Sholom aleichem!' Shiva Shapiro said in a heavy Yiddish accent to her visitors. As she deftly stuffed cabbage leaves with rice and stewed tomatoes, and displayed other dishes she has made on her 1900 Beauty Hub coal stove, Shapiro drew her guests into her life. 'This is 1919,' she said. 'Last year was the end of the influenza epidemic and the end of the war to end all wars. We're a Jewish family and we're keeping kosher in our home. I don't read English, only Yiddish and Hebrew. My daughter Mollie learned about bananas at school. I think that bananas are mushy, but I take her to buy a hand of bananas for 25 cents.' Shapiro is actually Barbara Ann Paster, one of the actors here at the Strawbery Banke restoration, a living museum in which over 350 years of Portsmouth homes, stores, churches and history have been preserved. It is in Puddle Dock, which was a decrepit neighborhood destined to be razed under urban renewal until a campaign in the 1950s and '60s led by the town librarian saved 42 houses on 10 acres to create the museum. The area was first settled in 1695 by the English, who found a profusion of strawberries there. By the turn of the 20th century Italians, Irish, English, French-Canadians and East European Jews had come here to find work. Although most immigrants at that time settled in large cities, some settled directly in smaller towns like Portsmouth. By 1919, 152 Russian Jews made up about a quarter of the immigrant population of Puddle Dock and 18 of them were Shapiro relatives, according to the museum. As Shapiro, the wife of a pawnbroker with a 9-year-old daughter, Paster cooks dishes that follow the rhythm of the seasons, and the Jewish calendar. She may make strawberry jam for her strudel in June, or pickle cucumbers with dill from her garden, or put up Reliance peaches with brandy in August. For Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Friday evening, she excitedly pinched rolled-out strips of pasta dough into bowtie noodles to use with leftover kasha stuffing from her roast chicken, and made traditional honey and poppy seed cakes. Paster, 61, has been portraying Shapiro since the Shapiro house opened in 1997. 'My entire life was made for this job,' Paster said with a laugh. 'I married an Orthodox man. I'm Jewish from Russia, so I know the rules of kashrut and family purity. I am also a storyteller.' The real Mrs. Shapiro immigrated from Anapol, Ukraine, in 1904 with other family members to meet her future husband, Abraham, also from Anapol, in Portsmouth, where he went to work in a shoe factory and later became the president of Portsmouth's synagogue, Temple of Israel. At Strawbery Banke, visitors encounter Shiva Shapiro as a 34-year-old woman whose time is spent in her kosher kitchen with its coal stove and icebox. 'I get 50 pounds of ice for 25 cents every other day and I can keep kosher meat for up to three days,' she said. 'There is hardly a time when I would need to keep it so long as there are two kosher butchers with delivery: Jacob Segal in a horse and buggy and Harry Liberson, who came here from an advertisement looking for a butcher in The Jewish Messenger out of New York and has stayed for 65 years.' Holidays were at the center of the Shapiro family's life, and the museum staff took great pains to ensure the historical accuracy of the foods prepared and the items the family had available. 'To authenticate the Shapiro house,' said Michelle Moon, director of education for the museum, 'the curatorial staff interviewed 30 people from the neighborhood and took pollen and seed analyses to determine what grew and was eaten in their home.' Shapiro's grandson, Burt Wolf, 75, recalls picking seed pods for poppy seed cake or filling for his grandmother's holiday strudel. In 1919 it was still too early for standard East European ingredients like kasha, poppy seeds and kale to be in mainstream cookbooks like 'Fanny Farmer,' which Mollie translated for her mother. Even Florence Greenbaum's 'International Jewish Cookbook' (1918) had only one recipe for mohn (poppy seed) roly polys and none for kale or kasha. But immigrants brought seeds of their traditional foods, like yellow Ukrainian carrots, kale and parsnips. Shapiro bought harder-to-save seeds like beets in Jackson's hardware store. 'Mr. Wolf and many older immigrants told us that they ate yellow Ukrainian tomatoes, which we know Mrs. Shapiro was growing in her garden,' said John Forti, curator of culinary historic landscape for the museum. The red tomatoes were canned. Forti found a Reliance peach tree growing out of the compost pile in the Shapiro's garden. Seed catalogs from that time included climbing Russian cucumbers and Zubrinski yellow potatoes, which are planted there now. Stoneware crock shards found in the yard were a clue for the staff. 'Mrs. Shapiro was putting up the food in the old style as well as using canning jars,' he said. 'We found kale seeds in the walls of another immigrant's house.' Jewish truck farmers in the neighboring town of Greenland grew buckwheat for kasha, an East European staple, used at that time in America only for buckwheat pancakes. Recipes were handed down orally, at least in the East European immigrant communities, and they also traveled between neighbors. 'Whenever Camilla Pento comes to the house she points to the mandelbrot and says 'biscotti,' Shapiro said. 'She came to my house one day to show me how to make her biscotti. Nothing wrong with her recipe but in order for my family to eat it, we need to make it here so it's kosher. I made my mandelbrot and poppy seed cake and she her biscotti and pizzelles with a brand new pizzelle iron.' The Sabbath and holidays were the center of Shapiro's world and they also meant a lot of work for the Shapiro matriarch. Visiting just before Rosh Hashana, the first in the Jewish High Holy Days, I spoke with Elaine Kraskar, Shapiro's great-niece, 82, who was a prominent Democratic state legislator for 16 years. Kraskar remembers going with her grandparents to farms to get chickens for holidays and the Sabbath. 'We would put them in a burlap sack and bring them to be ritually slaughtered by Mr. Liberson,' she said. 'My grandmother would singe the feathers, pluck and clean out the chickens. Everything was used. The intestines were cleaned and stuffed. We roasted chicken stuffed with kasha. Rosh Hashana was a special time, a time for families to be together.' Although Kraskar gave the museum her grandfather's safe, a Victrola with Yiddish records, and a nightie her grandmother made for her, she couldn't give up her rolling pin or scrub board. 'I put the scrub board up on the wall in my laundry room,' she said, 'to remind me how hard life was for her and how much easier it is today.' CRISPY KALE Adapted from the Strawbery Banke Museum Time: 20 minutes 1 bunch of kale, (about 1 pound), cored, leaves rinsed and thoroughly dried 3 to 4 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced Kosher salt, to taste. 1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Meanwhile, flatten kale leaves and use the point of a knife to remove tough center ribs. Stack leaves and roll them together, then slice crosswise into chiffonade strips 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch wide. 2. Place kale in a medium bowl. Toss with olive oil, garlic and salt, making sure leaves are well coated with oil. Spread evenly across a large baking sheet. 3. Bake, tossing once or twice, until leaves are crispy but not burned, about 5 minutes. Serve as is as a finger food or snack, or top with poached eggs as a breakfast or lunch dish. Yield: 6 to 8 servings as a finger food, snack or side dish KASHA-STUFFED ROAST CHICKEN Adapted from Elaine Kraskar Time: 2 hours 4 tablespoons chicken fat or vegetable oil, plus additional for greasing pan 3 onions, 1 diced and 2 coarsely chopped 1 large egg 1 cup dry kasha 2 cups chicken broth or water Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1/2 cup diced celery 1 cup sliced mushrooms, optional 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage 1 roasting chicken, 4 to 5 pounds 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 pound whole, unpeeled, small potatoes 3 tart apples, quartered and cored 4 carrots, peeled and cut into 3- to 4-inch chunks 4 parsnips, peeled and cut into 3- to 4-inch chunks 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves. 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a roasting pan and set aside. In a skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons of chicken fat or oil, and saute diced onion until golden. Remove from heat and set aside. 2. In a small mixing bowl, beat egg lightly and stir in kasha. Mix well to coat all grains. Place a dry heavy skillet over high heat. When it is hot, add egg-coated kasha and stir with a wooden spoon to flatten it and break up any lumps. Continue to stir until egg has dried and kernels are browned and mostly separated. Add broth or water, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. Add cooked onions, celery, mushrooms (if using), parsley and sage. Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until kasha is tender, about 15 minutes. 3. Rub exterior of chicken with 1 tablespoon of remaining chicken fat or oil and garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stuff both cavities of chicken with kasha mixture. (Excess kasha may be baked in an ovenproof dish, during last 30 minutes of roasting time.) 4. In bottom of roasting pan, combine potatoes, apples, carrots, parsnips and chopped onions. Add remaining 1 tablespoon chicken fat or oil, and rosemary, and toss well to coat. Gently place chicken on top of vegetables and bake until golden and cooked through, about 1 1/2 hours. To serve, carve chicken as desired and serve each portion with some of vegetables and apples. Yield: 6 to 8 servings POPPY SEED CAKE Adapted from Strawbery Banke Museum Time: 90 minutes 1 cup poppy seeds 1 cup milk or soy milk 1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter or pareve margarine, plus more for greasing pan 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting pan 2 cups sugar 3 large eggs, separated 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder Confectioners' sugar, for dusting. 1. In a small saucepan, combine the poppy seeds and milk. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and allow to rest until cool, about 20 minutes. 2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a large loaf or tube pan by greasing it with margarine and lightly flouring the inside of the pan. 3. In bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together butter or margarine and sugar. Add egg yolks, vanilla, and poppy seed-milk mixture, and beat until smooth. Gradually add 2 cups flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well; remove bowl from mixer and set aside. 4. Place a clean bowl in mixer, with a whisk attachment, and whisk egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into batter. Scrape into pan, and bake until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool on a rack. When cool, dust cake with confectioners' sugar. Yield: 12 servings 