MISCHA LEVITZKI GIVES SOME NEW RECIPES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 14

MISCHA LEVITZKI GIVES SOME NEW RECIPES.

■ Misoha Levitzki, the well-known pianist, who will be in Christchurch next .week, is a most genial and friendly personage, whose charms are enhanced—among the younger set at all events—from the fact that he is a ■bachelor. Away from the concert platform Levitzki forgets the fact that he is a world-famed musician, and he makes everyone else forget the fact, too. He dances admirably, and even admits that he enjoys jazzing—“ so long as you don’t call jazz ‘ Music he hastens to add. In the course of his world travels Levitzki has saitipled all kinds of weird and wonderful meals ranging from “ billy-tea and damper ” in the Australian bush to the famous ceremonial dinners in China. He says that there is Only one food that he cannot tolerate and that is rhubarb. Prevailed upon to describe some of the dishes that he had sampled that would be new to readers, Levitzki passed on the following:—

“ A masterpiece ” is the way he describes “ Bursht,” the popular Russian beet soup, that has as basis a rich stock into which is put finely-chopped beetroot that has been boiled separately in a little water. After the beet go potatoes, carrots and onions, also finely minced. A teaspoonful of sour cream when the soup—a rich red in colour—is in the plate is the individual touch, which, in the eyes of a Russian, makes it specially delicious. Levitzki recommends the soup to any housewife who enjoys experimenting. He also recommends “ peeroshee ” a pastry (Russians usually make this with yeast), between two rounds of which is put a mixture of finely-minced pork, veal, onions, rice, hard-boiled egg and, of course, salt. So delicious is the Straudel the pianist’s mother makes when Levitzki spends a holiday with her at their summer residence in New Jersey, that, in his whimsical fashion, Levitzki tells of the way in which the neighbours’ children come flocking round as soon jas the odour of the cake is wafted i to their nostrils.