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Promotional poster for JFX event.
Uncategorized March 15, 2012

Shabbat Dinner Menu and Recipes… My Way

Time for a food post! 
And since Shabbos/Shabbat is coming, here’s the long-ago promised Shabbos dinner menu
and recipes.  For those of you that are
regular readers, you already know I’m not a foodie, so my recipes are somewhat
laissez-faire.  That’s my one and only
disclaimer!

My Shabbos menu is a merger of tradition and what we love –
that’s what I think Shabbos should be, in general.  We maintain the “traditional” feel  by sticking to a generally similar menu
structure, and then there are places I experiment and have fun.  So here goes.

Menu:

  • Challah with spreads
  • Gefilte fish with horseradish and salads (occasionally
    salmon too if I’m feeling fancy or we’re having company)

  • Chicken soup – usually with matza balls
  • Main course is where I have fun.  My default-mode is baked chicken of all varieties,
    a grain such as couscous or rice, and usually the ever-traditional and favored
    potato kugel.  However, often we have
    meatballs (my husband’s favorite) or chicken cutlets.  The salads from the first course round out
    the main.
  • Dessert consists of pastries from the bakery – again, this
    is my husband’s favorite no matter what we make at home!  My daughters love to bake (where’d they get
    that from?) so sometimes it’s homemade treats too, or sorbet, or sometimes my
    guests bring dessert.
Comments:
  • I usually make the challah, but sometimes I get lazy and
    buy it instead.  Also, my family loves “water
    challah” – eggless challah from the bakery.
  • “Spreads”: my husband loves mayo on his challah, and many of
    our guests have learned of this unfortunate trick.  We also add chummus to the offerings.  On a good week I’ve been known to make
    jalapeno dip, olive dip, and… um, that’s all.
  • Fish:  People seem
    flabbergasted that my gefilte fish is not Mrs. Adler’s in jelled broth.  But I don’t quite make it from scratch
    either, although when I lived in Israel I sure did that.  I buy a frozen loaf, unwrap it, spray it with
    a bit of olive oil cooking spray, sprinkle the top with lemon pepper, and bake
    for like an hour.   It’s so good, it
    almost doesn’t last till dinner.  Someone
    keeps coming over to cut off slivers and before you know it, half is gone.  Okay, so that someone is usually me.
  • Soup: I never called it “matza ball soup” growing up.  Firstly, I was raised calling matza balls “kneidlach”
    (the Yiddish name) and sometimes we had them; sometimes we didn’t.  The main attraction was the chicken soup,
    loaded with veggies and completely heavenly (shout out to my amazing mother
    here).  However I’ve learned that your
    average Jew calls it matza ball soup and the main attraction is by far the
    actual matza ball.  Everything else is “broth”
    – a word I never used in my childhood.
Recipes:
  • Challah
1 (5 lb) bag flour (regular, whole wheat, or a combination)
1 ½ c sugar
½ c honey
3 eggs
3 tablespoons dry yeast
4 c warm water
2 tablespoons salt
1 c oil
This yields 5 or 6 medium-sized loaves.  Sorry for the huge amounts but I never make
less.  You can halve this recipe
easily.  Throw it all in a mixer or mix
by hand.  Allow to rise.  There’s a special mitzvah to separate a small
piece with a special blessing and prayer (beyond the scope of this post).  Shape, braid, rise again, brush with egg
wash, sprinkle with sesame/poppy and bake for 45 min on 325.  Hide from children till Shabbos.  The challah, not yourself.   Although
that sometimes works too.
  • Potato kugel
7 potatoes (white, sweet, or combo thereof)
1 onion
¼ c oil
Salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs
Shred the potatoes and onion in a food processor.  Dump out, then put the bottom blade into the food processor and
dump everything in.  Process just till
blended.  Bake on 350 for forever.  Okay, so more like 2 hours.  Taste for a while until you’re sure it came
out good.
  • Jalapeno dip
5 fresh jalapeno peppers
1 large can of tomato sauce (whatever you think large is)
5 cloves of garlic minced – now, I never mince garlic.  That is too much work for this
non-foodie.  I buy the frozen garlic
cubes at Trader Joe’s that come from Israel. 
Each cube = one clove.
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut off tops of peppers and process in food processor (that’s
the hardest part).  Sautee in oil with
the garlic.  Add tomato sauce and salt
and pepper and simmer for anywhere from 20 min to an hour.  This keeps in the fridge for weeks, by the way (not that you’ll have any left over).
  • Chicken Soup
However much chicken you want – I put it in a net bag for
easy removal – place in large pot
Carrots, celery, parsnip, sweet potato, onion, squash –
however many you want
Water till the top
Seasonings: garlic powder, dill, rosemary, salt, pepper
Bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of hours.  Irresistible.
  • My favorite salad
Romaine lettuce
Lightly sautéed steak-sliced mushroom
Avocado
Cherry tomatoes
Purple onion, sliced thinly
Hearts of palm
Dressing:
A generous squirt of ketchup.  Okay, two.
A little olive oil, or more if you don’t care about calories
Same amount of vinegar as ketchup
A little sugar, or more if you don’t care about calories
Paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, dry mustard.
Whisk and taste.  Add
sugar if not sweet enough or vinegar if too sweet.
Add croutons if you’re so inclined or some other crunchy
like slivered almonds.
Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!
What are your
favorite Shabbos dishes?  Do you go more
traditional or more with your personal favorites?
Related posts:
Cholent, Luncheon of Champions
What Friday Feels Like
The Food… Oy, The Food
The 10 Things I Want My Shabbat Guests to Know
Bag of all-purpose flour on counter.
Uncategorized March 12, 2012

Yoga, Feminism, Judaism… How do you make your decisions?

Rabbi Akiva Tatz is one of my all-time favorite authors. His works must be savored in small, focused, thoughtful doses, like a bar of very expensive chocolate.

I’ve been getting to know his Letters to a Buddhist Jew, as I lead two classes in a kind of book club. We’ve been on the book for about a year. Surprisingly, not everyone is as in love with the book as I am. For some, it’s too abstract; for others, it requires too much background knowledge; for others, it simply gives too much airtime to Buddhism.

I am breathtakingly in love with it.

Consider this excerpt:

A Jewish woman who has committed her life to Hinduism and yoga came to ask me some questions about Judaism. She happens to be firmly feminist in her views, and I presumed that separation of the sexes in Judaism was going to be an issue. I braced myself for the attack.

It never came. Her school of yoga always separates the sexes; they regard the mixing of men and women to be distracting and never allow it. She had absolutenly no problem with Judaism on this issue. If the yogis do it, it is wise and good.

…she has a hierarchy of value systems. Her yoga comes first, her feminism second (and her Judaism third). Now the higher system in the hierarchy defines the values before the lower; if a feature of yoga conflicts with a feature of feminism, yoga wiill win (and there is no need to change that when you get down to Judaism). If you see someone who cannot accept a feature of Judaism, you can assume that they have accepted a “higher” system that defines their values, and that is why that feature is a problem; the system higher in their hierarchy must win.

What I find singularly fascinating about this observation is that the woman in question was likely completely unaware of this hierarchy. She had probably never observed it or broken it down quite that way. When I think of what my hierarchy of values are, I might say, Judaism first, family second, popular opinion third… but what colors my opinions? Do I really let popular opinion be third?

And do I always filter my decisions through the lens of Judaism? What of when Judaism and family conflict – then what?

What do you think of Rabbi Tatz’s assertion? What’s your hierarchy of values? What wins out in a conflict?

Loosely related post: Mechitza-phobia

Large bowl covered with plastic wrap.
Uncategorized March 6, 2012

Mormon Baptism of Dead Jews… What Offends You?

On my primary news outlet, Facebook, I came across a startling piece of news: not only do Mormons apparently convert dead Jews posthumously, but Anne Frank has been a recent candidate.

The reactions were quick and angry.  Offended.  Wounded.  Outraged.

Me?  I thought it was funny that anyone was wasting their time with this nonsense.

Here’s what I posted:

  Re the Mormons, I don’t find it
offensive at all, because such rites don’t change anything.

To which the OP responded:

while the rite may be
meaningless I find the sentiment behind it offensive. Much the same way
I find it offensive when somebody tries to “save” me.

Me:

That’s a common sentiment, but one I don’t share. It’s like an annoying mosquito on the other side of a window.  It can’t touch me.

OP:

I’m going to start thinking about it that way!

Random friend:

Ruchi, you sound very enlightened! 

I like that girl.

***

My two teenaged daughters were shopping at a grocery store before Chanukah.  One of the (non-Jewish) shelf stockers dropped something made of glass, and it broke.  Instinctively, the dropper said, “Well, Mazel Tov!” and they started singing a Chanukah song.

This was not a Jewish store.

Why Jews say “Mazel Tov” when they break glass is a whole ‘nother post, but what interests me here was their quickly sobered behavior when they noticed my obviously Jewish daughters.

The laughing stopped, the singing stopped, and they quickly apologized.  “Did we offend you?” came the question.

My daughters looked at each other oddly.  Offended?  They thought it was cute.

***

Do you think Jeremy Lin was offended by the Ben and Jerry’s fortune cookie ice cream flavor in his honor?  The ice cream flavor was changed after “initial backlash.”  As a Jew I wondered which segments of the Asian American community felt threatened by this.

If it would have been a Jewish sports star (ha) with a bagel-and-a-shmear in his honor, well, as a strongly identified
Jew, I think I would find that clever and amusing – though perhaps
acknowledging privately that it’s a rather shallow nod to my faith. But
hey – it’s food, not the high holidays.

***

Does the offended reaction serve us well?  Is it justified?  Wise?  Due to… insecurity?

What do you think?
 

Baking tray lined with aluminum foil.
Uncategorized February 13, 2012

State of the Blog

It’s been quiet on the blog.

For two reasons:

1. Life has been wonderfully crazy – with our recent Shabbaton, and with the upcoming weddings of my baby sister, and, two weeks later, my baby brother-in-law.  (Don’t worry – they’re in their twenties now.)

2. I’ve been assessing where I am with the blog.  My cyber-sister Skylar recently posted a State of the Union update on her blog, so I’ve decided to copycat.

For some time I’ve been feeling that I’ve accomplished what I set out to in this blog.  I’ve covered many of the major aspects of Orthodox Judaism – leastwise, the ones I’m willing to blog about – in a way that I feel have opened the doors of communication in a respectful way.  So ought I agonize to continually come up with new aspects of Orthodoxy that are different?  Maybe there aren’t all that many, as it turns out.  In the words of the iconic Oprah, as she interviewed a Hasidic family, “We’re more alike than different.”

So does that spell the end of the blog?

No.

I believe it’s just the beginning.  Because with our differences safely out of the way, let’s talk!

Now that we’ve formed a safe community here at OOTOB, I’d like to move on to stage 2.  In stage 2, I’ll be doing the following:

1. Seeking to publish the first half of this blog into a book.

2. Maintaining dialogue about all things Jewish, with your participation.

3. Responding to and discussing stuff that’s in the news or trending out there in the world, as it relates to Jews of various persuasions – like the Oprah story above, the Victoria’s Secret model story, and so much more.

4. Sharing my involved musings on life through the prism of my faith.

5. Posting on topics I hear about from you, my readers, and relating to your comments and thoughts.

That said, I’ll probably be posting less frequently – maybe once or twice a week.  And I’ll be taking about a month’s break to celebrate the weddings in our family!

But I’ll be back – and I can’t wait.  I’ve missed you guys.

The Jewish Way
Uncategorized February 8, 2012

Is Hillel Encouraging Going to the Game on Shabbat?

My friend Jessica Bell Semel was describing one of those situations that has the potential to become “one of those” very divisive issues in a community.  This took place a couple of years ago – what do you think?

Situation: Parents’ Weekend at the University of Michigan is coming up,
and Hillel sends out a letter detailing various activities that will be
available in addition to the usual offerings from the University. I
think the letter went to parents of current students – no alumni without
Michigan students.

Opportunities: Friday night services (mehitza
minyan, Reform, Conservative, etc.); Shabbat Dinner at Hillel; Saturday
morning services and lunch; block of tickets for the football game (very
hard to get tickets!) and other assorted events.

The letter
just gives links to register for any of the activities, with a link to
the sports office or Football Gods or something, with a code to put in
to get your football tickets. Please note, the seats are not good at
all, but they ARE seats.

Someone sends an email to Michael
Brooks, the executive director, complaining that Hillel is encouraging
people to go to the game on Shabbat.

He sends out a long
response. Basically, he tells us that in close to 30 years at Michigan
he has never been to a football game since he davens and rests on
Shabbat. However, the culture at Michigan (and all Big 10 schools) is
all about Football Saturdays. His point is that Hillel is open to all
Jews, those that observe, and those that do not, and his organization
has managed (through a wonderful relationship with the university) to
get a block of tickets for any parents that may want to buy them. He is
not advocating going to the game, or not going to the game, only
reaching the kids and their parents wherever they are (a big Hillel
goal, anyhow).

As you might imagine, a great email discussion
ensues – and lots of people are engaged. It was great. By the way, the
University does have some kind of an arrangement so that observant kids
who can’t carry on the sabbath can go to the games without bringing
their tickets. I am not sure how it works, but I do know that some
Cleveland kids who are observant do go to the games.

What do you say readers?  Let the respectful debate ensue!

Uncategorized January 31, 2012

3 Steps to Fixing the Half-Judaism Trend: guest blogger Leah Weiss Caruso

My friend Leah Weiss Caruso blogs at www.therebbetzinrocks.wordpress.com, which is entirely appropriate because she absolutely does.  Rock, that is.

Leah is one of those rare breeds of human who is funny, wise, kind, open-minded, and respectful of those which whom she completely disagrees.  She and I agree on many, many things, and disagree on many too.  Yet our friendship and mutual respect prevails.  Our friendship is an icon for this blog.  

And here she is:
Ruchi’s
conclusion in her “Half-Judaism” post is that both parties are
half-right.  And half-wrong.  They have each only acknowledged half of
Judaism.

I
think Ruchi is spot-on.  Being an active, thinking Jew is more than
just being a good person, and it’s more than just keeping kosher.  There
is a phrase from our tefillah [prayer], “The World stands on three things: Torah, Worship, and Acts of Loving-kindness.”

Not just one of these things, but all three.

#1:
Torah (Written – 5 Books of Moses; Oral – Mishnah/Talmud): The Jewish
Way as we know it.  Kosher, Shabbat, marriage, birth, death, business
ethics, etc.  It’s all in there.  How each person interprets it . . .
well, that’s a whole other post!  But we must acknowledge its place in
our DNA, and find ways to incorporate its spirit, if not always its
letter, into our lives.  However, it can’t be our ONLY thing.

#2:
Worship:  Fairly obvious.  Except, it’s not.  Many of us think of prayer
as something we do a couple of times a year in a big room filled with
lots of people and questionable art.  Or maybe a Shabbat service here
and there.  And for many people, “prayer” hangs over them as a
prescribed thing that is in a relatively foreign language and said to a
deity in which one may or may not believe.

I’m here to say that, at
least for me, “prayer” = the hopes that I have, the dreams that I have,
the gratitude that I have, and how I express all of that and acknowledge
the Divine presence in my life.  It’s rarely in the form of what is in
our prayer-books.  It is, however, a part of my daily life.  I think
it’s integral to being a conscious Jew – being conscious others and of
the world around you.  Like #1, it can’t be the only thing you do. 
Being pious in prayer alone does NOT = good Jew.

#3: Acts of
Loving-kindness: “good deeds”.  Chesed.  Charity.  Being a good person. 
We all strive for this!  But it has to go hand-in-hand with #1 &
#2.

1+2+3 = 1.  A whole Jew.  How we incorporate these things into
our lives is as unique as our fingerprints, but we can’t go “halfsies”
on this.  This is our challenge:  be a full Jew.

Dough rising in a large metal bowl.
Uncategorized January 30, 2012

Why I’m Still Proud to be an Observant Jew

Still got my head held high
Still so proud I could cry
Trying to be a Torah-observant Jew
is a privilege
an honor
a treasure

Proud of the people that make up my world
Strong women
Kind men
Sweet children, singing pure songs
Respectful teenagers, keeping their language clean, even when so frustrated
Grandparents, who are given the seat of honor and the attention.

Proud of this community
that takes care of the sick
the needy
the stalled cars
just for the mitzvah
non-profits started by individuals in their homes
on every corner.

People
forgiving debt
refraining from gossip
giving 10% of their tight incomes to charity
inviting strangers into their homes
to help a fellow Jew.

My husband, and so many others, who get up while it’s dark
to study some Torah before beginning their day
who find a minyan in which to pray
while traveling
vacationing
who never sleep in…. because they have a higher Boss.

Torah is perfect –
People are not
Is it a surprise that “we” include
the stupid, the rude, the sick, the emotionally disturbed?

Is there any race, religion, neighborhood that doesn’t?
Expectations are exhausting,
impossible.

We’re just people
trying
striving
to live according to the Torah – the one that belongs to us all.

Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail.
But we are trying.

And in the meantime, that makes me proud.
Individuals and communities trying to live meaningful lives
according to our holy Book.

No matter what people may do
or say
my head is held high,
proud, honored, humbled, striving, grateful to be
a Torah-observant Jew
even when
I
fail.