Karen Friedman, winner of a national cooking competition, struggled to open a drawer in her Delray Beach kitchen.
“I’m not Suzy Homemaker at all,” she laughed.
Friedman, 66, a retired teacher, says she prefers baking to cooking. But the mother of three and grandmother of six somehow pulled off a win at the Great Bubby Cook Off, a live showdown sponsored by the kosher-food company Manischewitz, and is about to become a local — if not national — star in the kosher cooking world.
Bubby is an affectionate word for “grandmother” in Yiddish. Friedman sent in a video of herself, her daughter and two grandsons making chocolate babka in her kitchen and survived the first cut of the competition. In November, she flew to the Jewish homeland of New Jersey for the contest, where she vied with three other women to make the tastiest dish using Manischewitz Wide Egg Noodles.
She knew a few days before the contest she would have to use the pasta and began a frantic search for a creative but easy-to-make dish that she could assemble under pressure, in front of the cameras. After toying with several recipes, Friedman chose “Asian Noodles with Mushrooms and Crispy Shallots,” a recipe suggested by her friend Vivian Feldman.
Her competitors cooked Crispy Noodles with Roasted Figs, Noodle Salad with Fried Gefilte Fish Balls and a Sweet Beef dish. After hearing the judges’ critiques of the other final products, Friedman said she wasn’t too surprised when she won.
The organizers asked her to keep quiet about her victory until instructed otherwise.
“I was told not to post it on Facebook,” said Friedman, a prolific Facebook poster. “But I told everybody, and I told everybody not to tell anybody.”
The winning dish: “Asian Noodles with Mushrooms and Crispy Shallots,” at Karen Friedman’s home in Delray Beach on Tuesday, January 13, 2026. Friedman won the Great Bubby Cook Off, a national competition sponsored by Manischewitz. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Friedman has lived in Delray Beach for eight years with her husband Bill, a retired defense industry engineer. She said her father was an Orthodox rabbinical chaplain in the Army for most of her childhood, and the family lived in France, Germany, Texas and New York.
“I hated that lifestyle,” she said, “I was the oddball. I never fit in.”
At 17, she left home to attend the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago, where she says she blossomed. She met Bill, a graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., in 1980 and went, as she describes it, from “Army brat” to “Army wife.” They had three children and lived in several cities, including Cleveland, Ohio, and West Orange, N.J., before moving to Delray Beach in 2018.
Karen Friedman, of Delray Beach; Sarah Feldstein, of Flushing, N.Y.; Molly Hagler, of West Hartford, Conn.; and Staci Segal of Manhattan, N.Y., competed in the first Great Bubby Cook-Off, sponsored by Manischewitz (Kosher.com/courtesy).
They found a Jewish community they loved at Delray Orthodox Synagogue, a small, 22-year-old congregation with 165 members that rents the back section of a Conservative synagogue on West Atlantic Avenue.
It was important to the couple that the synagogue share in their nachas (YIddish for deeply felt joy). So they invited Delray Orthodox members to a Jan. 18 showing of the cook off, which is posted on kosher.com. A Manischewitz food truck visited the congregation at the same time, offering comfort foods such as matzo ball soup, hot dogs, egg rolls and rugelach.
The next day, Friedman took a “victory lap” around her neighborhood in the truck. She waved from the window, like the Queen of England, she said, adding: “I invited everyone I know.”
As the cook-off winner, Friedman was awarded $5,000 and a Manischewitz-branded wooden cutting board. Her recipe will be featured in an updated edition of a Manischewitz cookbook. She said she will keep $2,000 of the prize money but plans to distribute the rest (“when it finally comes”) to her daughter and two grandsons who made the original video with her as well as her son who edited it.
She said her newfound fame has not changed her.
“I don’t feel any different,” she said. “The central part of my life now is being a bubby. I was a pre-school teacher and I just love doing it all over again with my grandkids.”
Watch Friedman make her winning recipe at kosher.com/shows/the-great-bubby-cook-off.
Karen Friedman displays a Manischewitz cutting board she received for winning the Great Bubby Cook-Off. Friedman took top honors in the national competition for her recipe featuring Asian mushrooms and frizzled shallots over egg noodles. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
The Manischewitz food truck will make public stops at several South Florida locations in the next few days. Here’s the schedule. Check facebook.com/Manischewitz for updates.
Tuesday, Jan, 20: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Famous Deli Market, 6570 Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach
Wednesday, Jan. 21: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Walmart, 10635 W. Atlantic Blvd., Coral Springs. 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Grove Kosher Market, 22191 Powerline Road, Boca Raton.
Thursday, Jan. 22: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Walmart, 1101 South Military Trail, Deerfield Beach. 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Aroma Market & Catering, 9200 Glades Road, Boca Raton.
Friday, Jan. 23: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., KC Market, 1002 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd, Hallandale Beach
Dining and Cooking