Musically, this record I thought originally was going to sound more like a klezmer record, but I wasn’t happy in that direction. I wanted a much more dynamic studio album, and I got very, very lucky meeting Gary Schreiner, who produced and arranged the record. He heard in these songs a couple that edged toward klezmers, but there’s also some world music on it. I somehow wrote a couple of jazz tunes, and he took advantage of those time signatures and that feel and did some beautiful arrangements. And so it’s a very eclectic-sounding record.

Q. Tell us about the album cover.

A. When I was a little kid, it was not uncommon at all for one of my cousins, an uncle, someone who had either been to our house and tasted my mother’s brisket or been to someone’s house where my mother had brought her brisket, for them to come up to me and, before they said hello or anything, they would just say: “You know, your mother’s brisket is fantastic. Your mother’s brisket is so incredible.” So the album is called “My Mother’s Brisket & Other Love Songs.”

I said: “You know, Ma, I’m going to put out this album, and I think I want to shoot the front cover at your house. Can you make a brisket, and we’ll just sort of have a Friday night dinner and my daughter will take the shot.”

And this filled conversations for two months leading up to it. She told me when she was going to buy the brisket, where she was going to buy the brisket, how big the brisket was going to be, how many people were going to come for dinner — this went on and on and on, and believe me, I run out of material quickly with my mother, so it was handy to have this.

Now comes the day. She’s made the brisket, we’re going to eat it after, but in the afternoon we’ve staged this little Sabbath dinner situation. And my daughter at the last minute said, “Grandma, go and put on your duster, your little housecoat.” And she put it on, and we took the shot, and it was only after we took the shot that I noticed that the fabric of the housecoat is almost identical to the tablecloth. It looks like one continuous fabric.

It’s my mother’s dining room, it’s my mother, and it’s my mother’s brisket. And it was delicious.