Redefining Breakfast

Part of our new early-to-the-bus routine for Ann involves squeezing in enough time for her to eat before she leaves the house at 7:10 or so in the morning. Having a new time goal in mind this year (last year, gan started at 9) prompted me to do something about the nagging breakfast issue in my family.

For a while, we'd been eating almost exclusively cold cereal and milk for breakfast. Cold cereal is great, and it is a big time-saver. But I wanted to give breakfast an overhaul because I felt like we should be eating something more substantial and more filling, and because unfortunately, we were in a sugar cereal rut.

I really had very few food rules growing up, and so, when buying food for my own home, if I found good deals on the cereals I liked and was used to, that's what I bought and served. Cocoa Puffs, Reese's Puffs, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch are some of my favorites.

But I really started to feel uncomfortable with how much sugar the kids were consuming during their first waking hours. I began phasing out the sweet cereals and replacing them with Cheerios, corn flakes (not Frosted Flakes, albeit a delicious option), and Rice Krispies. Pathmark makes a store brand of all of these that bears an O-U, so it depends on whether there are sales and coupons to use, but the store brand is usually the better buy.

RaggedyDad's favorite cereal is Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds, so we keep a boxes few of those around. It's sort of a semi-junky-semi-healthy option. Keeping it around doesn't pose a problem.

For most mornings, though, I started serving hot cereal, which is usually more nutritious and hopefully more filling than what had been the status quo. We have oatmeal usually, but sometimes farina (I know, I know, it's the Wonder bread of hot cereals . . . ) and I serve a bowl to everyone, alongside a plate of toppings.



We call it the "toppings bar" because we're just that crazy. While the hot cereal is cooking, I'll prepare any combination of almonds, dried cherries, raisins, shelled sunflower seeds, chopped dried apricots, and the like on a plate. I used to offer chocolate chips in the beginning of this transition, but I have mostly phased those out unless someone is very insistent. While the dried fruit is sweet, it is fruit, and it's used much more sparsely in the bowls than sugar is in sugar cereal.



Once a week or so we'll have toast or sandwich-maker-sandwiches, or eggs. My father eats a pretty standard Israeli-type breakfast of toast, cottage cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, etc., and I'll serve that once in a while, too.

I'm just glad that breakfast is planned out and is more of a sound meal than it was before! The one challenge I had was cleaning out the oatmeal pot, but I found a solution for it that I'll blog about in the near future.

Hold It

I know that I need to eat healthier. These years, it's really about setting a good example for the kids.

For some reason, lots of people have had the (mistaken) impression that I am a supremely healthy eater. I've had people assume that I'm a health nut, or a vegetarian, countless times. I'm really not sure why. Maybe because I'm so pale, they assume that I'm anemic due to a lack of iron from not eating meat. Or maybe that's a real stretch, and I just give off a healthy food vibe.

The truth of the matter is, I'm not the healthiest of eaters. I do love fruit, but vegetables usually require me just convince myself that I like them. I like to bake because I like what it yields: namely, baked goods. My classic response to a supper made by my mother that I didn't like was to go and toast a Lender's bagel with melted cheese. (Sorry, mom! I realize now how insulting and rude that was!)

One of my other vices is SALT. I like things salty. I tend to have a heavy hand when it comes to salting the potato kigel (very healthy, I know), or mac and cheese (classic supper for me when I wasn't cooking for the kids), or eggs. How can you enjoy sunny-side-up eggs without some salt?

On Wednesday evening, RaggedyDad and I went to Ann's Parent Orientation at school and the director of the preschool division was talking about an article that came out in the NY Times last week. It seems that all these higher salt foods have let to a rise in kidney stones in children! Kids, who almost never had something like kidney stones are suddenly developing them with much higher frequency.

I've tried a salt substitute, but I found it rather disgusting. So I'd rather just cut back on the salt. It's not good for any of us, and certainly not for RaggedyDad as we get, er, older. I'll just have to try to eliminate it a bit at a time from the things where it doesn't really matter much. As it is, I serve very few processed foods, so it's really just ME adding the salt myself (not sure if that makes it better or worse!).

It'll be a little less tasty, but hopefully, it'll be well worth it.

You Mean You Want Supper, Too?

Tonight's theoretical supper is:

Leftover carrot soup
Smoked mackerel from the Russian fruit store/grocery
Corn on the cob
Green salad
Bread

And maybe, if I manage to whip the cream, berries and cream.

Wednesday is when the pressure is on to get the Shabbos cooking started. It's hard to believe that, in the middle of that, they want supper on Wednesday and Thursday night, too!

The summer teaching job I took means that I get home with Andy and Little Rag at a little after 1 p.m. and have more limited time to contemplate supper, including buying what's needed (hopefully not, if I've prepared well and/or can get by on what's already in the house), preparing it, making lunch for the next day, etc. I'd say that the time frame is sufficient for getting it done, but that it is definitely an adjustment in terms of the time I previously needed to get the same things done.

Life is about to change around here. In the fall, Ann will be in school from 8:15 to 3:45. The current closest bus stop is a ten-minute walk for me, walking fast. We'll see how Ann handles it, along with me shlepping the little boys along at around 7:30 in the morning or so. In the cold, or the heat, or the rain, or the icy slush puddles that linger. Or we could just drive there, taking around 15 minutes each way. Yikes! She's just turning five on Shabbos! Are we ready for this?!

The days of her going to gan that starts at 9 just a few blocks away are about to be a distant memory. Which means we'll all have to be awake and productive at a far more earlier hour.

Combine that with the fact that we have less than 4 weeks until we go away, and I'm going to get an earful from RaggedyDad's family if he doesn't drop a few pounds before then. The trouble is, he's only got about 10 lbs. to shed, but his face gets round right away. So he looks like he's got more than that to lose. I'm the opposite - even if I'm at the end of a pregnancy, my face pretty much looks the same.

Mothers who work outside the home a full day - I have no idea how you have time to do what you have to do! Mothers with more than 3 kids, and multiple homeworks/school meetings/etc. - ditto! We seem to be on the precipice of some intense Raggedy times.

Two Pesach Recipes

Even though I'm not making Pesach, I still have Pesach-compatible recipes to share.

The first is for what's called Lacy Potato Kugel, and it comes from the original Kosher Palette cookbook, which has since spawned many babies. I credit my good friend Shoshana with turning me on to this recipe that I otherwise probably never would have tried. I make it year-round, and we like it a lot.

Lacy Potato Kugel (Kosher Palette, page 262)

6 large potatoes, peeled
2 onions (1 medium, 1 large)
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
5 Tbsp. oil
2 tsp. salt
Pepper
1/4 cup potato starch
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Grate potatoes and onions, [I drain the grated potato mixture in a collander] and place together in a large bowl.

Stir in eggs, 5 Tbsp. oil, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle starch on top.

Pour boiling water over starch, and stir thoroughly.

Pour 1/4 cup oil into 9x13 inch baking pan, and place in oven for 1 minute or until hot (Do not burn).

Carefully pour potato mixture into pan.

Bake 20 minutes at 500 degrees, reduce heat to 400 degrees, and bake 40 minutes or until deep golden brown.



The next recipe is one that I've made for the same friend. She can't eat gluten, so this is an easy cake to make when she's at a meal.

PASSOVER BROWNIES IV

Yield: 9 Servings

Source: Torah Prep High School for Girls Pesach booklet.

3 Eggs

1 c Sugar

1/2 c Oil

2 tb Cocoa

1/2 c Potato starch

1 c Nuts, chopped

Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add oil. Then add rest of ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees F. for half an hour in a 9-inch square pan.

Babula's Russian Borscht (Meatless Version)

Ingredients:

1 small cabbage
2 medium-sized beets
3 carrots
1 can white beans
1 can tomato paste (small cans)
1 onion, diced
1 potato, peeled and diced
2 beef flavor soup cubes
salt
pepper
paprika
water
oil
Sour cream if desired


Directions:

Well in advance, and wearing clothes you hate, scrub and boil beets (skin on) until soft, approx 2-3 hours (!). Peel and shred beets, shred carrots, and shred cabbage (use a food processor if you have one for all of this shredding)

Heat a small amount of oil in a heavy soup pot. Sautee together the carrots, diced onion, and diced potato, until soft.

Add approximately 3 liters of water, bring to a boil. Add soup cubes and can of beans, allow to boil again.

Add 1/2 can of tomato paste, mix well, bring back to a boil

Add cabbage, boil until cabbage feels soft

Add paprika, black pepper, and salt to taste.

Add beets, allow to boil about 5 more minutes.

Taste borscht and adjust seasonings as desired.

Serve hot, top with sour cream.

Tastes even better after a couple of days.

Soup, and other mind-altering substances

When you're feeling a bit down, few things help more than a fresh pot of soup. I've had a butternut squash out on the counter for a couple of weeks, and today I decided that since it clearly is not going to look cute and decorative forever (as evidenced by a couple of brown spots on the peel), it was time to figure out what to do with it.

On the spur of the moment, I decided to make a soup out of it. The first recipe I found was for Cream of Any Vegetable Soup from the original Kosher Palette Cookbook that my sister-in-law gave me when I got married. Of course, since then, these cookbooks have become somewhat of an empire, with a new one every year or so, and increasingly long and obscure lists of ingredients. But what would life be without the occasional, elusive search for Panko bread crumbs, crimini mushrooms, or Chilean sea bass? I enjoy the variety, but I really do reach for that old standby, Spice and Spirit a.k.a. The Big Purple Cookbook, about 93% of the time.

I must say, butternut squash is absurdly difficult to peel with a knife, unless I was doing something totally wrong. But this recipe was relatively straightforward, and didn't take too long. I followed the instructions carefully for the roux, an interesting mixture of flour-margarine (I made it pareve). This recipe totally had a funky, Food-Network-vibe to it.

There should be a cooking show about cooking with small kids. "Yes, Andy, you can smell this next ingredient, too, but take my word for it, flour doesn't have much of a smell." "Ann, you can't pick those pieces up from the cutting board to put into the pot until the knife isn't moving!" "I have to go see why Little Rag is crying. Please stop touching the garbage!'

Anyway, I didn't know what to expect from this soup because whenever I'm at a wedding (though I think it's been a couple of years) and they ask if I want "cream of whatever" soup or another option, I ask for the other option. The stars aligned properly, and the soup came out well. It was exactly what I needed. It was similar to a carrot soup I've made, but smoother and milder. Since it's pureed, I sat the kids down with straws in their bowls, and they got to work.

This was one of those days when I had a bit of a sniffle, and was a little bummed out (maybe I'll post about that soon), and what really brought a smile to my face was one thought: "Soup's on!"

Bechorah Soup

Back when I first got married, I knew how to cook just about . . . nothing. Enter my very patient husband, who, thanks to his upbringing in Russia, was accustomed to occasional bouts of hunger.(Okay, that was a terrible joke.)

One of the first recipes I tried out in my new life as a Mrs. came from a magazine my mother gave me when she was finished with it. It was probably Family Circle or Parade or something like that. Coincidentally, the week I tried out the recipe corresponded with the weekly Torah portion of Toldot, which includes the well-known story of Esav selling his bechorah, or birthright, to Yaakov for a bowl of red lentil soup.

The recipe is called Pot Luck Soup, but in the Raggedy household, it is known as Bechorah Soup. It's a good, hearty soup pefect for this time of year when the chillier weather is upon us (please stop laughing, Fudge and Ezzie. In my opinion, it is colder these days). Make sure to have plenty of challah or bread for dipping purposes. Doubling it works fine. My own notes are in brackets:

Pot Luck Soup

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter [margarine or just a bit more olive oil]
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
2 ribs of celery, cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch dice
1/8 tsp. ground cloves [I don't like cloves in food so I leave them out]
1 can (35 oz.) Italian plum tomatoes
3 to 4 cups canned broth (chicken or vegetable) [or dissolve bouillon cube in water]
1/3 cup dried lentils, green or brown
1/4 cup dry red wine [I use the inexpensive cooking wine]
Salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley [I leave it out if I don't have it]

1. Place oil and butter in a heavy pot over low heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot; cook, stirring, until the vegetables are wilted, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cloves during the last 3 minutes.

2. Puree the tomatoes with their juices in a blender and add to the pot [I think this is an unnecessary step. Just use the pureed tomatoes to begin with. Or mush them up as you cook.] Add the broth and lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium; simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes.

3. Add the wine, season to taste with salt and pepper, then simmer gently for 20 minutes more. Stir in the parsley and serve.


Here's hoping the only thing our children fight about is who gets the last bowl of this soup.

Dairy Queen

Growing up, I was not a big fan of fleishig (meat) meals. But we had meaty dinners almost every night. My father is just not a lasagna and salad kind of guy. Trying to pull a weekly "pizza night" would have been a sort of unappreciated joke at our home.

But I always wanted dairy. Very rarely would I actually like or not make a fuss over the dinner my mother prepared. More often, I would beg or insist on making myself a dinner of a Lenders bagel with cheese, melted on it in the toaster. Having come to the point of running my own household, I've since apologized many times over to my own mother!

In any case, I really look forward to Shavuos. Or Shavuot. Or Shvi'is as RaggedyDad learned to say it when he was becoming frum in Antwerp. Gaaaah! Too many names! (And that's aside from some of the other descriptive names for the holiday.) "Burning out" (or in this case, self-cleaning) the oven for that yearly switch to a milchig cooking bonanza is one of my most anticipated activities.

Dairy cooking is tricky because I feel like it somehow requires a lot more refrigerator space, though I'm not sure why. I'm not a last-minute person by virtue of the fact that I don't have the strength or time-frame to do things alone, quietly, late at night, and all at once. So I typically do a few things each day.

A kink in my agenda this year came when my downstairs neighbors called to say that their refrigerator and freezer blew out some kind of crucial fuse, and could they transport everything (!) to ours? Luckily they were able to eventually move non-essentials to another neighbor's fridge in an empty apartment across the street, and gradually start keeping fewer things at our place. But for a couple of days we've been so crammed that I couldn't find (or store!) a thing!

RaggedyDad finds it funny when I take photos of things I've cooked. It's not that I sit there and look back on them lovingly. But it is nice to have some remnant of my hard work besides the crumbs! And it's kind of exciting for my two short assistants to look at the photos of their own hard work/major Mommy interfering and mishaps.

This year, the RaggedyClan and their guests can anticipate:

Blintz Souffle:



Eggplant Parmesan (or as Ann calls it - Parmesano Reggiano):



Scalloped Potatoes:



Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake (recipe available and so worth it):



Crumb Cake:



Of course, no holiday cooking is complete without that classic staple of "what to make for dinner the night before" - Spaghetti! This is the second box - the first uncooked box was scattered by Andy all over the then-sticky kitchen floor. Another fun activity for Mommy!



Tomorrow's cooking list consists of flounder, French onion soup, and possibly pasta (although - do we need it? Not sure). Hopefully nobody will be running for the toaster to make any alternate meals (though I'd deserve it)!

Recipe by Request

An anonymous reader recently commented on my post The Great Debate where I discussed the merits of the sweet, pie-shaped matzah brei that I grew up eating.

My father happens to be great in the kitchen, but the combined realities that he works six long days a week, and that my mother is a person who is obsessively neat, clean, and panicked about the mess others cooking in her kitchen would make, the extent to which he actually cooks is limited.

Central to just about every memory from my father's childhood is FOOD. When recollecting something about his parents, his childhood, his past - the conversation always relates back to food. His parents were both concentration camp survivors, and shortly after he was born, they moved from Norway to the very young state of Israel. (Norway was a stop on the way, not a place of origin for anyone in my family)

Those early years meant a lot of physical challenges to survive and make ends meet, often followed by my grandfather (the one from Jaworzno, PT) struggling to acquire or arrange something and likely having to march into one office or another and 'turn over a table.' But of course, afterward, there was always something simple, yet incredible to eat at home. Even in the ma'abara (transit camp), or the one-bedroom apartment with a combination bathroom/kitchen, or later from the gigantic cast-iron, wood-burning oven that came on their 'lift' from Norway.

My father's method for making matzah brei is his own father's method. Over the years, I've tried to learn it as closely as I can. However, it really is one of those things that I have seen done so many times, and still find confusing at some points. Kind of like when my father was trying to teach me how to drive to Brooklyn via the Interboro (Jackie Robinson) versus the Belt Parkway. I had to see it done a couple dozen times before it sunk in.

Readers will see that this matzah brei recipe definitely leads to a fair share of splashing and dripping messes. It seems involved, but is quite simple once you've done it once or twice. Like driving to Brooklyn on the Interboro.

Although this is not a cookbook recipe, my father and I pieced the approximate recipe together as follows:

Use a 10-inch frying pan,. Recipe serves approximately 4 hungry people.

In a bowl, beat 4-5 eggs, and add around a cup of milk (enough to make the eggs more watery than sticky).

In another bowl, place an equal amount of cold water.

Using machine matzahs, break up each matzah approximately into thirds and then each third in half (six approximate squares).

Heat up the dry frying pan. Add oil to hot pan, enough to coat it well, and rotate the pan to coat the sides well, keeping flame to low-medium.

One by one, place each piece of matzah into the water. It is important that you allow the matzah to get lightly softened in the water, but not soaked.

Then dip the wet matzah into the egg mixture.

Layer the pieces in frying pan, going around the pan and gradually building up to the top of the pan in a circular pattern.

While you work, continually take the pan by the handle and jostle the pan vigorously to ensure that the matzah brei is not sticking. This is crucial. If the brei sticks, it will fall apart. If it is getting stuck in spots, scrape the bottom of the matzah brei with a fork and shake the brei loose, keeping it in one solid piece.

Once the pan is full, and you've built the pieces up to the top, cover the frying pan, and bring up the heat a little. Let the matzah brei cook a couple of minutes longer in the steam of the covered pan. Pick up lid and shake matzah brei loose. Cover the pan again and steam cook a little longer, checking to see that it is getting crisp and brown on the bottom.

Place a plate over the pan and turn the matzah brei out onto the plate. The crisp brown bottom should now be on top.

Place more oil into the frying pan and heat the oil on low-medium.

Slide the brei back into the pan, letting it brown on the other side, continuing to shake it loose periodically. Once the second side is brown, turn the matzah brei out onto a plate again. Let it cool for a couple of minutes, and then slice into 4 quarters that are pie-shaped. Toppings are as desired, but we serve it with sugar and/or raspberry jam both on the side, for dipping the cut pieces.

The Great Debate

The topic of this debate is something that still surprises me. You see, before I married RaggedyDad, it didn't occur to me that there was any other way to eat French toast besides sweet. That occasional Sunday morning treat when the challah quantity was too plentiful, draining on a paper-toweled plate, makes me think of nothing else but raspberry jam or maple syrup to go with it.

RaggedyDad, however, sees French toast and thinks - dare I type this - ketchup! Ugh! Ketchup! On French toast! I shudder nauseously just thinking about this. But so be it. Forget about adding cinnamon or some vanilla extract to the egg coating for him. Sweet things are for dessert and not for the meal, he tells me. Stop being so uptight, I say!

Yesterday morning, while RaggedyDad was at shul, I made some French toast, and lo and behold, Ann asked for ketchup to go with hers! "Like Papa," she smiled, innocently. "No problem," I said. But inside, a small part of me felt defeated.

You see, this phenomenon is not exclusive to French toast. In a couple of weeks, at my parents' Pesach table, we will likely sit to a lunch meal of matzah brei. Matzah brei is one of those foods that's so entrenched in my family experience that to have RaggedyDad violate it with anything other than sugar and/or raspberry jelly is devastating. But I know it will be ketchup he asks for at the table. (At least it's that Pesach ketchup that always tastes so sweet!)

My father grew up non-religious in Israel, a child of Holocaust survivors, both ob"m - a Hungarian mother and a Polish father. Which meant that my grandmother's raison d'etre was cooking the best food on earth, but also that she had adapted her cooking to accomodate my grandfather's Polish need to add a little sugar to any and every dish. It can't hurt, right?

When my father first spent Pesach with my mother's family, Boro Park Jews whose oldest daughter (my mom) had rebelled, it was, needless to say, a significant clash of cultures. It helped a lot that a distant relative on my mother's side knew my paternal grandfather and his family from Jaworzna in Poland. It also helped that my father knew how to make the best matzah brei (only on the last day for them) that they'd ever had. Layered and baked in a frying pan like a large pie, and then cut into triangular slices like pizza. And topped with sugar or jam.

Over 36 years later, my father is still making our matzah brei, until 120. Of course, there are the inevitable arguments from my mother about the tremendous mess he's making. And the oil splatters, crumbs, and tendency of us all to eat a little too much of it. And in the midst of it all, I'll be the mom hoping my daughter chooses the sugar instead of her Papa's ketchup to go with it. For old time's sake.

Pancake Social

For some reason, people who meet me sometimes assume that I'm into healthy food, or possibly a vegetarian. I am really not sure why. Maybe because I'm so pale they think I'm probably anemic from a lack of red meat. But I really have no idea how I got the healthy-eater reputation, since for the most part, my eating habits are not the greatest.

My mother has a notoriously unhealthy approach to eating, but as far as meals went, they were always solid and square. However, she often just ate nosh for dinner herself, almost always skipped breakfast, and was known throughout the land for giving my brothers and me the best (junky) snacks in our school lunches. Ring Dings were typical. I guess you pick up more by example than anything else.

The real supper in our house was often something in the meat/chicken family, but as I got older and more vocal about my finicky-ness, I often just toasted a Lenders bagel with some melted cheese on it and called it a night. My poor mother.

When I first married RaggedyDad, I had little to no knowledge of cooking. My mother never asked us kids for cooking help, and it was never "my night to prepare supper" growing up. I think she was mainly concerned that we'd make a mess. When RD and I got married, he and my mother tried to show me the ropes, and I caught on for the most part (with a little help from my cookbook bible, Spice and Spirit), but I personally would be happy to eat macaroni and cheese for supper.


One of RaggedyDad's first jobs was at a small financial company where one of the bosses also owned a popular kosher (fast food) restaurant in NYC. In an attempt to keep employees in work mode without a break, there was basically an unlimited policy on ordering food from this guy's restaurant, and later other restaurants. So if RaggedyDad got a big, free fleishig meal every day at work (don't worry, he brought home plenty of leftovers for me!), he certainly was not going to be eating a big dinner at home. Thus, my proclivity towards scant, lame suppers managed to live on.

Once Ann got old enough to need real food, I got back into supper mode, and shortly after that, RaggedyDad started a new job, minus the food. Little Andy and his famous appetite have also ensured that I keep cooking something, even if it's just reheating leftovers.

I do manage to get away with making pancakes for supper on a fairly regular basis. Pancakes are one of my favorite foods ever. Road trips as a kid often meant stopping at Denny's where they had several flavors of syrup and ridiculously high stacks of pancakes. Don't even get me started on IHOP. Yum. RaggedyDad's nonkosher memories are a little more interesting, but for the most part, my own family dabbled into the world of treif in more minor ways. While his former faves were bacon and liver-and-cream-cheese (ugh) sandwiches, all I really want is to be able to be in the middle of nowhere and go have some pancakes.

Being Russian, RaggedyDad and his mother taught me that pancakes don't always have to be fluffy and high with syrup (and I'll admit to adding a pat of butter on top). They showed me how to also make pancakes that are more like crepes, topped with sour cream and brown sugar and then rolled up.







Thanks for indulging me and my eating habits, RD, and for your eagerness to eat pancakes (both ways) for supper now and then!

Cooking with My Crew

I always enjoy cooking with Ann, and now that Andy's getting bigger, he'll be darned if he gets left out of the action. Cooking with them pretty much means letting them touch, smell, look at, and gently mix some ingredients, and then ushering them out of the kitchen and over to some toys while the actual heat-related stuff is taking place.



They say that the best cooks are the ones who love to eat, and thankfully, that applies to these two! It's farmer cheese latkes for supper over here, and because the kids had a part in making them, I think that ups the chances of them eating this meal by about 200%. Although Andy, to his credit, needs no prompting when it comes to food.




Andy got to mix a few drops of water in a bowl with a little spatula. Ann helped design this made-up job to keep him away from her job, which is to beat the eggs, a task at which she has become quite proficient. Afterward I added the other ingredients, and she helped "make them all 'corporated" which basically means mixed in thoroughly. Aside from accidentally trying to eat Ann's imaginary friend, Andy did pretty well for his first time on the stool, especially with me hovering about 3 inches behind them.

Finally, it is our first night this year of lighting the Chanukah candles without RaggedyDad, who had some vacation time earlier this week, so I'm including a picture of the menorah that I recently asked my mother to borrow, one that I remember from my childhood as "the lion one," as in, "It's my turn to get to light the lion one this year!" Considering that Ann is a Leo I guess it is fitting. And that's the end of the astrology voodoo portion of this post.



Happy Chanukah! Chag Urim Sameach!

Ode on Two Kugels

five pounds of potatoes
so hot in here
is that the end of the barney video already?

Rockin' Moroccans

This week the Raggedyhome hosted two young, married couples for Shabbos - one married for a little over a year, the other married barely more than a month. Aside from being cute and lovey-dovey, these guests showed no signs of aggressively rude behavior. Which is a big step up for us! Au contraire, these guests were gracious, sweet, and pleasant every step of the way.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about our company. For one, they are all native speakers of French, which, aside from two years in high school that were mostly spent devising new and creative ways to cut class, I have little or no experience with. Basically I remember the initial three-sentence greeting we learned that has to do with entering French class, sitting down, taking out my textbook and notebook, and saying hello. Fin. That's about it. At that point I think I excused myself to go plot my communist takeover of the school.

RaggedyDad, international man of mystery that he is, had no trouble conversing with our guests in rapid-fire French. It's okay. I was able to follow the topic if not the details of the conversations, and each guest made a concerted effort to steer the conversation back to English. Or RaggedyDad would turn to me and give me a quick rundown. By now, I’m pretty accustomed to being surrounded by Russian or Flemish being spoken around me, picking up the few words that I recognize, smiling, nodding, and eventually excusing myself to the kitchen to “prepare something.”

In truth, it was a very interesting thing for me to observe, since languages, and particularly bilingualism and/or multilingualism, fascinate me a lot. Watching these couples in action, from backgrounds that were culturally similar, yet geographically diverse, and the interplay of languages, was like being a linguistics major in college all over again. Those were the days . . .

Aside from the Frankish aspect of the Shabbos, the main thing that got my RaggedyNerves in a knot, was the fact that my husband kept emphasizing that the food I usually cook may not appeal to Moroccan tastebuds. Can I help it if I grew up with Polish cooking where a little sugar in anything never hurts? (Except I guess it does hurt my father who has type 2 diabetes, and maybe children who tend toward hyperactivity. But besides that, is sugar really such a bad thing?!) So I rifled through my spice cabinet and tried to incorporate, among some of my classics (sorry, but we are NOT adding cumin to the potato kugel!), some interesting twists on the Shabbos food. I mean Shabbat food. Everything was devoured regardless of the extent of its spiciness.

This Shabbos, RaggedyDad learned that guests from other backgrounds can enjoy chulent as much as flounder in spicy tomoato sauce. I learned that if you want to hear some of the most beautiful singing to ever grace your Shabbos table, invite some Moroccans over. My kids learned fluent French (just kidding!). Our guests learned that Ashkenazi people can be cool. A little. In a word, it was magnifique!

Leftovers (lovingly termed "LO")

In our house, food is rarely, if ever wasted. It is served, reheated and served again, recycled into other dishes, anything but thrown away, unless it is past the point of no return. I inventory the fridge often enough so that doesn't happen often. And I've been known to eat a questionable food item or two in my day (I know I'm not alone, bloggers!).

Without the help of a shrink, I know that I completely take after my father in this regard. And we both take after the mother and father of my father. My parents were never big 'fighters' but I do recall some particularly bad arguments that sounded like:
Mom: But it's spoiled/old/been served 3 nights already/nobody likes it
Dad (Israeli accent): Don't trow nothing away!!! I will eat it, don't worry.

The night my father discovered that several cans had been shoved to the back of the pantry to the point of puffed-out botulistic grossness, and had to be tossed out en masse, stands out as the one moment when I felt like my happy, mostly-normal family was really in jeopardy. Thankfullly, we worked it out. And began rotating our food more carefully, which is a habit I still keep up.

I know my father is like this about food because this is what he saw at home, growing up in a fledgling, young state of Israel, with parents, of blessed memory, who survived the concentration camps. I know that food, preparing it, talking about it, describing it, hoarding it, and buying it, pretty much covers the bulk of my grandparents' hobbies. I remember that on his return from visiting Israel during the last few years of my grandfather's life, he told us about the cabinets full of flour and sugar that my grandfather kept, and how he was torn between needing to explain to my grandfather that it was infested with worms and had to be tossed, and not having the heart to do it.

RaggedyDad is "very good" about eating leftovers, as far as husbands go. I know that sounds arcane, but there are some people I know who really dislike leftovers, and put up a fuss. And they're usually the husbands, although exceptions abound. I joke around with him that our leftovers are probably way better than the quality of fresh food available in Russia when he was growing up there, but in truth, his family lived under fairly good circumstances as well as food goes.

Ann likes to ask me if we're going to have leftOVERS (emphasis on second syllable.) and doesn't seem to mind at this age. Andy will eat anything that's not moving.

Leftovers on my mind.