Cookbook Watch

It’s impossible for most of us to separate our family histories from the food of our childhoods. The family meals we eat, especially at holidays, give us a sense of where we came from. When journalist Elizabeth Ehrlich started to search for her Jewish roots, she began in mother-in-law Miriam’s kitchen. Miriam, a Polish Jew and survivor of the Holocaust, held fast to the rituals, recipes and stories of the past. Ehrlich collects these memories and tells the story of her own family in a new memoir, “Miriam’s Kitchen” (Viking, $24.95), which includes 26 recipes.