Winter Joy Retreat-Day 7-Food and Adventure

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Due to Hanukkah and a busy week (so far), I'm still behind, so please bear with me. Thanks!

Monday's Topic:
What experience have you had where food and adventure went hand in hand? Maybe this meant going to faraway lands, or perhaps no further than a friend’s house or a restaurant. Maybe it was less about what you ate and more about the context in which you ate. Today, write about what comes to mind when you put “food” and “adventure” in the same memory.

When I was given the "adventure" prompt, I immediately thought of my trip to Israel from Birthright in early 2002. It was my first (and so far, only) time going to Israel. It was also the last trip before my life changed in a huge (and amazing) way.

Since I was there 14 years ago, I can't really tell you how food smelled or tasted. There were so many different meals and dining experiences wrapped up into a 10 day trip. I will share a few food-related thoughts and memories though.

*Most of the hotels we stayed at would serve these little cakes for breakfast. They were very soft and flavorful. It was hard not to grab a bunch of them! I usually would pair my cake with a cup of chocolate pudding.

*On our second night there, we went to a Druze village and had a meal in one of the homes. I remember someone taking a picture of me while I was eating and then sharing it on the Birthright website. Next thing I knew, I had a message from my mom saying "You look happy, except when eating pita." It wasn't that I was not happy. It was that I was caught by the camera mid-chew. The food at the Druze village was actually good, if I could even remember what I ate. I think rice was served.

*When we got to Tel Aviv, we were on our own for lunch. I went into this fast food place with a few friends and got chicken shwarma in a pita. It was delicious, from what I remember.

*There was also a dairy restaurant in Tel Aviv called Yotvata. They had amazing gelato (my first time trying this form of ice cream). The best was their tiramisu flavor. We ate at Yotvata for dinner before boarding the plane back to the US. We didn't get to choose our gelato that time, so we only got vanilla, but it was still good.

*My friend "Will" was in Israel while I was there, so we got to have lunch together in the Old City a couple of times. The first time, I got pizza, but I was so overwhelmed by the sights and sounds (along with the beggar cats), that I can't even remember how it tasted. The second time, Will made me try falafel. It was okay, as I'm not a big fan of chickpeas unless they're in hummus. I tried it again a couple times while back home, but it still has yet to impress me. However, I have photographic proof of myself eating falafel in Israel.

*There are Kosher McDonald's and Burger King all over the place, but since I wasn't keeping Kosher at the time and could get the same food at home anyway, I didn't bother. I usually got pizza during our lunches out.

*I remember the chicken being good wherever we had dinner, whether it was at a hotel or on a Kibbutz. I also remember going to this little buffet restaurant for one of the lunches. They had mostly meat dishes and those were good too.

Sorry my descriptions of food are so vague. I could tell you about the smells I associate with Israel, such as the dead sea or Ahava lotion (which comes from dead sea salts and has a very distinct scent). I could even share some songs that I always associate with that trip. However, I hope this will give you some idea of what kind of eating I did on my adventure!

Winter Joy Retreat-Day 6: Food and Laughter

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Due to Hanukkah and a busy week (so far), I'm still behind, so please bear with me. Thanks!

Sunday's Topic:
Let’s hear about your food and laughter moments -- the tears-streaming-funny ones, the line-between-laughing-and-crying ones, the circumstances that linked your experience of a certain food to laughter forever.

There have been so many moments where I equate food with laughter. I'd like to share a few of them here.

*Pieces of E.T.: Once when I was visiting a close friend at her childhood home, we made pasta and put chopped up garlic into it. Her dad saw the garlic and asked what it was, so she said "pieces of E.T.." This is still really funny to me and I can't put chopped garlic into pasta anymore without thinking of that.

*Weird mint frosting cake: With this same friend, I once made a cake that came out all messy in the end. It tasted fine but looked dreadful. We decided to frost it anyway and used mint extract in the frosting. I can still picture and taste that cake now and this was back when we were 15.

*Messy kids: I have this one friend who is clearly not a parent yet because kids getting food all over their faces and hands grosses him out. He says that when he has kids, he'll make them eat outside and then hose them off. So I enjoy taking pictures of my kids when they are super messy and then tagging him when I post them on Facebook. I'm hoping that one of these days, they'll just cover their faces and hands in chocolate and then hug him. (At least my youngest could get away with that,)

My friend is lucky he wasn't there this time...

*Tandoori chicken: My husband used to make this really good chicken dish using a package of Indian spices. He called it Tandoori, but I don't remember exactly what it was. Just that it was delicious. In any case, there are two funny stories that go along with it.

1. We served this at a Shabbat meal where my husband was telling everyone about this incident that occurred during our first Pesach in New Jersey. It involved a man bringing a stolen shopping cart with a stolen statue to the host's home as a gift for inviting him to their meal. The hosts, in this situation, were the Rabbi and Rebbetzin of our community (at that time...they left shortly after we did.) This one couple we had over really liked the chicken, so we made it for them again when they had their baby later that year. They sent us a thank you note mentioning how the chicken reminded them of the story about the shopping cart and the statue. Then they had some new neighbors of theirs ask us to tell the story when we hosted them at a different meal.

2. My younger son was eating the chicken for dinner, but the sauce was too messy for him. So he announced to us: "I don't like the sauce, so I'm going to lick it off." 


*Name mix-ups: There have been a few funny and memorable instances involving not understanding a certain name used for a food item.

1. When I was about nine years old, we went to this Japanese restaurant where everyone sits on pillows on the floor. The waitress came up to me at one point and said "Morty?" I had no idea what she was talking about and thought it was some food item she wanted me to try. Then she finally showed me the teapot and I was like "oh...more tea!" My family thought that was hilarious.

2. When I was in college, one of my friends came back from the salad bar and said "What's the difference between regular Italian dressing and local Italian dressing?" It took me a moment, but then I realized that local was really lo cal, but the words were written too close together. After that, I'd always ask if she got the "local Italian dressing."

3. When my husband and I went to a wedding, one of the servers had these weird looking appetizers on a tray. When I asked what it was, he said "chicka-nut-a-choke." I had to ask him to repeat it a few times before realizing he meant "chicken artichoke." I still don't know what that appetizer even entailed as it didn't look like anything resembling chicken or artichokes. My husband and I would go around saying "chicka-nut-a-choke" a lot after that.

*Braiding challah: A while back, I had a friend over to braid challah with me. She wanted to do a complex braid, and we looked online for instructions. The instructions were telling us to make it like a person and consider the strands either arms or legs. The whole process was so confusing and we ended up just laughing the whole time we were trying to braid. Then my friend had the idea to label each strand so she could figure out which to fold over each time. It worked though!

Winter Joy Retreat-Day 5: Food and Generosity

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Due to Shabbat and a busy weekend, I fell a bit behind....

Saturday's Topic:
Tell us about food and generosity. Do you remember a time in your past when generosity and kindness came along with food -- whether you were on the giving or the receiving end?

When I first moved to my community, there was a program at the Chabad called Loaves of Love. Women from the community came together to prepare challah dough for baking at home, in honor of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, z"l, who were tragically killed in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008. Rivka used to give challah to everyone in her community, so the way of honoring her memory was to bake some for ourselves and some to give to someone else. That same night, I won a huge bowl for mixing dough. Since then, I've doubled my challah recipe so I can give some to a friend each time I make a batch. Chabad did the same program for two more years, and then it tapered off. However, I still make enough in my batch to give someone a loaf of challah each and every time. I've recently extended Loaves of Love to people at my office. It warms my soul when I can give someone challah and find out that it made their day easier in some way. A while back, a friend even sent me a thank you card when she was the recipient.

Winter Joy Retreat-Day 4-Food and Childhood

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Today's topic:
Tell us about a memory from your childhood where food was a part of the scene. Food whose smell and taste you can’t forget even if what was included was as simple as a sardine sandwich, a ripe fruit, a slice of freshly baked pie, or a glass of warm milk. Where does this memory take you? What emotions does it bring back?

When I think of food and childhood, the first thing that comes to mind is making sugar cookies with my mom and sister. I don't remember if I helped make the mixture, but I can clearly picture myself rolling out the dough and then placing cookie cutters on top. Then we'd sprinkle colored sugar crystals on top. After the shapes were cut out, we'd put the remaining dough back together and start over again. The shapes were usually holiday-themed, most likely menorahs and stars for Hanukkah. Maybe there were snowmen too? The best part was sneaking pieces of the raw dough. We didn't think about the health implications of eating raw cookie dough when I was a kid (or even when I was in college). It was so sugary and delicious. I couldn't get enough of it! Of course, the end result of the cookies coming out of the oven hot and crisp was a reward in itself.

Over time, my mom and I would bake other desserts together. I got this recipe for a chocolate chip cookie cake (like the cookie cakes you'd see at Mrs. Fields) when I was in a junior high cooking class. We enjoyed making that together sometimes. When I was in high school, I learned about a recipe to make Funfetti cake mix into cookie dough. I started making cookies that way and bringing them to speech tournaments. They were a huge hit. One of my friends on the team wanted most of them for himself, so when it came time for his birthday, I made him a Funfetti cookie cake. I put it in a pizza box and brought it to school that way. He was thrilled, and of course he had to carry it around all day because it wouldn't fit in his locker. After that, I would bake Funfetti cookie cakes for the tournaments. That was definitely my contribution to the team, as I didn't really win all that much.

My mom definitely instilled in me a love for baking. Sometimes we bake challah together when she visits. I've passed this love for baking along to my kids, especially my older son. I hope it continues for future generations.

Winter Joy Retreat-Day 3: Food and Freedom

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Today's topic:
Tell us about a time when you felt food was about freedom -- or the lack of it. Who was involved? How has that experience influenced you as a person?


I personally don't have stories about feeling oppressed and thinking of food as freedom. However, this topic brought Passover (Pesach) to mind. (Funny that I'm talking about this now, with Hanukkah right around the corner.) Every spring, we sit around our dining room table, leaning back on our big pillows from the couch, and read from the Haggadah (the seder and story of Pesach). There are certain items that need to be on the table during the seder: matzah, parsley and a bowl of salt water, a hard-boiled egg, a roasted lamb bone, charoset (apple and wine mixture), lettuce, and horseradish root. These symbolize different things in the seder. I can explain a few of them.

The parsley is for dipping in the salt water, to represent the tears of our ancestors when they were enslaved in Egypt. When we had our first Pesach in New Jersey, we learned that you could use other items aside from the parsley for dipping in salt water. As long as you can say "....boray pree ha'adamah" (prayer over foods that grow from the ground), it's eligible for the (double) dip. This brought up an argument between my husband and some of the other men who were learning with him, as he knew that pineapples grew from the ground. Since he was right, the Rabbi put a pineapple on his seder table when we were there for the second night.

Yes, you can dip this in salt water!

The charoset represents the bricks and mortar that our ancestors used during their enslavement. We put it between two pieces of matzah and include a bit of horseradish for the korech, or Hillel sandwich. The charoset balances the bitterness of the maror, symbolizing the optimism of the seder. My husband has this amazing charoset recipe. I can't even explain what he does, but it comes out great every year. He makes a batch without walnuts due to our sons' nut allergies. It's delicious either way.

The matzah represents the bread that our ancestors didn't get enough time to bake before fleeing from Egypt. It's also the reason we can't eat anything leavened on Pesach. Over the past few years, we've been using Shmurah matzah at our seders. It's even thinner than the boxed kind made by Manischewitz or Streit's. It's really crispy, aside from it's plainness. It's great for making matzah pizza. The melted cheese weighs down the matzah, but it retains its crispiness. My kids like to eat it with cream cheese spread on top, even when it's not during Pesach. 

Shmurah matzah

At our seder table, we sometimes compare our enslavement in Egypt to the Holocaust. There was also no freedom for our ancestors during this horrific time, and food was hard to come by. My mother-in-law told us about her relatives who perished and how they would cherish a morsel of food whenever they could get it. At this time of strife in Israel and all the blatant Anti-Semitism going on, we compare what is happening to the Holocaust. The idea of being in such a perilous situation is jarring and unsettling to my family, my friends, and myself. We think about a time long, long ago and it's similar to a time in the not-so-distant past that we should never forget, as many survivors have now passed away. We are thankful to Hashem for bringing us to this time and place and providing a bounty of food that we can eat while celebrating our freedom and reminding ourselves "Never again!"

Pesach food used to be associated with bland taste. There weren't a whole lot of options for the seders or even during that whole week. I tended to eat a lot of matzo ball soup when I was growing up. In college, I had to improvise a bit, as the Passover "airplane food" provided by the dining center was disgusting. I'd get a plain burger or a plain piece of chicken, no bun. I wasn't keeping Kosher at the time, but I was pretty good about sticking to most of the Passover rules, even on a campus where the only synagogue was in the middle of nowhere. I'd bring matzah and the fruit slice candy (the good stuff with the sugar on top) to all my meals. My friends were interested in trying some of it, so I didn't feel too weird about that. My mom would also send me back to school with these chocolate chip cakes, which were the only dessert worth eating on Pesach at the time. The mix has been discontinued and I still miss it. I used to warm it up in the microwave so the chocolate chips melted and the cake was even softer and more delightful. A perfect breakfast treat! Side note: the Kosher for Pesach cereal is horrible and the bag inside the box is so small that it doesn't equate to the five dollars charged for it.

The first time I started liking Pesach food was when we went to my sister-in-law's family's house for the holiday. Her mom is an amazing cook and the food didn't even taste like it was intended for Pesach. Everything was just so incredible from the soup to the main dishes to the side dishes to dessert. At lunch, she had matzah macaroni and cheese and matzah lasagna. I now make those dishes for the holiday and they are in high demand from my whole family. I think the experience at my sister-in-law's parents' house inspired my husband to go outside of the box when it comes to cooking for Pesach. He's made some amazing dishes over the past years, including Pesach crepes. My sister-in-law baked these delicious blondies this past year and then gave me the recipe. It was so hard to stop eating them! And I managed to work with a Kosher for Pesach pancake mix that my kids and I both enjoyed. We used strawberry jam on top, as K for P syrup is ridiculously expensive. After all, if we're celebrating our freedom, we shouldn't be eating something bland!

My husband's Pesach crepes

The best advice is....

Did you miss us? We took a couple of weeks off, but now we're back in full swing!

Blog Project 3.0 has been going on for about two years, even though one of the group members changed after a few months. I love blogging with this group and I hope we can continue to inspire each other.

This week, Darwin Shrugged chose the topic: Write about advice you give to other people and follow yourself AND/OR advice that you give other people but which you struggle to follow.

First, read what everyone else had to share on this topic. I will be only posting links to posts on this same topic from my group. So check back if you were hoping to read their blogs and don't see a link yet.

Darwin Shrugged
Froggie
Moma Rock

I've given a lot of advice in the past, but I usually end up making people angry or upset, or it's clear that I don't know what I'm talking about. So I've been trying not to give advice as much when it comes to personal matters. Especially when the advice is unsolicited or involves anything more than helping someone choose a nail polish color. I give my husband advice sometimes, but it's more when I know it will affect me somehow.

There's an arena in which no one should ever be giving advice...PARENTING! My husband once made a friend of mine angry when he gave advice on how she should get her kid to go to bed. And I know he gets annoyed when someone else tries to give either him or myself parenting advice. Even if they're in our family. I get bent out of shape about it too. When it comes to parenting, the only kind of advice I give is something that is meant for the parent instead of the kid. I tell new parents to sleep when the baby is sleeping. I didn't do that the first two times and was burnt out easily. When my youngest was born, I finally gave into that concept and understood why others said the same thing. There was nothing better than napping when my youngest was napping. Or I tell parents that they should only worry about what their pediatrician thinks. If their pediatrician is concerned, then they should be concerned too. For example, when it comes to how to feed your baby, you do what is best for both you and your baby, as long as the pediatrician agrees that it is okay. (They're obviously not going to agree to water or real milk in the first year.) I also share funny situations that my kids have gotten into in order to sympathize with a parent whose child is doing the same thing. I don't tell them what I did in response though.

I'm NOT giving their mom advice!

I do give advice to fellow book bloggers, but it's mostly stuff to make their lives easier and less stressful. My two big pieces of advice, that I also follow, are: "Read what you want to read" and "It's not a competition." The former is because people are worried about getting a review out close to publication. It's nice when everything comes together, but if you're forcing yourself to read a book just to get a review in on time, that takes away from the fun of reading it. If a review comes out later on, it will bring new attention to a book. And as far as the competition thing goes, I totally believe this to be true. I like working with other bloggers in a community instead of one-upping them or trying to be better than them. I try to collaborate with or help out other bloggers whenever possible.

So many to choose from...read what you WANT!

If someone personally came to me for advice and I felt equipped to help, I'd gladly do so, but I also don't expect my advice to be the end all, be all. I try to be supportive and uplifting when the situation calls for it. However, the way I may go about a situation may not be the same way someone else will and I try to keep that in mind. If I can't help, I still try to listen, as sometimes venting is all someone needs to do. I'm still fumbling my way through knowing when or when not to give advice, but I feel like I'm getting better at it than I used to be.

Winter Joy Retreat-Day 2: Food and Love

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Today's topic:
Tell us about the food of love.
(Or your love of food, as the case may be.)

Warning: This is probably going to be a brain dump for me. :)

My relationship with my husband has been food-focused ever since we were dating. He had taught himself how to cook when he was single and would make delicious stir-fry dishes (sautes, as he called them) with chicken and fresh vegetables. The first time I cooked for him, I went with some basic stuff that I know I wouldn't mess up. Chicken baked in a sweet-and-sour sauce, rice, and this delicious napa cabbage salad. Of course, the meal wasn't without incident, as I managed to drop and break the bowl that the salad was in. Thankfully, this was after we ate the salad! He thought nothing of it and helped me clean up the glass so I wouldn't cut myself.

We've always enjoyed dining out together. I was thrilled that he liked my favorite Chinese restaurant (the one I worked at and mentioned on Day 1) and we'd always share the chicken garlic lo mein. I remember when we were first dating and he took me out for crepes before we saw this horrible musical (that we still laugh about). He's since learned how to make his own crepes, which are just as delicious. I started enjoying Mexican food because of him (even though I only ate fajitas) and we'd even sometimes get Indian food together. Thai food is definitely a favorite of ours, as well. Of course, we would go out for ice cream a lot. When we went to St. Joseph, Michigan, during the first summer we were together, we got Kilwin's ice cream (still a favorite) and took our cones with us to the beach to watch the sun set.

Kilwin's in St. Joseph

We started going to monthly Shabbat dinners together in the city and then decided to try a Shabbat dinner program in the suburbs. We'd fit as many people as possible in my condo and have a meal together while also discussing the weekly parsha (section of the Torah) in a way that was relevant to modern times. The program was short-lived, due to funding, but we still would have smaller Shabbat meals for just our friends from time to time. Most Friday nights, it was just the two of us sitting at the Shabbat table, enjoying a bottle of Joy Vin or Bartenura Moscato (at the time, it was called Moscato D'Asti and we still call it "Asti" nowadays) and a fresh loaf of challah that came from his bread machine. (It was a while before I started taking over the challah making process.) Shabbat meals have been a weekly ritual for us before we were even married. We first eased our way into doing them every week, but then realized how big a part of our lives these meals were.

We both take part in putting together Shabbat dinner. He cooks the meat and vegetable dishes. I usually handle the baked items, such as kugels and desserts. I also make the matzo balls for his soup broth. (Although I've passed along that task to my older son recently.) Sometimes it's just us and our kids around the table. Other times we host between one and three other families. Then we bring out all the special meals that we know how to make...homemade challah, brisket, cholent, deli roll, noodle kugel, pareve (non-dairy) cookies and cream ice cream pie, blueberry cake, etc. We've gone from working side by side in tiny apartment kitchens to having enough space to spread out in the kitchen we had remodeled. Sometimes he'll make dishes that I normally make and vice versa. I help him out whenever he needs me to (like the time he was stuck on the train and he sent me instructions for making a carrot dish or when he had to run to the store a third time and I got the potatoes ready for mashing while he was out).

From Thanksgiving, but this is the kind of spread we have for big Shabbat meals

Aside from this, when I first thought of food and love, I thought of my husband's birthday the year we were married. We had inside jokes about Saved by the Bell, so I decided to write "Happy Wrong Number By The Sea" on his birthday cake, since that is what was written on Zack's birthday cake when they were working at the resort. It was just a simple cake from a mix, but I might have made the frosting. I can't remember. In any case, it made him laugh, which is so vital to our relationship. Our friends didn't know what was so funny about the cake, but we did and that was what mattered.

This is not the cake I made (as it was from the show) but this gives you an idea.