Jew Wishes: Potato Pancakes
(you can probably leave out the baking powder on Pesach, or you can buy special for Pesach baking powder)
Mrs. S: Potato Kugel
Mother in Israel: Potato Kugel Secrets
Do you know that you can make blintzes/crepes on Pesach? Mix potato starch, eggs and water (or milk, but I can’t tolerate milk, so I don’t use it). I can’t tell you the exact amounts, so you will have to experiment. You can fill with potatoes, cheese, potatoes and cheese, sauteed vegetables, fruit, whatever you would ordinarily put in a blintz. My kids love these.
I am going to challenge myself and hopefully you to take a look at nature. What is going on in your area? Is it spring in your part of the world or are you heading into cold weather. Take a little walk….. look at something you might never had paid attention to..a flower…a plant..an animal…What changes are taking place?..Is your garden starting to come to life again?..Step outside and close your eyes. What do you hear? …take a deep breath…What do you smell?
I’d really like to know how my blogger friends feel about what they observe in nature. Post a photo..a poem..artwork or a even few words about what you see and how it made you feel…
For my second nature note I decided to concentrate on buds:
Top row: red maple tree in Donaldson Park, parsley in my garden (not really a bud but “budding”), my daffodils on the first day of spring after a surprise snowfall
Bottom row: magnolia bud from N. 8th Avenue (avenue has a strip of trees down the middle), my neighbor’s tree (maple?), forsythia bud in my backyard
Please click each thumbnail to experience the photo fully. Thank you.
My son (the middle son, the filmmaker) went on a field trip last week with his class to the Rutgers Agricultural Museum in New Brunswick. Here is an old-fashioned firetruck that he photographed. (I didn’t go on the trip; he took his own camera).
Part of the reason for the trip was the boys have been studying the 39 Melachot, the 39 acts of work that a Jew is not allowed to do on the Sabbath. All of these Melachot are agriculturally-based, so their teacher used the museum as a way to show them threshing, winnowing, grinding sheaves (I have no idea what those are; I took those words off Wikipedia). Each boy had been assigned one Melacha to study in detail.
My son’s Melacha was weaving. He had already presented to the class, and his teacher told me later that he gave my son weaving because it was a more difficult one, but he knew my son could handle it. He did an origami basket project with his class. Yes, I am proud of him!
Enjoy the lovely striped crocuses with orange stamen that grow in front of my home.
I also have white crocuses that popped up recently next to my sidewalk.
The first periwinkle has shown its purplish blue petals on the side of my house.
This is a fun bunch of purple crocuses that emerged under my climbing rose bush.
My neighbor just showed me where the deer have already nibbled at his (and my) tulips.
The pink markings show where the deer nibbled (upper left) and the deer hoof (bottom right). I am thinking of buying blood meal. Other deer-friendly scare tactics welcome.
Yes! It’s another round of “What Do You See?,” brought to you by my daughter. I stole this homework out of her hands before her teacher could write “So pretty!” in big bright red marker on top. (Can anyone relate?)
My daughter got out early from school on Tuesday (parent-teacher conferences) so we spent an hour in Donaldson Park, a large county park on the edge of the Raritan River. I took a lot of photos, and I wanted to share a few.
Tree identification time! Does anyone know what kind of tree this is? It is growing right by the little pond in the park, and it doesn’t look very tall. The red buds attracted my eye.
Update: according to my local tree expert, the tree is probably a red maple. She said Middlesex County planted quite a few of those near the little “pond.”
