We all have special recipes in our families, passed down through the generations, often as guarded secrets. Recipes are often the tie that binds a family together. Indeed, a mother-in-law’s willingness to pass on her secret recipe for potato kugel to her daughter in law may be predictive of the kind of relationship they will have. Many of these recipes, however, as shrouded in secrecy as they may be, are actually lifted from the sides of cake boxes or cans of soup. Years ago, during my time in Boca Raton, I was invited to join a panel of taste testers on an episode of Taste of America, a cooking program featured on both the Travel Network as well as the Food Network. The competitors were a young rebbetzin named Yocheved Goldberg, and a charming Bubbe by the name of Penny Pearlman. The judges were not given any information about the soup or its cook, and in the end - Penny’s soup emerged the clear victor, a battle won decisively for one reason alone - the Matzo Balls. While i...