's a healing bowl, a bowl of health." The first time she made soup for an ill friend, word got back that the person (not Jewish) assumed that the soup contained only plain broth and matzoh balls because "she doesn't have money to put anything in the soup, you know, to buy ingredients. . . . So that was an interesting eye opening experience . . . ; other people in other traditions are not expecting that. . . . That's soup. So I do like to share matzo ball soup because I believe in it." She likes to make bagels, partly because "people love bagels. And it's hard to find a good bagel." Living where she does, Rose explains, "my bagels are good, just like my playing music is good because I live in a small town. So, you know, being a big fish in a small pond has its advantages, but. But I do like to make bagels for people because it makes people happy."
