Philly Chef Michael Solomonov makes doughnuts and talks business on Rachael Ray’s TV show
The description of the doughnuts alone — “flavored with orange zest and topped with honey plus ground pistachios” — elicited a “yum” from Ray.
Chef Michael Solomonov will turn up on Rachael Ray’s daytime talk show on Friday, Feb. 26 (2 p.m., WPVI) making sfenj, a yeasted Moroccan doughnut, and talking about his restaurants’ pivots during the pandemic as well as his new digital series on Vimeo, “Bringing Israel Home.”
“We are fortunate,” the James Beard Award winner tells Ray.
“It’s hard. Everybody asks you every day, ‘How are you doing?’ And, you’re like, ‘Well, there’s a real answer and then there’s the ‘I’m very grateful for what we have answer,’” he explains. “We have our health, right? Over half of our staff [has been] employed full time this entire time, which has been good, [and we’re] constantly adding … We’re keeping our staff safe, keeping our customers safe, and trying to do the right thing in a basically impossible situation.”
As for the pivots: “We have these amazing yurts that were built outside of Zahav. We’ve been serving people in these yurts, so we’ve got this whole experience. Federal Donuts has been doing takeout. K’Far, our Israeli bakery, is doing four days [a week] of takeout, and even now people are getting delivery. So, you can get 100 rugelach delivered to you while you’re in sweat pants.”
(The Federal Donuts shop on Sansom Street shut down after business Wednesday, pending a relocation nearby. Its building will be razed to make way for a high-rise.)
As for the sfenj doughnuts: The description alone — “flavored with orange zest and topped with honey plus ground pistachios” — elicited a “yum” from Ray.