Coffee-Spiced Pot Roast with Kasha Kreplach and Toasted Garlic Challah Crumbs

Growing up in a large, traditional Jewish family, my father never cooked anything until he met my mother. He learned by watching her prepare latkes and lasagne, bistecca alla pizzaiola and brisket in the kitchen of their chartreuse and shocking pink apartment: grist for the endless dinner parties Mom’s cousins remember vividly today, though they took place more than sixty years ago.

Constitutionally incapable of following a written recipe, my parents expanded their culinary repertoi