Rip Rhododendron

User:Rip Rhododendron/Rose Naftalin Rose Naftalin, chef, restauranteur, and cookbook author, was born Riwke Garbowitz on March 18, 1896 or 1897 to Beril Garbowitz and Sarah (Sore) Raisen Garbowitz. The family, including her younger sibs Ben and Dorothy, emigrated from Bialystock and arrived at Ellis Island on January 12, 1904 aboard the ship Rhein. The family settled in Chicago and used the last name Garbow. Beril, an ornamental stone carved, died in a construction accident about 1907 or 1908. Sarah had a fourth child, Carl, a few months later, and overwhelmed, placed all 4 children in a Jewish orphanage. Rose left the orphanage at age fifteen or sixteen to work as a secretary and about age 19 married Mandel Naftalin. They had 2 children, Davida Naftalin Rosenbaum, born January 17, 1918, and Bernard (Bud) Naftalin born in 1923. Rose could not cook when she got married and taught herself to cook using books, classes and correspondence schools At a Chicago cooking school she met Vienna-born Nanny Wolfe, who taught her Viennese style baking. The family moved to Toledo, Ohio. Rose baked avidly at home. Her bundt kuchen won first prize, a dining room table and chairs, in a cooking contest. The next year her sixteen-layer chocolate cake won first place in Ohio and Michigan. In 1927 Rose and Mandel opened a small delicatessen near their apartment. The delicatessen had only a one-burner stove, so Rose would cook in the apartment. "We worked in shifts until one in the morning when I would go home, set the yeast dough, and while it was rising, make cupcakes, ice a sheet cake, bake a batch of cookies, and role the schnecken -- cinnamon roles -- to let them rise again. I would stick another batch of cookies in the oven, and by that time the yeast dough would be ready to bake." They moved their delicatessen to a larger space nearby at 2204 Ashland Avenue. Mandel died in the 1930s, and Rose managed and baked at Rose's Food Shoppe alone until 1955. The restaurant became a favorite Toledo meeting place. The comedian Joe E. Brown, who grew up in Toledo, came in often, and in his honor, Rose created the Joe E. Brown cookie, a delicate cigar-shaped shell made of butter, brown sugar, pecans, and flour rolled just long enough that Brown could put one sideways into his wide mouth. She was short and pencil thin. Aside from one of her cinnamon roles with a cup of coffee, she rarely ate her own baking. To study the work of other bakers, she would feel and smell a piece of pastry and could then make her own improved version of it without ever putting the sample in her mouth. She believed that she could improve any recipe by using only the finest freshest ingredients. In 1955 Rose sold her Toledo restaurant and moved to Portland, Oregon where both her children lived. She did not enjoy retirement and in 1956 opened Rose's Restaurant and Delicatessen at 315 NW 23rd Street in Portland, resuming her old work schedule, cooking and baking 18 or more hours a day with a rare day off for holidays.She sold Rose's in 1969. She retired to her small apartment where she cooked continually, adapting her restaurant size recipes to home versions. With the help of her daughter-in-law Bonnie Naftalin, she wrote out her recipes for the first time. In 1975 Random House published her first cookbook, Rose Grandma Rose's Book of Sinfully Delicious Cakes, Cookies, Pies, Cheese Cakes, Cake Rolls & Pastries, which sold about 100,000 copies. She travelled widely with her daughter Davida for book signing parties. They always brought along bountiful samples of her pastries, displayed beside the book. Many a taste was followed by the sale of an autographed copy.

In 1978, Random House published her second cookbook "Grandma Rose's Book of Sinfully Delicious Snacks, Nibbles, Noshes & Other Delights." In this column fellow Portlander James Beard wrote: "For anyone interested in cooking, the book is a wonderful investment."

Rose continued cooking, sharing food with family and frieds until her late 90s. It took a broken hip to stop her. She died in 1998. Her obituary was accompanied by many testimonials to her passion for food, her energy, and her generosity.