Leora

Thursday Challenge: Sidewalk

The theme for this week’s Thursday Challenge is PATH (Road, Highway, Street, Trail, Sidewalk, Railroad Tracks,…). Click to enlarge.

Kosher Cooking Carnival: Greasy Story Edition

It’s that time of year when we light candles, play dreidel and eat… greasy food! Because of a greasy story two thousand years ago where a little jar of greasy oil lasted in the Temple for 8 days when it was only supposed to last for one. Since not much of the food in this post is greasy, I decided to call this the Greasy Story Edition, and not concentrate too much on greasy food (can one be yotzeh–fulfill one’s obligation–to eat food with oil by eating a salad with olive oil?). B’tayavon (bon appetit in Hebrew).

Specifically for Chanukah

Mimi teaches us to make potato latkes. Yum.

Shimshonit has her version of latkes: a variety of vegetables and garlic!

Ilana-Davita shows us zucchini latkes.

Lorri at Jew Wishes posted her latkes recipe.

Another traditional food for Chanukah is sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts. No one posted a recipe Phyllis posted a baked version, and I can tell you quickly my version: you make a sugary yeast dough, fry little balls of it in massive amounts of hot oil, dip the fried balls in yet more sugar, and inject with jelly. A delicious and fattening food.

Jacob da Jew asks: Caramel or Custard or Jelly?

This just in: Baroness Tapuzina’s Italian Soufganiot or Frittole

   Walnuts from Chossid's blog

Small but Good Stuff

Need something quick? Easy sandwich by Batya.

End your ketchup dependency with Esser Agaroth’s condiments.

Thirsty, anyone? Greg tells us What’s Kosher at Starbucks? posted at Baltimore Jewish.

Now Batya’s on a diet: You’d Think I Was Working Full Time, and…

Meal Time

Irresistible: Mimi has a pumpkin soup with garlic croutons.

Your mouth will water when you take a look at this barley chicken by Baroness Tapuzina.

Mrs. S. can teach you some ways to make potato kugel for Shabbat.

On Thanksgiving, I posted a Stuffed Squash Workshop. I made one, and Ilana-Davita posted her version of stuffed squash a week later.

Delicious Asian dishes for Shabbat or for any other time presented by Ilana-Davita.

Hindy cooks up quite a meal with what to do with a loosey?

Proud Mommy of Four aka Sarah made lentil soup the week of Parshas Toldos, the kind that Esav would have desired. And the Maggid of Bergenfield has a lentil soup recipe.

Baila posted this yummy stuffed zucchini. “How I found myself eating a meat dish at 10 a.m. this morning”.

Batya’s diet continues into Chanukah.

 Jerusalem Soup Joint

Out on the Town

Wanna eat out?

Learn from Ahuva about the top five Jerusalem soup joints.

Batya can tell you the Best Sandwich Deal in Jerusalem.

Yisrael reports on a no, it’s not kosher restaurant in Paris.

Batya eats at The Rimon (I assume this is pre-diet?).

And at the Jerusalemite Blog you can learn about the frugal eateries in Jerusalem.

In the Kitchen

Raizy tells us about Cooking Kosher In A Small Kitchen.

Sweets Toot Sweets

Phyllis aka Imabima brings us a carrot cake.

Pesky Settler has a recipe for Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake. Now that sounds rich.

How not to make peppermint sticks.

Mike in Midwood has reviews of bakery jelly doughnuts.

Halacha

Back at Thanksgiving, A Simple Jew had a Guest Posting By Chabakuk Elisha – A Layman’s Perspective On Turkey And The Halachic Process.

Speaking of halacha, there are only supposed to be eight lights on a chanukiah, and then one extra for the shamash, the “helper” candle. Does anyone know why more show up in my photo? (Hint: the answer has nothing to do with halacha).

If you would like to participate in a future Kosher Cooking Carnival, please submit your post.

Looking back, here’s a list of all the previous KCC’s: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, KCCMetaCarnival, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36

That would make this the 37th edition! To host a future edition, please contact Batya (shilohmuse at yahoo dot com).

Caption This Story

My daughter gave me a book of her drawings as a Chanukah present. I am supposed to write in the story myself.

Can you help me? Is this a queen or a princess? Who are those folks in yellow? Is that a cake in the middle? A castle? A cake of a castle? Oh, maybe it’s a chanukiah (a menorah)! And maybe some of you are better than me at understanding kids’ drawings.

Thanks and enjoy whatever holidays you are celebrating this week.

Spend a Year in the Galil

Just so the rest of us can at least talk about our envy, here are some highlights of this program:

• Learn by going on hikes and touring.
• Explore creativity in art: light and form, perspective and composition, technique, elements of drawing, photography.
• Meet with olive growers, wine makers and farmers as you learn about mitzvot associated with the land.
• Learn about Kashrut in the classroom, in the kitchen, and out in the field.
• Visit art museums, cultural centers, and performing art complexes.
• Connect texts to Mitzvot between man and his fellow man.
• Create your own family genealogy in the art studio.
• Develop individual expression through dance, movement and music.
• Study texts (such as Judges or the Book of Esther) with a focus on women.
• Participate in events throughout the country for Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzma’ut, and Yom Yerushalayim.

More here…

And the people in Mitpeh Netofa are really nice; I’ve been there three times.

Any of this sound good to you? Play with this: if you could spend a year in this setting, what parts of this program would you most enjoy?

Joseph and Hanukkah

Why do we read the story of Joseph at Hanukah time?

There are multiple answers to that questions. Feel free to give your own in the comments. Creativity is welcome.

I hope to post about the upcoming parsha on Thursday See the post on Joseph and Hellenization. On Wednesday, the Kosher Cooking Carnival will show up on this blog. You have until Tuesday to submit a food post. Thank you so much to the many folks who have already written about food! (I know food is a hard topic, one that none of us can relate to… ;-).

Back to the parsha, who sold Joseph? Was it the brothers or was it…?
And in the upcoming parsha, why does it say the “brothers of Joseph” instead of “sons of Jacob”?

Alternate spellings of Hanukkah: Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanuka, Hanuka, Hanukah … only one in Hebrew: חנוכה‎

Sky Watch: Berries and Sky

Hawthorn trees with beautiful crimson berries are all over Highland Park. This particular beauty is on Lawrence. Click on any of these to enlarge.

I couldn’t resist another post of hawthorn berry photos (see previous hawthorn berry tree).

This is as about as close as I can get to those berries without producing a blurry image (anyone want to buy me a new camera? The ones in the $3,000 range would do fine).

Same photo as above, cropped closer so it looks larger (thanks, Robin, for the idea).

This shot shows the thorns well.

It snowed two days ago, so I went around the corner to my local hawthorn tree and photographed these. Nice contrast to the bluer sky above.

I’m working on a post of Donaldson Park for My World, and I thought I’d throw in a sky above the park.

And here’s a gull, flying over the Raritan River.

For more Skywatch participants, please visit:

The Mystery of Tamar

A short synopsis of the Tamar story (Genesis 38):

So my question on my previous post on Tamar was: Why does Tamar merit to become the ancestress of King David?

Rashi says it was because of modesty. Judah did not recognize her because she covered herself up while in his house. Does this mean a physical modesty? Or maybe she just kept to herself? Or perhaps it’s the way she presented his staff, signet and cord: she could have accused him outright, but she set it up so he could either reveal himself, as he did, or he could deny it, which he chose not to do.

We can understand this story as a growth of Judah’s character; it is juxtaposed to the sale of his brother Joseph for a reason. Judah did not behave well in the sale of Joseph (one could add he did not behave well in withholding Shelah from Tamar as well). At the end of this story, however, he does the right thing by Tamar in admitting that it was his staff, signet and cord and thus he was the one who had impregnated her. You can read more about Judah as penitential man in Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s post.

Getting back to Tamar, I do find it strange that someone who dresses as a prostitute is considered righteous and a role model. But I suppose she knew she needed to carry the ancestor of David, and she knew it should be from Judah.

Tamar discussed on Eishes Chayil website (at the very end, Tamar is compared to Leah, a nice comparison of women who struggled)

Josh Waxman on the parallels between the two Tamars

Ilana-Davita explores sibling rivalry and jealousy this week.

Thank you to Augustus John for his help with the watercolor.

Watery Wednesday: Rain Songs

I took this photo last week of the creek that runs on the edge of Highland Park.

Above are some garden shovels that got poured upon in some recent rains.

As we’ve been getting more rain than snow (update: it snowed today a bit), please feel free to leave your favorite rain song as a comment. Or if you’re in a snow zone, snow songs are welcome, too. Drought victims choose as you like.

Aharon Appelfeld, writer, survivor

I don’t read much fiction any more. Perhaps because much of the fiction I’ve read recently seems so…fake.

I can’t say that at all about the fiction of Aharon Appelfeld. Maybe because each of his stories is really his own, with the characters changed in some way to make it easier for him to tell the tale. For example, Tzili is about a girl slightly older than he was at the time of the Holocaust and a different gender.

I was introduced to Aharon Appelfeld by my high school Hebrew teacher. I believe we read Cold Spring, one of his early stories. Our teacher explained how Appelfeld writes about characters before or after the Holocaust. If you are looking for the horrible details of the concentration camps, it’s not in his writings.

I am currently reading All Whom I Have Loved, a novel about nine-year-old Paul, a boy with divorced parents in the late 1930’s. I am going to give you a taste of his writing with three quotes:

Father sits and plays chess with an elderly acquaintance. The man touches the chess piece and his hand trembles. When the game is most intense, I hear Father humming to himself. A game of chess can last an hour, sometimes two. Father plays and drinks coffee. I get a hot chocolate and a poppy seed cake. Father’s fingers are long, his fingertips stained with tobacco. He moves the piece, dragging it slowly as if to say, that’s it, no need to hurry, the enemy may be threatening, but he’s not all that strong. It’s easier for Father to talk to himself than to others. When he speaks to himself, entire sentences flow from his mouth. When he wins, he doesn’t boast. With his back hunched over, he tries to appease his opponent.

About Halina, the Ruthenian girl who takes care of Paul while his mother goes to teach:

Halina was lively and amusing but a chatterbox. After seven hours with her, my head was full of noise and I fled to the bedroom and curled up under the blanket so as to get away from it.

About how Jewish Paul learns about Rosh Hashana from his non-Jewish nanny:

Suddenly the sun came out, and in the yard next to us the bearded Jews were wearing white.
“What’s going on?” I asked Halina.
“It’s the Jewish New Year today, didn’t you know?”
“No.”
Halina had worked for religious Jews, and she knew lots about them; she was always telling me interesting details.
“On Rosh Hashanah they dip an apple in honey so it’ll be a sweet new year.”
“And why do they wear white clothes?”
“To look like angels.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No.”

Finally, a quote from the New York Times Book Review about his book Katerina:

Applelfeld reimagines the place of his own origins through a perspective that in its generosity of feeling recalls Tolstoy and Chekhov.

Today’s Flowers in December

I took some photos of my garden this past week. Above is what’s left of a bloom on my rose of sharon tree; below is how it looked last summer.

Rose of sharon from August 2008

Azalea of December 2008

The azalea bush in April 2008

A rose bud of last week as seen in my backyard

A November rose from the same bush

Above is a lambs ears photographed last week.

This was the only photo of a lambs ears flower of mine that I could find. The lambs ears are more treasured for their leaves than their excessively bright pink flowers.

Today’s Flowers is hosted by Luiz Santilli Jr. Thank you, Luiz, for this lovely and fun meme.