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Ruth Levine pauses near the table, set for the combined holidays of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, in the Pepper Pike home she shares with her husband, Marc Levine.

(Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Forget "once in a blue moon." If you want an example of something truly unusual, consider the rarer than rare confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.

Try... once in roughly 77,000 years.

It's definitely an unusual collision. The dates for both holidays vary from year to year, with Thanksgiving occurring on the fourth Thursday of November and the first night of Hanukkah dictated by the Hebrew calendar. (Depending upon your source, the next such occurrence could fall as soon as the year 2070 -- or, more likely, in about 79,000 years. You're welcome to do your own interpretation.)

And this year, 2013, is that random year when American Jews will celebrate perhaps the greatest holiday mashups of all times. Yielding... wait for it... Thanksgivikkah!

If you're Jewish, or just really good food, it's the best holiday ever.

Ruth Levine kind of thinks so. As chef-owner of Bistro 185 in Cleveland, at first Levine found herself a bit flummoxed by the challenge of tackling the two major holidays for her own family.

"We were at the restaurant, my manager and I, and we were scheduling a wine dinner," Levine recalls. "And all of a sudden my manager and I were going over the calendar and then we looked at each other and said “Ohhh… Hanukkah and Thanksgiving are on the same night! That could be a problem.”

Obviously, both are very important nights to many people. Especially for a restaurateur who happens to be the mother of three and family matriarch.

"I tend to think in restaurant terms, as well as a parent" Levine says. "I want to schedule so that things are convenient for our customers, and at the same time I want the holiday to be special for my family. So when my friends are going ‘Wow, did you realize? This will never happen again in how long?’ that's when I started reading up."

She started out by looking for the common denominators among the two holidays.

Bistro 185 chef Ruth Levine's feast for the combined Thanksgiving-Hanukkah dinner includes elements perfect for both occasions: Turkey breast stuffed with a challah dressing; Yukon Gold-and-Sweet Potato Latkes; fresh cranberry sauce; steamed asparagus; a delectable noodle kugel laced with pureed pumpkin and studded with pineapple; and an apple-pumpkin strudel topped with pecan whipped cream. (There's more on the table, in case anyone has room for more...)

"I was thinking ‘what are the three or four things you use at Thanksgiving and Hanukkah?' Obviously there's the turkey, some form of turkey -- that's nice for both holidays. And then the sweet potatoes, they can go into lots of things, and the pumpkin and the cranberries. To me, those are things you have to have at Thanksgiving.

"Then when you think of Hanukkah, you have to have something fried. In my house they’re always potato latkes. And then you have to have something for the people who don’t eat turkey, so a nice brisket would be good. And the applesauce is always popular, and the sour cream for those who don’t keep kosher..."

Quickly, a feast well worthy of the combined holidays began to take shape. Most important, she adds, was maintaining the precious traditions of both days.

Levine was born to Holocaust survivors Helen and Sam Zieleniec. The family came to the U.S. in 1954 and though they gradually adopted more and more American ways, their community maintained long-held traditions.

The menorahs the family lights during the Hanukkah holidays are a mish-mosh collection of ones they kids made at Hebrew school, at camp, and others they've gathered. That's in keeping with the overall eclectic art and happily lived-in, mid-century Pepper Pike home Levine shares with her husband, Marc.

"My table and my home is not a show," she says. "It's a family," she says

And theirs is a life built around work, faith, and the strongest binding of love.

"So I like to be really traditional with the holidays -- and everyone has their memories," Levine says. "For me it’s time to go back and remember what my mother would be doing."

No canned good here. Homemade cranberry sauce is part of the menu for Ruth Levine's Thanksgivikkah holiday feast.

"Everything, of course, had to be made fresh that day. Mom didn’t believe in freezing and make-aheads – so it was a very early morning of cooking.The soup would be on, simmering, and the roast would be in the oven. Coming from a European background, Thanksgiving was an America thing. Pumpkin pie was not in her vocabulary. Now, suddenly, she has Americanized children and WE wanted Thanksgiving. Forget the brisket; you have to make a turkey."

Of course the cranberry sauce was out of a can, Levine recalls, but the rest of those old merged occasions reflected traditional Jewish cuisine: kreplach or matzo balls in the soup, and the yeast-risen donuts that are today called ponczki).

"As I got older and had a family, I took over most of holidays. And mom would say ‘Ah, this cranberry sauce, it tastes good – it’s not from a can, is it?”

Not in Ruth Levine's kitchen. Those years of cooking for a growing brood and extended family -- including sons Ari (he turns 35 on Thanksgiviikkah Eve) and his wife, Ursula, and their two daughters; Zachary (30), and Gabriel (25) -- gradually broadened Levine's ability to cook for a crowd.

"People complain about cooking. I love it," she says.

"I like to see the transition from a raw to a cooked product. I like to see the empty cans and the wrappers, I like cleaning the turkey – it’s just instant gratification for me. You take it from the raw state, and you're pushing the stuffing under the turkey's skin and it gets bigger and bigger as you stuff it, that fascinates me.

"The only part I hate about the holidays is cleaning up!" she declares.

"If we have pots and pans that have to be soaked over night, well, you put them in the oven and leave them. There's nothing worse than cooking all day and then having to tackle a mountain of pots and pans."

Levine pauses for a moment and starts to chuckle.

"Of course and then you forget them. So when you preheat the oven a few days later, you’re thinking ‘what’s that smell?’..."