Foods From The Motherland

When the kids were little and visits to our parents entailed crossing the Canada-US border, Sean would tell the people we were visiting the motherland - meaning the land where our mothers lived. Over the years, living in different places, we'd incorporate local foods and ingredients into our holiday meals. 

Local honeys for Rosh Hashanah evolved into an annual international honey tasting. Sukkot meant our favourite Israeli dishes. Pesach includes haroset from Brooklyn, Hawaii, and Canada. Shavot always includes Junior's cheesecake, a Brooklyn cheesecake so good that, when the restaurant burned, people famously ran towards the restaurant yelling, "Save the cheesecake!" (Welcome to Junior's Cookbook).

Last year, looking into Sephardic recipes to bring some of Rav Sean's family history, I discovered Pan de Siete Cielos - Seven Heavens Bread, a dairy bread made in Spain and places Spanish Jews fled, and mentioned in Inquisition records. We first made it last year, and it was an instant hit.

This year, I'm using this recipe from the Jewish Journal online. Here's an adaptation for a smaller recipe.

• ¾ cup water
• 1 tsp Active dry yeast
• ½ tsp Sugar (for yeast)
• 4+ cups Flour
• ½ cup Sugar
• ½ tsp Salt
• ½ cup Milk
• 2 Eggs: 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp Anise, Ouzo, or Arak liqueur (optional)
• 1 egg, divided, for egg wash

Looking forward to making this with others online and sharing it in person on Shavuot. To learn more, go to Beth Torah's website.

Standing Proud, Standing Witness, and Taking Action

Why you should join me at the Nova Festival Exhibition on Wednesday, April 30. 

Buy tickets here.

If you can't come with me, go another time. We ALL need to stand witness.

193 Days Is 193 Days Too Many

 I don't post or share every day, but every day of the last 293 days is etched on my heart, in my mind, and on my soul.

I am not one to be without words. (Yes, I know some of you are laughing right now.) Yet, for 193 days, I have had no words. No words. Only pictures.

Whether good or bad, my memories are tableaus, with pictures, scents, and emotions to accompany them.

My earliest memory of our family cradle in the southwest corner of our den, placed there for my baby brother. There is no picture of this, only confirmation from my parents that it was there.
I remember learning that my grandfather had died. My father and brother were are a school sports night. I ran to the school to get them.
I remember walking along 5th Ave with my family the winter before my bat mitzvah. We were enjoying the holiday windows and decorations. We wandered into Macy's, FAO Schwartz, and Lord & Taylor. It was in Lord & Taylor that we found some small bells and figurines that would become favors for my bat mitzvah guests.
I remember where I was when I heard John Lennon had been shot - standing in my bathroom getting ready for school; Imus in the Morning on the radio.
I remember my USY pilgrimage bus driving us from Ben Gurion Airport to the hills overlooking Jerusalem. We exited the bus to daven Mincha and get our first looks of that holy city. The memory comes with an overwhelming feeling. It is the feeling of gratefulness for being back in my homeland, as I sat on the ground and cried tears of overwhelming joy.
I remember the moments of joy and wonder as Sean and I married, as our children were born, as they reached milestones (not always smoothly). I remember job offers, buying our first and then our forever home.
And I remember the difficult moments. The personal ones - phone calls telling us other grandparents were gone. My father's deteriorating health. My mother's cancer and death and other illnesses and deaths of family and friends.
And the communal ones - crossing the Verrazano Bridge as the first plane hit the North Tower, the image of the smoke pouring from that tower tower will never fade.

And now, the face of each hostage, of each headline, of the testimonies and the responses, of chants on the streets of Toronto, of the pain in the voices of Jewish and allied students joins those memories. Each day is another layer.

So days pass without words, without posts, without reading and study, and sharing. This is the wall that defends of my heart, my mind, and my soul. It balances the my work, the thing that gives me hope. When I am home, I need the overwhelming noise to stop.

#ADHDLife

 This is ADHD.

Today is that day. That busy, busy day, when you can't get the hour+ that you need to finish a project. So you say you'll do it when you get home. But there's an appointment after work. And when you get home, there's no dinner, so you keep looking in the fridge, but can't decide. And each time you look, you take something else, but nothing really satisfies, so you binge. And you still haven't done the work, because you're still hungry. And then you're nauseous from the binge-eating that is ADHD. And finally, at 11 PM, you sit down to work, but the meds have worn off, and so something else, that DID need to get done distracts you, so here we are at 1:12 AM, still working on the project that needs to be done before tomorrow, when it's already tomorrow.

But finally, in the quiet of the late night house, with a movie playing softly in the background and a cup of tea at your side, you can work.

This is ADHD.

Beginning Again

In the last two years, I've written two posts. There are many excuses.

• I've been busy. 
• After Gandalf died, we adopted two cats, Hecate and Cinnamon. 
• Hecate died. 
• Cinnamon needed a friend. Welcome Pippin.
• My life changed. 
• I went from working 21+ hours a week to 40+ hours. 
• Sean and I haven't fully adapted to the change of me working full-time.
• We moved. And we've been renovating for 19 months and counting. 
• I got orthotics. (Okay, that one doesn't really work.)
• Nora died.
• I've been diagnosed with sleep apnea.
• And ADHD, combined type. (That includes hyperactivity and impulsive type plus inattention and distractable type.)
• And for the last 5.5 months, I have been without words, broken, sad, and unable to move forward. 

It's all these and more. 

And, for the last 5.5 months, though I've frequently thought of writing, I am without words. Even as I type this, I am at a loss.

Today, driving to London, ON, I listened to Shalom Haver. It's a 2-disc set compiled after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. There was so much promise for peace at that time. Even after the assassination, we had hope. I want to get that hope back. 

I pride myself on my optimism. During the last 5.5 months, I wanted to write and was without words. They still elude me. I watch what's happening around the world, the increase of antisemitism and the rise of nationalism, and it's hard to retain my optimism. Something needs to change.

So, let me catch up, and maybe, through writing, I can find my words. 

So, all those things with which I started. Watch this space. Explanations are coming.