Weekend Hospitality

Mea Culpa.  I didn't post last friday before shabbat started.  The days are longer and brighter and I spent the morning cleaning up and driving car-pool.  My youngest broke his glasses.  He was wearing his backup pair, but needed both a checkup and a new pair that was not totally bent out of shape.   Strangely enough, his prescription has changed and his backup pair is only about 1/3 of the strength he needs to see the blackboard at school.  Oh well, one new pair coming up. We had an unusual experience with our guests.  Two young ladies had called to stay with us for shabbat.  On Friday morning, they called for directions; what bus should they take, and where should they get on in Jerusalem.  One of my sons explained the details and told them that the last bus leaves between 3 and 4 in the afternoon.  They arrived just as the last bus had left the station.  The only option left was to take a taxi which costs about 140 NIS ($37). ...

The hall, just before opening Carving staff: taking apart the birds before service Photos courtesy of B. Gilor We celebrate our anniversary on Thanksgiving. Its a rather large affair, with about 350 of our friends. We have been having this party for many years, learning from year to year and adjusting as we go. Last night was one of our nicest events. The decorations were wonderful, the food delicious and the company divine. As usual, the big hit was our sweet chili. Here is a link to the recipe that we posted last year. Same recipe, just a bigger quantity. We made wonderful stuffings this year. The list included: Traditional mushroom, onion and celery Dark bread with garlic and dried tomatoes Jalapeno and hot sausage Pesto and black olives Creamed corn with soy milk Apples and raisins Shredded carrots and onions The first five were cooked in the birds. They were soft and rich. The last two were done separately in the oven. The crowd certainly voted with their plates, leavi...

We had a very nice shabbat. Our three guests, Elka, Sarah and Ariela were very nice. They participated in shabbat preparations and helped out the whole time they were with us. We even got them to play Killer Bunnies . They were real troopers, because while this game usually lasts about 45 minutes, our game lasted close to three hours. Kudos to their determination. Ariela almost won the game, holding 16 of the 20 carrots at the end, but Joey was the lucky recipient of the fated magic carrot and hence the winner. On Erev Yom Kippur, we prepare to receive judgement for the coming year. I had a very visceral experience with one of the more odious sins, Spreading a Bad Name. This malady is specifically when people spread true stories about a person that cause that person hurt or loss. I inadvertently told someone about a conversation that I had, and that led directly to this sin. I'm disappointed that this happened and will try to work harder in the coming year. One person su...

I'm lazy. It's true, I should have blogged over pesach. After all, I was at home and had lots of free time to relax and write. Alas, I'm lazy and took the holiday as a vacation. Pesach is strange that way. On the one hand, you work your bottom off cleaning, cooking and entertaining. On the other hand, its not "normal". The things that you deal with everyday are sort of put aside until the holiday is over. For us, that gave us a mental break. We got a second break when we were invited out for all meals on Shabbat and on the second holiday. No cooking which meant more un-programmed days. My wife and I renewed our regular argument about Sundays. In her book, Sunday is the day you leave the house and do things like touring, sight seeing, or hiking. It is a day to get out of the house and be busy. In my book, Sunday is the day to stay at home without any duties or expectations. Sit and watch a ball game. Play 8 hours of computer games. As long as you ...

Here is a picture (from my cellphone) of our second day guests from the second half of Pesach.  The boys in the striped shirt only held one day, while the rest were preparing to eat matza for another day.... From left to right: Robert, Chaim, Ami, Zack, Daniel and in front: Leah Once again, no leftovers.   After pesach was over, Chaim mentioned that he can eat Gbruckts (re-cooked matza) on the eighth day of pesach.  So, I made a huge pot of Matza Farfel with whatever leftover celery and onions that I could find.  I wonder why I don't make that more often.

This first days of Pesach are past and our guests have (temporarily) left the building.  We hosted 7 boys from Baltimore, Cleveland and NJ [Haim Frenkle, Zack Sacks, Daniel Davis, Amishav, Sam, Robert and Etan].  Six learn at Mevaseret Zion and one learns at Netiv Aryeh.  We also had two russian high school students (11th grade) from the Naaleh program [Stas and Vitali].  The high school boys learn in a boarding school in Tirat HaCarmel in Haifa.  Last but not least, we had two young women who made aliyah this year [Sarah and Miriam]. The second seder that we supported (but did not participate in), had 13 people ranging in age from 18 to 60+.   It is a strange experience serving and cooking for people who are having a second seder. From a food perspective, we didn't have enough.  The boys are meat and potatoes people.  Anything I put on the table with meat or potatoes was devoured.  Vegetables fared a bit better, but for most meals, we had nothing left over.  I don't think anyo...

First challenge of the holiday. I boiled a corned beef today and for the first time in ages, it didn't come out firm.  Perhaps I over boiled it, or perhaps the meat was just not up to my usual standards.  Anyhow, now I have about 2-4 pounds of shredded corned beef.  I was planning on serving this on Sunday morning (Pesach Lunch) as one of two main dishes.  The other dish came out fantastic (Chicken in wine sauce with mushrooms - Yum!). It seems from a quick perusal of the Internet that the most common thing to do with Corned beef leftovers is to mix it with mashed potatoes and call it Corned Beef Hash.  I'm going to try and make an Irish version: Colcannon, that I found on an email thread here . First I need to make some mashed potatoes and some stir fried cabbage.  Then I'll mix it together with sautéed onions and bake it until the top browns. Please let me know if you have any ideas.  The corned beef just fell apart, even with my sharpest knives.

Once again, I've been tardy about recapping our weekends.    Rest assured that its not because the guests were losers or duds.  Its just that after shabbat ends, we first make grilled cheese or pancakes and then have our guests sign the guest book and take a picture.  After everything settles, I'm not always ready to go back online.  By the time I remember its later in the week. Recap:Birthday weekend - Parshat Yitro My oldest brought two of his high school friends for the weekend,  Amram Sherby from Modiin and Yossi Friedman from Jerusalem.  We also hosted three young ladies from Machon Gold: Abby Singer, Sara Lopez and Anna Abramovitz. The food was pretty good (If I do say so myself).  The fried pumpkin was an experiment that I would like to retry.  We matchstick-ed about 1 pound of pumpkin and sauted it with cinnamon, cloves and brown suger.  The taste was great, but the pumpkin still have a crunchy texture.  Next time, we should par-boil the pumpkin. Recap: Post-Snow weeken...

I've been tardy recapping previous weekends. While it doesn't bother me that I can't recall if a particular recipe went over well, it does bother me that I did not get a chance to thank our guests.  So here's a quick recap of our guests over the past few weeks.  My digital camera was stolen, and our analog camera takes months from taking the picture to getting a print, so these will be sans-photo! We'll start with the Kav-Lchaim weekend of Dec 22, 2007.  We hosted two young boys, not more than 10 years old with Cerebral Palsy (CP).  They were assisted by two young ladies, Nava and Shir.  Both of the girls were in the midst of their year of community service (Sherut Leumi).  They were very dedicated to their charges.  We have plenty of beds in our house and so we set up two beds downstairs in a wheelchair accessible room for the boys. We also set up two beds on the third floor to give the girls some privacy.  So much for good intentions.  It seems that the boys were ...

Shabbat meals went very nicely. The chicken tangine with lentils was very nice. I need to remember to put in the right amount of liquid. This time, I put in about twice as much and even with added lentils, it was soupy. The taste was very yummy with the chicken very soft. Our guests for dinner were Gershy (Gershon) Rapp and his friend Rachel Giblon. They are both from Toronto. Gershon is ending his second year at a yeshiva in Ramat Bet Shemesh and will be entering the army (Nahal Haredi) in four weeks. We had a very nice dinner, even if it was rather noisy. The stories of Yehuda and Tamar and Yosef and Potiphar's wife are just wonderful! Lunch out was nice, but we lost two of our children. They decided to eat at a friends and did not bother to tell us where they were going. One of the best things about our community is that this behavior is actually permitted and does not send the parents into a state of panic. We found them about around 6pm.

The chicken and rice was really nice. A very good choice for shabbat lunch. I cooked it in a non-stick pot and put the put on the hot plate first thing in the morning. Some of the rice on the bottom of the pot caramelized and the rest warmed up along with the chicken. The grated lemon rind gave a wonderful taste. Next time, I would add a bit more cinnamon. We hosted two young ladies from Michlelet Lindenbaum, Shoshana Bar-David and Rebecca Lasky. As it happens, I will be staying in Rebecca's home town next Shabbat, so I expect to take a blogging break for one week. The following week is Thanksgiving, which is a major event at our house. Stay tuned!

One change to this weekends menu was the addition of a poor mans jambalaya. Just sausages, poached chicken breast and rice with a little red pepper flakes. Not so great color wise, as its too white, but ok as an extra main course. The rest of the meal was just fine and the conversation was interesting as usual. Noach is one of my favorite parshiot in the Torah. I happen to have some rather un-conventional theories about it. The challenge is to expose them only to friends who are receptive. Fortunately, our friend Dov was up for it and the evening was a smashing success.

It was a quiet holiday for us. No guests. The family was pretty tired of the endless vacation. Food wise, the enchilada casserole was great! Really nice way to use partially dried out tortillas. The Zuchinni Con Queso was very soupy. Either I put in too much milk, or I should have put in more cheese. My chichen chilli for lunch also turned out rather soupy. I put in only one cup of barley and two cans of baked beans. Next time, I need to add more barley. I'm re-using this dish this weekend by mixing in cooked rice. The rice will soak up the liquid.

The long weekend was indeed long. We had two groups of young men with us for the past three days. The first two were high school students Benjamin Andrew Deardorff and Benjamin Jaeger from Boston. The boys are spending a semester in Israel in the Hod HaSharon area. The other group of boys were from Yeshivat Mevaserret Zion . Zachary Sax and Daniel David are from my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Eitan Finkelstein is from Toronto, Canada. Yeshua Kylman is from Tea Neck, NJ. Food wise, the chicken wings were WOW. We didn't even make the sauce. Next time, I'll make the sauce also. This recipe was simple and just great. Highly recommended. The Chicken Paprikash is pretty much no fail. I would strongly suggest de-greasing and reducing the sauce. It makes so much liquid that the chicken gets lost in the serving. Only four more days until the next holiday!

The pre-yom kippur meal was very nice. The poached chicken and the purred carrots came from Suzie Fishbein's Kosher by Design . I made the puree without the soy milk and it still came out creamy and tasty. The poached chicken should be made immediately before serving. It takes just a few minutes to cook. This time, I let the chicken in the poaching liquid with the heat turned off until it was served. The chicken had over cooked... I would suggest instead just poaching until it is just done and then making a sauce our of strained poaching liquid. My sauce tasted wonderful, but (as usual), I used too much flour as a thickener. It may sound like lots of little failures, but the food went over well and everyone enjoyed it. The fast itself was pretty easy. No outside guests, so its was just family. I feel positive that the day was successful and that this year will be a good one for myself and my family.

We were honored to host Rachel and Tzippy, two young ladies from Midreshet Yeud in Jerusalem. The organizers of the weekend choose to have the guests spread out across the community, and so although the girls slept at our house, they only ate one out of six meals with us. We hope they come back so that we can get to know then better. As is our tradition, I took a photo of the girls to put in our guest book. I'm very concerned not to put any of our guests in uncomfortable positions, so I asked if I could post their picture on this blog. They politely declined. I wonder if this is going to be a pattern for this year. Neither of these girls use facebook, so perhaps it depends on the particular people in question. For that same reason, I'm not posting their family names. The Cuban chicken was a big hit. It sounds scary from the recipe, but it tasted great even two days after I made it! We served it for two meals and both groups liked it. Once we got to the actual meals,...