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Cold weekend (outside, warm at home!) RECAP

Well that was interesting.  My Uncle Arthur was well known for collecting stray people at shul and bringing them home for Friday night dinner.  I have always thought that this was a very cool thing to do, but I've never had the chance.  Part of the problem is that you need to be in a place where people just drop in.  I've heard that one of the best places to pick up guests is in the old city of Jerusalem.  We live with the choices that we've made in life.

On Friday evening, I arrived at Shul a few moments late.  One of my friends came over to me and asked if we could help with a couple of young men who were stuck on the yishuv without meals of a place to stay.  What could I say, but SURE, they are welcome at our house.  Another friend pointed out that they had an empty house (all the kids were away) and that we should let the boys stay at his house.  In the end, we compromised, they ate dinner at our house and then slept and stayed over at the other families house.

Now this story would be complete except for a few minor details.  The boys were ultra-orthodox yeshiva students learning at the Brisk Yeshiva in Jerusalem.  They wore black hats and black suits.  Now that's ok by me, but its certainly unusual for our community.  It seems that they were planning on  going to Mevo Modiin and finding a place to stay there.  They brought food for themselves and were going to sleep somewhere in that community. 

The problem is that they could not find Mevo Modiin.  First, how do two 20 year old yeshiva boys get a car to drive in Israel?  Secondly, how could they get on the road without a map.  Thirdly, why didn't they check their gas gauge.   They drove around the area (we are about 10 kilometers from Mevo) and ran out of gas near the entrance to our community.  This story is too strange to have made up.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have three girls from Midreshet HaRova staying with us; Dena Shayne (Brooklyn, NY), Rayna Stern (Long Island, NY) and Naomi Alper (Manchester. UK).  HaRova  is a religious school for post-high school girls and its very pro-Israel.

I invited a co-worker Adi and her husband Issac for that dinner.  They live in north Tel-Aviv and are completely non-religious.   They drove to dinner and came a few minutes late, after we had already made kiddush, but before hamotzi.

So here we were.   Our family of eight, two ultra-orthodox boys, three middle of the road orthodox girls and a non-religious couple.  Dinner was fun!  The food was good and the discussions were reasonable.  We usually discuss the weekly torah readings at dinner.  As it turned out, our guests didn't have much of an opinion.  It was fun anyway and all of us got a small peek at how the others live.

Lest I forget, Lunch was with Tzippy and her family.  Happy birthday!  The food was really nice.  I made my chili with ground cloves.  It added very nice overtones.  The cajun chicken was pretty spicy.   For a cold day, it was good to eat some food with heat.

Until next week,
Elliot
 
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Anonymous said…
can you post the recipe for curry pargiot?
January 13, 2008 at 2:26 PM
Elliot said…
Curry Pargiot is one of the simplest items to make. I buy premade curry power from a spice store. You will need about 4-5 Tablespoons. Clean the pargiot of any bones or gristle and lay them rolled up on an oven pan. Sprinkle the curry powder to cover, trying to get an even covering over the exposed surfaces. Turn the pargiot over and do it again. When you are done, make sure that the pargiot are smooth side up. Spray with PAM or Olive Oil spray and put into a 350 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes. That's it! This recipe works well with many dry rubs. Garam Masala is perfect. It re-heats well as long as you don't put it on direct heat (in which case it will dry out).
January 13, 2008 at 2:51 PM
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