Weekend Hospitality

Holy readers, it's been almost three months since my last post.  I've been working at a new job and finding balance in my life.   Many thanks to a few readers for pestering me to keep writing.  I do appreciate the motivational help. My wife suggested that we try for a very simple meal on Friday night instead of the full blown orgies of epicurean wonders that I usually attempt.  We tried it last weekend and we will try it again tonight.  We are aiming at single bowl meal with soup, salad and a starch.  It is surprising how filling a few bowls of soup are and we really don't need all the fancy  calories twice on Shabbat. With the beginning of the school year, we also begin to invite families once again for Shabbat lunch.  This weekend, we have a reasonable size group of 18.  Four of them are below 10, but still, its a crowd. Both the chicken recipes come from a cookbook called "The Spicy Food Lover's Bible".  It has relativ...

I started this weekend cooking with the following:  1 Kg ground beef  3 Kg Chicken thighs and drumsticks  2 small salami  1 beef chuck labeled Filet M'dume (2 Kg) The challenge: Make dinner for 8 and lunch for 14.  Use beef at both meals. I love cookbooks.  Today, I used Mark Bittman's best recipes in the world.  One of the nice features of this book is that recipes are marked "Make Ahead" and "Serve Cold/Room Temperature".  So, three recipes this week.   Chicken Teriyaki (pg. 317), a simple way to make chicken with a sweet soy sauce. Chicken Escabeche (pg. 294), warm chicken in a sauce.  This one looks strange.  Its backwards.  First you cook the chicken, then add the marinade, then serve it at room temperature.  I'll let you know if it works. Beef Daube (pg 384), a nice simple beef stew.  Since its for Shabbat lunch, I drained the sauce and will serve it for dinner. For the ground beef, I made a mexic...

Since the week before Thanksgiving, we have had non-regular shabbatot.  Sometimes because my wife was running an event, sometimes because we were under the weather, and sometimes because we were invited out.  I enjoy going to other peoples houses for meals, but it means that we cannot have sleep-over guests at our house. So, this is a regular shabbat.  No events, no meals out, only one person slightly ill, and four sleep-over guests. We have two gentlemen from Torat Moshe and two women from Shalavim.   We have one extra guest this evening, who had a grandchild today at 9am.  She pulled an all-nighter, so I'm not sure how awake/aware she is going to be at dinner. There is a Sheva Bracha meal this shabbat to which we are not invited.  The hosts asks if I would make a corned beef, and of course I agreed.  To my usually excellent corned beef, I make a glaze of brown sugar, powered ginger, dried mustard and soy sauce.  Too bad I had to sent it away...

Very busy day and hence I'm posting just before Shabbat (again!).    My wife is running an event this weekend and will not be eating any meals with us.  arghhhh.  On the other hand, I can make non-atkin's friendly food, so all is not lost. We have two young ladies staying with us for Shabbat and a friend is eating over for both meals.  It will be small meals (for us).  The gaming crowd is expected to show up anyway, so the house will not be empty. Shabbat Parshat Vayeshev Dinner - 10 Hot-Sour soup (turkey stock base) Pargiot in wine sauce Garlic Meatballs with potatoes Noodles Zucchini and carrots Lunch - 9 Split roast chickens Restaurant wings Hard boiled eggs Rice salad Creole Eggplant The food smells great! Shabbat Shalom, Elliot

I don't know why or how, but after the Thanksgiving event and weekend, we have been under the weather and slightly depressed.  Perhaps its just the relative lack of sunlight in the winter, or perhaps its the flu and illnesses that are going around.  Everyone in the family is just a bit off. We have been on a roller coaster with the Army the past two weeks as my oldest son is trying to find a new unit.  We have learnt all about protectzia.  When things don't go your way, you call everyone you know to try and find the right angle.  We will be much better prepared for the next child, as our oldest has really broken new ground. Our transplant recipient has been struggling with mouth sores for the past two weeks.  They are painful, and the doctors are unsure about their cause.  More tests, and meanwhile, we sit through fifteen minutes of gargling twice a day with three difference mouthwashes.  We hope that they will identify the cause soon, as its ha...

My family woke up today in a bad mood.  Nothing serious, just not the usual patient, cooperative people I usually see in the morning.  My wife says that its the weather.  It has been overcast all day and is now drizzling.  When there is insufficient sunlight, people tend to be less happy and more depressed. This week we got the news that my son in the army was asked to find a new unit.  We are very proud that he made it as far as he did, but now he needs to look for something new.  Just another bump in the road of life.  On the plus side, we love having him home until he is relocated.  His fiancee is equally happy to have him around. For some reason, we don't have guests from the seminaries and yeshivot this weekend.  We invited over a family from the community for lunch.  We look forward to a quiet weekend. With the onset of winter, I'm trying a new soup: Ginger Chicken soup .  The chinese believe that this soup is a cure-all...

Our house is very quiet this weekend.  We were invited out for dinner, and we have no guests for lunch!  Oh the travesty!  We will just have to make do with our own company.  Its clear and bright outside with highs in the mid eighties (around 30 for the metric crowd). In the west (Cleveland to be exact), my brother's son is celebrating his bar-mitzvah this weekend.  Great excitement, many guests and highs in the low 60's (low teens).  Most of the US family will be there to cheer him on as he reads from the torah, gives a short speech and eats tons of good food.   I'm sorry to miss it. On the cooking front, I went out to see Julie and Julia with my wife and our friends this week.  I really enjoyed the movie.  Julia Child was a larger than life person and the movie captures that quality.  The food scenes were great and I even learned something (mushrooms brown better when you don't crowd them). So, this weekend, I only made one meal....

Elementary, middle school and high school started this week. Universities start the middle of October, after the holidays. Its nice to have everyone back to a schedule. My ADD child is back on his medications and its a major difference. He is quieter, but he also gets things done! He is very smart, but the ADD makes it very hard for him to focus on anything for more than a minute or so. With his meds, he works quickly and finished the homework in record time. Without the meds, he also finishes the homework in record time, but its record slow, not fast. Our army boy has a free weekend. We haven't seen him for about four weeks, so we were looking forward to some face time. Unfortunately for us, he wants to spend the weekend at his Yeshiva studying. He went to Eli, and they have an amazing connection with their students. I'm happy to support him and to lend him my car to get there and back... Only one meal at home this shabbat because there is a major bar-mitzva luncheon...

I'm tardy. I should have posted before Shabbat started, but instead I decided to complete re-wiring the network for my wife's new office. That, coupled with small meals and an early shabbat left me no time to post. So, here is a "post"-mortem. We have a nice family with little kids over for friday night. Binyamin and Shira moved to the yishuv last November. They have two little tikes (3 and 1.5) and one on the way. For lunch, not only did we not have guests, but my wife was out running a luncheon. Way too small with just six of us. We finished in less than 30 minutes. Cooking for less than a crowd is hard. There are many fewer options and the food tends to be blander because everyone need to eat something. The food was good anyway, but I look forward to the return of the students starting in September. We already have a few guests pre-booked, because we knew their families in the old country. A word about my roast chicken this week. I'm confused about m...

I don't like the summer in Israel. Its too hot and the sun is painful. I try and stay in as much as possible. Last weekend, I was in Cleveland. I grew up there and some of my family still lives there. The four days I spent there were glorious. The temperature was in the 70's and there was a nice warm rain. That kind of weather is one of the things I miss most living in Israel. That, and my family. It was very nice to see everyone. I have a really nice time cooking for Shabbat in Cleveland. My mother (may she live in peace and health) is not a spice person. I found a container of cayenne pepper that must have been at least ten years old. My biggest problem was that there is no black pepper in her house! I feel like I use black pepper almost as much as salt. Oh well, I'll make sure to bring some along next time I visit. The middle of the summer is also a time of mourning in the Jewish calendar. The last nine days of that period are just painful. Things go wron...

This has been a hard week. I have a big review for a University project next week, and the whole team has been focusing on meeting our deliverables. With the pressure comes recriminations and conflict. Its natural, but not particularly helpful. After a very painful day on Thursday, I attended a local event that was billed as a Purim Shpiel. I was looking forward to a light evening of entertainment in the spirit of Purim. Unfortunately, I must have missed the description of the event, because it was actually a cantorial event. First, I have little patience for the cantorial style. I really enjoy singing, but I don't like the overblown extravagance that seems to be part and parcel of these events. To make matters worse, the presentation included movies and pictures of Hasidic rabbis and their followers. Now this was a national religious event, and these images did not represent our views or our community. Imagine yourself in a fraternity of the 1960s. You invite the local ne...

Winter weather is supposed to visit us this weekend. Chilly (single digits celsius, high 30's fahrenheit)., with rain, sleet, thunder and lightning. I love "big" weather, and this weekend should be lots of fun. There are few things better than sitting in a warm house, watching the rain fall in sheets, lit by lightning bolts and reverberating with thunder! BTW: an equivalent experience is watching a major snow storm. Nature (God's Angel) is powerful and great! We have a mixed house this weekend, with three young ladies from MMY (via our calling cards) and two yeshiva boys that we got from Anywhere in Israel. To make things even more interesting, we got invited out for dinner! What wonderful friends. We told then that our crowd would be 12 people and they didn't blink! I offered to bring something, but they turned me down! I love our community and our friends. I have never lived or heard about a place that has this kind of compassion and support. Through g...

Ah winter.  This has been one of the driest winters on record here in Israel.  We only get rain during the winter months, from October through March.  In any other month, its one sunny day after another.  This winter has been particularly dry and that is very problematic, coming after three other dry winters.  Our water sources are at an all-time low and water rationing may be around the corner. So we are very happy that this weekend is supposed to be wet and stormy.  It means that we will all have to stay inside and eat warm comfort food!  I am so looking forward to the weekend. As a change of pace, we have four young men staying with us.  I have no idea where they came from, but they got our card (from one of their female friends) and gave us a call.  Also as a change of pace, we are eating out tonight. My son Asaf (he of the chronic kidney disease) turned 18 this week and we will definitely  be celebrating this weekend.  Our dinner hosts have a daughter who was born on that say day ...

My wife runs events.  She is not a caterer, but she handles all the setup, service and cleanup for events on our yishuv.  This weekend, she and her parter are double booked.  They are running two parallel events all weekend.  I am very proud of my wife and I try to stay out of her way when she is working. What this means is that we have no guests for Shabbat, and that my wife and at least one son will be working during Shabbat meals.  One son is in the army, and another went to Jerusalem for a bar-mitzva.  That leaves very small crowd of 4.   Way too small for Shabbat.  I invited a friend over tonight with one of his sons, so we should have 6.  I'm not sure I can handle the silence.  Please come over and visit if you are around. On the other hand, I can experiment with cool dishes that I would otherwise skip.  The credit for this meals goes to a book called " The Spicy Food Lovers Bible ", by Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach.  I made three dishes, and they all came our amazi...

Three of my boys are away for Shabbat.  We are down to a small family of 5.  I'm not sure I can handle the quiet.  Fortunately, my parents are visiting and we have two guests from Midreshet HaRovah.   Many of the people who would normally show up at our house this weekend are away in the army.  We will miss then and hope they return soon. Tomorrow lunch is going to be a bigger affair.   On of our friends had minor surgery a few weeks back and she has been stuck in the house recuperating.  She and her family (plus a few others) will be coming for lunch.  We have great conversations.  Her husband is a straight thinker and really knows his material.  I usually take the unconventional approach and together, the fur flies.  It should be pretty fun. I am getting tired of making the same dishes.  It happens mostly during the winter, and it is something that bothers me.  My wife has no such concerns.  She would be happy if I made the same thing every weekend (as long as it included some fo...

I feel rather torn this weekend.   On the one hand, my oldest son is being inducted into the army next week.  Let me say first that I have absolutely no issues with his induction.  I am only disappointed that I never had the option of serving for my country.  As I heard from many holocaust survivors, having a child serve in the army makes up for our own lack of service. What bothers me is that I am a strong believer in Military Secrets.  Loose lips sink ships.  Its very real and immediate to me.  I spend much of my time mining Internet data for academic goals.  It is amazing how many things you can tell from a large enough collection of blogs and new feeds.  Publishing information about the Israeli army seems to me to be giving information to the enemy. On the other hand, I really want to share our experiences.  This blog is a wonderful way to get things off my chest.  My anonymous (and not so anonymous) readers are a good sounding board. So, I'll just say that my oldest son is bei...

Each person has their own ways of dealing with their problems.  When I get sick, I want to be in a quiet, warm place until I feel better.   When I start to feel better, I want company.  Like our forefather Avraham, having company makes me feel whole.  (this assumes that I am healthy enough for company.  I may be righteous, but I'm not stupid ;-). My wife is wonderful.  She knew what would make me feel better, and she accepted requests from five guests to stay over for Shabbat.  She also invited a local family for lunch!  I was a little overwhelmed, but there really is no difference between 1 guest and 5. Today (Friday) is the first day that I'm feeling almost normal.   I still have a little tightness from the surgery and I'm definitely favoring my side.  But, I was able to cook up a storm.  As I looked on my handiwork this afternoon, I felt very good.  We start with raw materials and make something appetizing and healthy!  What could be a better parable for recovering from ...

Its been a hectic week and I don't see the end in sight until next Tuesday.  Between medical issues and my Phd research and teaching, I'm so buried that I need to work on Friday!  I have tried very hard to keep Friday's for cooking.  Its therapeutic to be able to focus on making Shabbat meals.  Instead, I have to write a paper that is due to the workshop committee on Monday!  ARghhh... In any case, we have a pretty quiet weekend.  Two guests from a seminary in Jerusalem and no other guests for meals.  Counts are simple at 10 people.  That's very small compared to our usual meals. This shabbat is one of my favorites in terms of discussion topics.  In this weeks parsha, we have two major events.   Dena is raped by Shchem and the brothers (Shimon and Levi) use a ruse to disable the residents.  They then destroy the city and its inhabitant in revenge.  Yaacov just shrugs.  So many questions: Was Dena to blame for the rape?  Were the inhabitants of Shchem honest in their con...

Its that time of year again.  My wife has been drying various types of bread for about two weeks.  The butcher is getting our order ready and invitations have been sent out.  Thanksgiving is next Thursday and we are beginning to feel exited. Ok, it is true that there is so much going on in our lives that yet another event seems almost too much.  Thanksgiving is a tradition.  For 22 years, we've been serving our friends and family and celebrating our anniversary.  This year, we will also be giving special thanks for all that we have and particularly for our warm and giving community.  This coming year is going to be hard for everyone and only by working together within each family and across our extended communal family will we be able to weather the storms.  Health and Economy are the current dangers.  Let us pray that those are the only things we need to deal with. I really didn't intend on waxing poetical in this post.  I am trying to save that for my official Thanksgiving po...

Its been one year since the last Alyn ride.   Here is last years post .   Three of our close friends make the ride this year.  They have been preparing for the past three months, riding between 50 and 75 kilometers each friday and smaller rides during the week.   The ride begins on Sunday and ends on Thursday, covering more than 400 kilometers.  All of our friends finished the ride, but they are totally wiped out!  So, they invited themselves over for lunch!  In addition, we have two young ladies from Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim (MMY).  They heard about us from one of their friends who stayed with us earlier this year. We were invited out for Friday night dinner, so my only responsibility is cook for Shabbat lunch.  Looks like an easy shabbat with our friends.    As you can guess from the menu, zucchini is in season.    Shabbat Parshat Vayeira Lunch - 18 Meat Roll - with beef Corned Beef Crock Pot Chicken and Rice Pakistani Zucchini - parve Zucchini Salad - with cabbage and hot pe...