Most holiday menus combine comforting food with tradition. How can a cook honor the old while still satisfying a craving for the new? Make texture your plaything with a tableful of mouth-pleasing, contrasting components like pillowy matzo balls and salty, fried-till-they-shatter artichokes. Who says tradition can't be delicious?

||| |-—|-—| | | # Aunt Gillie's Matzo Ball Soup Mere chicken soup pales beside this legendary potion, the traditional symbolic first course of the Jewish-American seder.| | # Fried Whole Artichokes If you can't get to Rome, these "artichokes in the Jewish manner" are the next best thing.| | | # Spinach with Pine Nuts and Raisins A popular Roman-Jewish specialty, this dish is simple but exquisite.| | | # Lil Pachter's Jewish-Style Braised Brisket We have been told this brisket tastes even better the next day.| | | # Macaroons This recipe is adapted from Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen.| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |