First Day of Chanukkah 11'21

 In some ways,  having to downsize Thanksgiving

 due to Covid's social distancing was a blessing,

 because this year,  the first night of Chanukkah

 fell on the Sunday night that Thanksgiving weekend ended.

Having fewer Thanksgiving ornaments to put away

made it much faster and  simpler to 

transition into  Chanukkah.

One of the first things we set out was Bruce's Menorah. 

 He has had this with him since he joined the Navy at age 18, 

and we cannot imagine celebrating this holiday without it.  

Next, the dining room table was reset

with blue and white dishes

and a Judaic latke dish and spatula.

I also put up a  blue bottle menorah in the front window.

We don't light it due to the potential fire hazard, 

but we do shine a spotlight on it,  so that everyone 

can see it from the outside.

And of course,  we celebrated by lighting the first candle 

followed by a lovely meal of roast duck and ended the evening by watching the 

National Menorah Lighting ceremony.

Honey Cake for Sukkot 9 '21

 

While we had a  lot of great meals during Sukkot,  

my personal favorite new dish was Honeycake.

My past attempts to make this Jewish Classic have been hit and miss as far as flavor, but this year I found a foolproof recipe that uses a boxed cake mix as the base.  It came out so well that It might become a regular offering at all of our Jewish Holiday meals.

Here's the recipe for anyone who wants to try it

Honey Cake Recipe:
1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup water or cooled brewed coffee
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup Gefen Honey

 

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

2. Mix the ingredients together in the bowl of a mixer or by hand, until everything is incorporated.

 

3. Spray a Bundt pan well with cooking spray and immediately transfer the batter to the pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

4. Cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then loosen the edges with a knife. Invert onto a large plate or cake dome.

5. Cool completely before icing (see below).

 

 

Apple Cider Icing Recipe:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon melted margarine
1 and 1/2 to 3 tablespoons apple cider or apple juice
1 teaspoon apple pie spice

 

Directions:
Combine all the icing ingredients in a bowl. Start by adding in one and a half tablespoons of cider or juice and add up to three tablespoons as needed. Pour over the cooled cake.

Jewish High Holidays 2021

 The Jewish High Holidays seemed to have come a lot earlier and  a lot faster this year.

It felt like we were celebrating a new holiday every other day.  

That's not far from the truth!   Four of the most important Jewish Holidays of the year, all fall back-to-back of one another within a month's time of one another the month of September. 

ROSH HASHANAH: The celebration of the Creation of the world and the new year as well as the Day of Judgement.

YOM KIPPUR: A fast day that is traditionally filled with prayer and collective confession and atonement. It is said that “on Rosh Hashanah, the Book of Life is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.”

SUKKOT: In ancient times when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, this was a pilgrimage holiday to celebrate the harvest. Rabbinic tradition now holds that this week-long holiday is when we remember the experience of the Israelites’ years of wandering in the desert.

SIMCHAT TORAH: It celebrates the end of reading of the year’s Torah cycle and starting it anew for the new year.

We celebrated all four of these this year, which has really kept us busy.  

Two of the Holidays Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, are about self-reflection and setting resolutions for personal growth.

We had Pomagranites everywhere during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

While neither of these two holidays has a religious mandate for any external prompts to be used, I find it useful to decorate our great room with traditional plant species associated with some of the rituals of this holiday.  The special holiday foliage and fruits help to remind us that' time-is-a ticking' to make our New Year's resolutions. For Example, The pomegranate is one of the Seven Species mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as being native to the Land of Israel.many Jewish families serve the fruit on Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish new year) in the hope that the coming year will bring many blessings, much prosperity, and the opportunity to do good deeds.

Our 2021 Sukkah

Sukkot, on the other hand, mandates that we celebrate the holiday with the building of a Sukkah (a temporary shelter reminiscent of the portable makeshift building the Israelis lived in after they exited Egypt).  While the  Torah says to build it outside with a leafy cover open to the stars, there is no way our HOA would allow us to construct one outside. So this year, like last year, so we set our Sukkah up in our living room with paper stars.

It is incredibly peaceful inside and there is plenty of room for eating and dining.

But there was not enough room to leave the table set,  so I extended the Sukkot decorations out onto the dining room table where I would serve the food, before we carried our meal into the sukkah, to eat.

Sukkot tableware waiting for the meal to be served.

Early Birthday Celebration, Bruce 4 '21

 

Bruce and I decided to celebrate his birthday a day early with a challenging round of golf at the  World Tour Golf Course in North Myrtle Beach.

The design of each of the 18 holes on this course has been inspired by a famous hole on one of the North American or British Open courses allowing us to experience the thrill of playing 18 holes inspired by some of the world’s most famous layouts; Pine Valley, Augusta National, St. Andrews without traveling beyond the Grand Strand.

Tenth Plague Death of the Firstborn Son, 4 '21

Even though I could think of several visuals for props, none of them strongly appealed to me enough to make a toy prop or an edible to put on our Egyptian countertop.  So instead, I marked the front entryway to the house with a red drape to represent the lamb's blood that the Hebrews painted over their entryways to protect their firstborn children from the angel of death.

Death of firstborn: Ex. 11:1–12:36

This is what the LORD says: "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again."

— Exodus 11:4–

Before this final plague God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors in order that the Angel of Death will pass over them (i.e., that they will not be touched by the death of the firstborn). Pharaoh orders the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they want, and asks Moses to bless him in the name of the Lord. The passage goes on to state that the passover sacrifice recalls the time when the LORD "passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt" 

Unleavened Bread for Passover '4 '21

Passover is sometimes called the Festival of Unleaven Bread, because  After the killing of the firstborn, the Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go. But in their haste to leave Egypt, the Israelites could not let their bread rise and so they brought unleavened bread. ... To commemorate this, Jews do not eat leavened bread for eight days.

To be specific, in order for matzoh to be technically unleavened and appropriate for Passover, according to Jewish tradition, it must be started and completed within 18 minutes. This is because fermentation is believed to happen after 18 minutes of ground grain being in contact with water, and Jewish law requires only unleavened foods be eaten during the duration of Passover.

In order to keep the process within 18 minutes, it is important the recipe uses only a few simple ingredients and a large baking surface that is brought up to temperature before you begin mixing your ingredients.  

Bruce and I teamed up to make eight of these basic matzoh flatbreads in less than 15 minutes (start to finish)  using a stovetop flat griddle. We ate half of it right away, 

Homemade Matzoh

:

INGREDIENTS

•  4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
•  1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
•  2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
•  3/4 cup plus up to 1/2 cup warm water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Ideally you would place a pizza stone on the bottom oven rack, but realistically a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet will work just fine.

Or you can use a electric griddle  on the high setting  so you can make more than on  bread at a time.

I am getting too old to safely be bending over a superheated oven, and our electric griddle doesn't get quite hot enough to  properly cook the flat bread so I used a large flat griddle pan atop our stove.

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients, starting with just 3/4 cup water, until everything comes together to form a dough. If the dough seems dry, add a little more water, just a few drops at a time. Be sparing with the water and do not add so much that the dough becomes sticky. 

If you do not need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes. If you do need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, proceed immediately to the next step so that you can attempt to finish everything in 18 minutes. You may want to ask for help to ensure that you complete it in time.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten a piece slightly and pass it repeatedly through a pasta maker, reducing the thickness each time until you eventually reach the thinnest or minimum setting on your pasta machine. Alternately, you can simply roll the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

Trim the rolled-out dough pieces into rectangles. (How many pieces of matzoh you get depends on how thinly you rolled the dough.) Use a fork to prick holes in the surface of the dough. lf salted matzoh are desired, brush or spray the dough surface lightly with water and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Carefully place some of the rectangles onto the pizza stone or baking sheet. They should fit snugly but should not touch. Bake until the surface of the matzoh is golden brown and bubbly, 30 to 90 seconds. 

Using tongs, carefully flip the matzoh pieces and continue to bake until the other side is golden browned and lightly blistered, 15 to 30 seconds. Keep careful and constant watch to keep the matzoh from burning; the exact baking time will vary from oven to oven and will get longer with subsequent batches. You want to let the matzoh get a few dots of light brown but don’t let the matzoh turn completely brown or it will taste burnt. 

Let the matzoh cool before serving. 

I stored what we didn't eat right away in a ziplock bag and toasted  some of it the next day in our electric toaster oven.  Toasting it  gave in  lovely crispy cracker -like texture. 

Original Recipe from  https://leitesculinaria.com/84910/recipes-homemade-matzoh.html3 . 

Ninth Plague of Darkness: 4 '21

  Our representation of the Ninth Plague of Darkness was pretty dramatic

We covered the three lights hanging over Egypt (aka our breakfast bar) with plastic bags that had been covered with colored tissue paper and polyester fiberfill ( aka Pillow stuffing).  When we turned on the lights over Egypt and turned off all other lights in the room, the lights over Egypt emitted a really eerie glow that seemed to drain out most remainings in the room.  We could see well enough to walk around safely, but not to make out objects beyond an arm's length away.

Darkness for three days: Ex. 10:21– Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt." So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days.

Eighth Plague: Locust 4 '21

 

Locust proved hard to make as an edible but was easy to come by as a  diorama figure, so we put Dollar Tree toy locust and grasshoppers atop our freshly made matzah bread before we used the bread for lunch or dinner.

Locusts: Ex. 10:1–20

This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your fathers nor your forefathers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.

— Exodus 10:3–6

2nd Plague of Passover : Frogs ( 3' 21)

Much of the early drama of the Exodus story takes Place in Egypt and revolves around the Ten Plagues which God let loose upon Egypt to force the Pharoah to allow the enslaved Jews to leave the country.   To make these plagues more meaningful, we chose to represent each of these plagues in the order they occurred on each successive day during the Passover holiday. Whenever possible we used a combination of food and artificial props to reinforce the concept.

The 2nd of these plagues*  involves frogs leaving the Nile and invading the residences,  public places, and temples all over the land. To represent this horror, for dinner  I hand-modeled and baked a pair of frogs (made from ground chicken) and set them on a lily pad of romaine lettuce leaves surrounded by (green salsa)  pond slime.

I also molded a green jello frog and sat it on a pistachio-pudding pond for desert, but Bruce had the frog half eaten before I remembered to take a photo.

* "But wait a minute; you are probably thinking.,"What happened to the first plague?"  To represent the first plague  Water turning to Blood, yesterday (3/27/21)I set an all  Red table cloth  (to represent the Nile) down on the  Egyptian Breakfast Bar, and served an all-red dinner consisting of sashimi Ahi Poki, with red cabbage slaw,  red rice,  cranberry juice drink, and red jello with small dying fish shaped from white pear slices floating in the jello.  It was a clever way to reinforce the idea of the water staining everything blood red, and it was very  tastey, but red-on-red color combinations do not photograph well at all. 

Happy Purim! 2'21

 

This year I decorated the table with 

A diorama of Purim Biblical

Purim Characters

atop a platter of

Cherry Hamantaschen

Goodbye 2020 - Hello 2021: 12 '21

 

Last night, the house was all aglow

with silver, gold 

and glittering

ornaments.

Abricadabra , 

presto chango', 

and eight hours later

the golden globes 

have been replaced with snowflakes,

and our glittering  dining room table 

is now covered with snowmen.

Welcome to 2021.

New Year's Eve Dinner: 12 '20

 We're celebrating New Year's Eve at home this year

With a homemade dinner of 

 classic Beef Bourguignon and mashed potatoes

Bruce loved every bite.

(I followed Julia Child's original recipe with near religious fervor.  No creative deviations on this recipe.  Its a definte keeper:  https://cafedelites.com/beef-bourguignon/)

Getting ready for Halloween: 10 '20

 

My cats are really mad at me. We took our Sukkah down this morning,

and by this afternoon, I had replaced it with Halloween decorations.

Our poor kitties are so upset. They loved hanging out in our Sukkah.

Halloween is just plain boring by comparison.

(Or at least it will seem dull until they realize there's all these fun new toys ( bats) flying over the dining room table).