With Susie Fishbein, Passover becomes joyful and modern. The author of “Kosher by Design” cookbook series has published her fifth book, “Passover by Design,” just in time for the special holiday that is to begin Saturday at sunset.

Passover, the Jewish and Samaritan holy day that commemorates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian authority, is a celebration with many restrictions regarding meals, so that the menu during its seven days represents a challenge for most cooks. But not for Fishbein.

The author of the cookbooks that have sold more than 300,000 copies has managed to turn the traditional celebration into a contemporary and even glamorous one.

For a long time now, kosher has not been regarded as a faith-based culinary sector, but it has been adopted largely by people interested in healthy eating, organic food, sustainable agriculture or locally grown foods.

"Kosher doesn't mean the food is blessed by a rabbi," says Laura Frankel, executive chef of Wolfgang Puck Catering for the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "Kosher food is fit and proper -- it's fruits, vegetables, grains, coffee, natural meats, poultry, fish that have been checked and observed by a rabbinic supervisor."

Kosher consumers are continually searching innovative recipes and time-saving tricks for the traditional Passover meals that take so long to cook. Many Jewish women also expressed their desire to blend flavors from foreign cuisine in their kosher recipes. And that seems not to be a problem.

Delicacies such as Persian charoset with pistachios and pomegranate juice, Italian carrot-pecan torta, shiitake mushroom matzo balls or quinoa seasoned with mango, lime juice and red onion are only few of the brand new recipes in Fishbein’s new cookbook.

Fishbein’s creative desserts are amazing and irresistible: matzo boards with brown sugar, pecans or coconut toppings, lemon meringues or pineapple-coconut truffles.

Traditional meals for Seder, the first night of Passover when the family gathers together to celebrate, are zeroa (lamb shank bone or chicken wing), charoset (fruit and nuts paste), chazeret (romaine lettuce), karpas (vegetable), beitzah (roasted egg) and maror (bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness of the slavery which the Jews endured in Egypt before liberation).