Here in Highland Park, New Jersey

What could be more delicious than sourdough bread topped with homemade hummus? To learn how to make sourdough starter, visit Mother in Israel’s post. And to find out more about hummus and what makes an authentic chickpea dip (as opposed to some wannabes), visit the Occidental Israeli’s post.

Why sourdough starter?

• Taste
• Health: More in this article on fermented bread. Easier to digest seems to be a top feature. Also, some people have reactions to commercial yeast (my father may have this) and find they don’t have the same reaction with the sourdough.

I’m thinking of doing this in July, as Mother in Israel says it works better in the hot humidity. See also read Mimi’s Oatmeal Sourdough Bread.

Why hummus?

Why not?

Here’s the Occidental Israeli’s comments on common hummus errors:

Another mistake I saw on TV that day, was the host opening a can of chickpeas and simply pouring them into the food processor. When making hummus, you must, MUST, wash the chickpeas numerous times, to make the “hummus” even edible. Moreover, if you want your hummus to be good, even if you use canned chickpeas, you have to boil them and remove most the skins, from most of the individual beans.

The biggest mistake, however, was the lack of tehina (sometimes called tahini). For hummus to be really good it must include tehina. Apparently there are other authentic versions that replace tehina with ful or with labaneh, but simply mashing chickpeas (with other vegetables, no less) does not result in hummus.

Imabima has hosted Haveil Havalim, the News and Politics Edition: Jewish blogosphere posts about President Obama’s speech, the shooting at the Holocaust museum and more.

JPIX, the Jewish photo bloggers carnival, will appear on this blog on June 28. Submit your photo post by June 25 using this link.

Thanks to these bloggers who have submitted:

• Devo
• Ilana-Davita
• G6
• Batya
• Proud Mommy
• A Mother in Israel
• Mike in Midwood
• Rahel
• Maya

Update: Thank you for your recently submitted pics:

• Robin
• Cosmic X

Still plenty of time to send in your pics.

Note: this is the first of in series of those who take my link challenge. I was going to do a more light-hearted post for the first one, but I got news that my friend Rick Black’s father died on Sunday. So this one is for G6 and Rick Black.

Remembering a father when a grandchild is born

G6 writes eloquently about how she felt when she lost her father:

I remember vividly walking home from the hospital in utter desolation after his petirah, feeling like my world was so very dark, that I would never learn another thing ever again — how would I smile and laugh again?
How I wish somebody could have come up to me at that very moment and taken me by my shoulders, looked in to my eyes and said….. “SEVEN YEARS FROM THIS VERY DAY you will be sitting at your Shabbos table, surrounded by your entire family, which will include a new son in law, a new daughter in law and you will be cradling your brand new granddaughter in your arms on her very first Shabbos, as everyone at the table sings zemiros and learns in your father’s memory. Your granddaughter will be given her Jewish name on this very day seven years from now.

Please leave comments for her on her post. So beautiful how she savors her father’s memory and connects it to her current family joy.

*petirah = death

•   •   •

An interview of a son with his father

Rick Black interviewed his father over the past two years. An excerpt from those interviews is on the Jewish Writing Project blog, spoken in his father’s voice:

I was bar mitzvahed in a very small shul – the one on Lake Street. We didn’t make much of it. It was just a small bar mitzvah for our family. I davaned Saturday morning for the service, Shacharis and Musaf, and when they took the Torah out of the ark, I had to sing the “Shema” and my voice broke, and a kid from Hebrew school said, “You alright?”

Another piece of the interview, where Rick’s father befriends Max the Russian:

So, this fella’s name was Max Bregoff and I met him. He was a tough Russian. I introduced him to a lot of my friends who were members of the club and we made him a member of the club, too. We called him the mad Russian. He used to get very angry. He’d spit at them. He was a tough hombre but he found the American way and he was able to live a good life and enjoy himself. He spent a lot of time at the Jewish Center. Yes, he did find the American way and he became a friend.

Read Growing Up Jewish, an interview of David Black by his son Rick Black.

Rick, may you be comforted among the mourners of Israel; may we all know simchas (happy occasions) like the one G6 describes, of a happy, healthy family singing and enjoying together.

Additional Note: I spoke to a friend (not Jewish) here in Highland Park who asked questions about making a shiva call. Topic for another time, explaining a shiva call – do’s and don’ts, the halachot (laws) and the customs. If anyone has suggestions for explaining a shiva call, please feel free to comment. I told my friend that the mourner is supposed to do the talking; the mourner should take the lead in the topic of conversation.

Do ever check your blog statistics and say, huh? That’s what people searched for and found my blog?

One of the most common search terms on my blog seems to be dogwood. OK, so at one point I took a couple of great shots of my neighbor’s dogwood tree in bloom. But that’s the most common search term? Another highly ranked search term is hawthorn tree. I’ll have to accept that one; I did spend a fair amount of time photographing and researching the lovely red berry tree I found around the corner until I was informed it was a hawthorn.

Do you want a little more control over your best keyword, your best link? Here’s an idea that may or may not work.

In the comments, post your favorite link on your blog. Or your favorite link on my blog. Or on your friend’s blog. (You have my permission to post more than one link – but three would be spamming – just to set limits to this little game).

Alternatively,

list 3 keywords that you actually searched for in Google (or some other search engine).

Or do both the link challenge and the keyword challenge.

Next week, I will craft a post (or two or three) that includes a few of those posts. I will then write up some descriptions that have keywords that are in those posts. It will be interesting to watch one stats to see if this has any effect. Of course, if others do the same (if you take three of the posts people liked and write up a post about those posts, including keywords in your title tag and your description), we may see better results. If you do decide to write a post to emphasize certain keywords, please use those keywords in the title tag. Title tags are one of the most important sections in a post that search engines use to determine relevance and ranking.

Regarding the three keywords that you used to search in Google, it would be fun to craft a post based on those keywords. A bit like paper bag dramatics, no?

Since I don’t have to craft a full post (I would love to write a tech, business or even a recipe), I present an iris and these “postalinas” (mini one sentence posts):

• Working on a new, free online course with Professor Roni Stauber for the Rutgers Bildner Center on the History of Zionism.
• Blogger friends in Israel are posting about the drill today: Mother in Israel, Baila, Dina, Mimi and Mrs. S. Cosmic X remembers ducking under his desk in kindergarten.
• Jameel posted about a vigil outside the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. A friend on Facebook(used to live in Highland Park, now lives in Israel) mentioned this vigil, too.
• Discovered a great post on Drupal vs. WordPress. And yes, I still want to develop expertise in both Drupal and WordPress. I will be working soon on converting a regular HTML website to WordPress so the small business owner can manage his own site.
• Have a recipe for onions and mushrooms that is so simple but so delicious. Maybe next week I’ll post it?
• Planning an exciting Nature Notes post for Thursday, courtesy of an email I got from Klara.

Which of these postalinas have meaning for you? Do you like the term ‘postalina’?

Passover has been, well, a bit of a distraction for me. And blogging seems to have fallen to low priority, after cooking, sleeping, working, entertaining my daughter, washing dishes, baking potato kugel with my eldest son, brownies with my middle son, a nut jam cake with my daughter after she found out I already made a sponge cake without her.

So here is a list of what I might blog about in the future, maybe:

• Differences (and similarities) between Drupal and WordPress
• My Questions about Drupal
• How will Drupal 7 be different than Drupal 6
• A new Nature Notes (a meme by Rambling Woods)
• Barnum and Bailey Circus (may be in an upcoming Ruby Tuesday post)
• Stuffed Squash for Passover
• Slavery to Freedom Salad, updated with cooked radishes
• Klara’s Radish with Umeboshi Paste Pickles (delicious! yum)
• Replacing Grass with Chamomile
• My Dill Germinated
• Twitter for Insurance
• Twitter for Bloggers
• Twitter for Understanding Autism
• How Mrs. S. posts about Reasons to Make Aliyah (moving to Israel) but Baila’s post about the Midras Ruins would certainly be a convincing factor. Mom in Israel’s visit to Poleg Nature Reserve also would be an incentive.
• Synagogues in Far Rockaway (and how the young women in the White Shul wear black and I’m glad I live in Highland Park)
• Any new drawing by my daugher for a new What Do You See post
• My upcoming library talks with Eva Abreu at Highland Park Public Library, Edison Public Library and Franklin Township Public Library. See Eva’s Tour Schedule for more details and other featured speakers.

If I am organized enough, maybe I will post about Spring in New York City before 7 pm this evening. In case I don’t make it to that post, enjoy the rest of Pesach if you are celebrating. Everyone, take a few minutes to note any signs of spring in your neighborhood. If you are living in Australia and you happen to read this post, feel free to share signs of autumn.