Sorry Yemen, your mail bombs didn’t stop the Global Day of Jewish Learning
Chef Tal Renan cooks up vegetarian food - just like he made for Oprah
The foiled Yemen plot to bomb synagogues in Chicago occurred so closely to two occasions on the Jewish calendar – one historic and one contemporary – you have to wonder if the timing was planned or if it was an eerie coincidence. Had some terrorist in Yemen checked a calendar to see if something important was coming up on the calendar within the global Jewish community?What if the terrorists from Yemen did intentionally plan the bombing of Jewish institutions one week before the Global Day of Jewish Learning, which was planned in 350 communities around the world? What if it had succeeded, as terror plots did against Jewish institutions in Mumbai, Buenos Aires, and Casablanca?In the spirit of this learning event that celebrated asking Big Questions, I’ll add mine: If the Yemen bombing had succeeded, would Jewish learning and teaching on November 7th still had happened?Thankfully, this time, we will never know. This past weekend, synagogues and Jewish community centers all over the world were brimming with people listening, speaking, dancing, drumming, and of course eating, in a Jewish way. The Global Day of Jewish learning was held in honor of an esteemed Jerusalem Rabbi, who on this day will finish five decades of work interpreting the Talmud, a sacred book of Jewish commentary, making it accessible and more understandable to today’s Jews. So no, in honor of this milestone that took a half-century to reach, we weren’t staying home on account of a package. We were ready to learn and tackle questions, in my community and others, like
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What is Jewish Mysticism?
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Why do Jewish holidays happen late or early, but never on time?
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How can God be both loving and mysterious?
And, in my household….
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When will the newest version of Shalom Sesame Come out?
In my community, we came out to listen to keynote speaker Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author many books, including I’m God and You’re Not, wich was released this Fall We learned about Jewish vegetarian cooking from Chef Tal Ronen, who has cooked for Oprah Winfrey and the Dali Lama. Our kids learned Krav Maga, the Israeli martial arts, and explored Psalm 150 through drumming with percussionist Mike Mason.A separate track was offered for area Jewish educators, where we learned to fascinate our students with the art of storytelling, how to weave the narrative of Israel into any lesson, and how to excite and engage Jewish kids who, let’s be honest, may not be thrilled about coming to Hebrew School in the first place.The second occurrence on the Jewish calendar so close to these planned bombs from Yemen will be commemorated tomorrow. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unfurled Kristalnacht, their own terror campaign, on the Jews of Germany. On the Night of Broken Glass, 1,350 Jewish synagogues were burnt to the ground or destroyed; over 91 Jews were killed; 30,000 Jews were thrown into concentration camps; 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed; and thousands of Jewish homes were ransacked. It was the beginning of the end of European Jewry in the 20th Century.It may seem like a date that is far in the past, but in light of the foiled attacks from Yemen, it brings it all too close to home.One thing that did keep the 600,000 Jews of Los Angeles away from their day of Jewish Learning was poor planning. Unfortunately, the LA Day of Jewish Learning was cancelled because of low enrollment. Why? A long-held community day of good deeds (mitzvot) was planned for the same day and the community just couldn’t compete with itself.Someone wasn’t checking their calendars.
I melted my kid’s Halloween Candy
Even when it is melted and refrozen, chocolate still tastes good!
Anyone who thinks that they are up for the Most Evil Mom of the Year Award, they can just go home now.
I melted one of my children’s Halloween candy, the candy they trick-or-treated for in one of the coldest, wettest, and snowiest Halloweens in recent Rochester memory.
Yes, an adjustment one must make when you are Transplantednorth is to allow for the possibility that it may snow for Halloween.
My brave son made not one, not two, but three trick-or-treating runs this Halloween to collect the mother lode of chocolate, lollipops and other chewy, sticky treats. The numb toes and frozen fingers were completely worth it.
And then, I had to go melt it all.
It is partially his fault. If I didn’t hear him sneak candy at 6:15 a.m., if I didn’t hear the thudthud of the cabinets in the kitchen, if he would have had the discipline of self-control and not found every hiding place I ever imagined over the last 10 years of post-Halloween parenting, the candy would have gone unliquified.
And how do I know my kids sneak candy from their Halloween stash early in the morning? The incriminating Kit-Kat wrappers left between the sofa cushions and NOT buried deep in the garbage can give them away every time. If you are going to sneak candy, do it right.
Perhaps it is in my upbringing that I feel compelled to hide the Halloween candy. After all, I am the daughter of a dental hygeienist. Before the day when all Halloween treats must be pre-wrapped and store-bought, my family made bag after bag of buttered popcorn to give for Halloween, because mom thought this would be a more nutritious, less sugary treat for All Hallow’s Eve.
My brother and I eagerly headed out the door for the real stuff.
And after trick-or-treating, my brother and I, like any kids, dumped all the candy all over the first available indoor floor surface to assess the booty. After we gleefully eyed our treasure, mom would swoop in, eliminating anything that might stick to our teeth and cause tooth decay.
Sugar Daddies? We could keep a few. Taffy and caramels? Out of the question, they were removed from our collection and immediately discarded.
The rest of the candy was hidden at an undisclosed time after we went to bed. As hard as my brother and I tried to find the stash, my mom devised a hiding place system that was more complex than that of Sadaam Hussein’s during the invasion of Iraq.
At my mom’s office, children visiting the dentist during month of October would be lectured in my mom’s dental chair about the evils of sticky sweets that cause plaque, cavities and tooth decay.
But upstairs, in the staff lounge, far away from the X-ray machines and the drill and the spit sink, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah meets Candyland. All rules preached downstairs were broken, and there were bowls of candy everywhere!
So, in a desperate attempt to hide the candy and protect my son’s mouth, soon to be fitted with braces, from all that sugar, I found a new hiding place: The warming drawer of my Kenmore oven.
No one knows about the warming drawer. I barely even realize I have a warming drawer until I cook a big holiday meal.
And, as I placed the bag into this hiding place, I told myself “Just PLEASE remember to take out the candy from here before you use the oven!”
I guess should have told myself this after I had my first cup of coffee that morning. Last night, I roasted chicken for dinner, at 400 for one hour.
It’s a good thing chocolate refreezes.
A Married Woman’s Peek inside the Single Man’s Shopping Cart
When I was a newlywed living out in California, I would stop on my way home from work at the Safeway to pick up groceries for dinner. I would cut, clip, and shop for gourmet recipes involving roasted peppers and wild rice and pumpkin ravioli to cook for my new husband. Cooking for two was fun and it seemed we had all the time in the world to prepare a meal.
One of the checkout cashiers would play this little game of guessing what I was making for dinner, or what kind of night was ahead, based on the contents of my shopping cart.
One night was pretty easy: Romaine lettuce. Anchovy Paste. Parmesan Cheese.
“Ahh, I’ve guessed it!” He exclaimed. “You must be making Cesar Salad! The anchovy paste is the key ingredient for a good Cesar salad,” he said with a big smile. I guess in his line of work he played this game a lot to stave off boredom.
The contents of my shopping cart have changed over the years. The newlywed lifestyle ingredients were first replaced by boxes of diapers and jars of baby food, and these items have been replaced by the basic stuff of lunchbox meals and quick meals at home: Bread. Eggs. Milk. Peanut Butter. Turkey Slices.
This weekend, as I unloaded my last item onto the belt, a young single man got in line behind me. He had cropped sandy blond hair and wore a light brown hooded sweatshirt with apparent skulls embroidered into it. I couldn’t help notice that each time he reached into his cart, me and everyone around him got a glimpse of striped, bright pastel underwear that ballooned out on top of his low-cut jeans. Really. WHY do low-hanging jeans remain in fashion?
On the conveyor belt, right next to my boring cut up chicken and bag of Yukon gold potatoes, he placed one, single-serving Baked Alaska from the patisserie. Yes, my local supermarket, Wegmans, has a real French patisserie inside, along with a real wood-burning oven for artisan breads, a sushi kiosk and a Kosher deli.
But this blog post isn’t about Wegmans, and it’s not about the Helping Hands at Wegmans who will on rainy days escort you to your car with a huge golf umbrella and unload the grocery bags into your cart. This is about the groceries of the single man.
So, this dainty treat, with its broiled meringue topping, was carefully placed inside a clear plastic container. This dessert for one, maybe two, also included its own garnish: five raspberries and three thin slices of what looked like the perfectly ripened peach. A perfectly ripened peach — in October.
The single man continued to load other contents of his cart onto the checkout belt – a big bottle of Listerine Complete that whitened teeth while it freshened breath. Several boxes of frozen gourmet gnocchi, and a box of flatbread sausage pizza.
In my head, I silently wished single man good luck for whatever his evening entailed, and hope that whatever girl was on the receiving end of that Baked Alaska appreciated that a man would buy her a Baked Alaska, complete with a raspberry garnish, for dinner on a Sunday night.
Trader Joe’s, come to Western NY, pretty please with a sun-dried organic cherry on top?
Fearless Flyer
Well, it seems I’ve opened up a can of worms. For the sake of this blog post, the worms would probably be Thai Lime Basil worms, or Trader Jose’s cha-cha chili worms.
My love affair with Trader Joe’s, the California-based small-scale gourmet supermarket, started nearly 16 years ago. A newcomer to the San Francisco Bay area, my roomate got me hooked on Trader Joe’s quirky products. I didn’t have a car. No one doesn’t have a car in California. But that didn’t stop me. To get to a Trader Joe’s, I would take two lines on the BART, with a small cooler in tow, to get there, where I would purchase delicacies such as frozen tri-colored butternut squash ravioli and mahi-mahi filets.
Later in life, when we moved back to New Jersey and had a car (because you *really* need a car to get around in NJ), I loved shopping at the Trader Joe’s in Westfield, N.J.
Now, I live in Rochester. We have Wegman’s, headquarters to the mother of all amazing supermarkets, where my own mother, on her first trip into the cavernous Marketplace section, with its patisserie, brick-oven artisan bakery and 20-foot long Mediterranean olive bar, described Wegmans as “where food goes when it goes to heaven.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Wegman’s.
But it’s not Trader Joe’s.
One of my most recent columns was about how and with what to fill the vacant retail spaces around Brighton. Lately, as I drive the stretch of Monroe Ave. between Brighton and Pittsford, I get an empty feeling. Whether the properties are older; like the former Steve’s restaurant in Brighton, or brand new; such as the Oak Hill Commons in Pittsford, I can’t help but wonder what the holdup is for filling these properties: is it the economy, or local politics?
The most glaring of these vacancies is the 11,348 sq.-ft. site of the former Rite Aid in Brighton Commons. To get some opinions on this for my column, I took a very informal poll of my Facebook friends asking them what they would like to see in this place. One friend wrote: Trader Joes! And then another and another in complete agreement.
I would love to see this place in the center of Brighton become the nation’s newest Trader Joe’s. It would be great to walk or bike to a store like this to pick up items ranging from organically grown lettuce, cage-free eggs, a box of gluten-free granola, or even mahi-mahi burgers for the grill.
Trader Joe’s was featured on the Sept. 13 cover of Fortune magazine, and described it as one of the nation’s fastest growing retailers. I make a pilgrimage to Trader Joe’s in Long Island whenever I can and ask the manager about the possibility of an opening in Rochester. But the answer is always the same: this privately-held company, which boasts 344 stores in 25 states, fears competition from a certain large-scale supermarket further up Monroe Ave. bearing the name that starts with a W. But one can always hope.
I got an enormous number of responses from my column, both via email and others who told me that “yeah! I want Trader Joe’s too!” at the gym, or — lo and behold — in the middle of the produce section at Wegmans! They even asked me how they could help me convince them to come here – like I have an inside track or something.
So you see, TJ’s – Brighton, NY folks are educated, earthy and slightly crunchy. See why we would need you and support you here?
One reader wrote in an accused me of starting a crusade of trying to bring yet another chain into town while running the little guy mom and pop markets out of business and told me to stick to writing and stay out of the business development business. Other readers wrote in and shared their Trader Joe’s love stories, and still others wrote to me with links of articles explaining the complexities of chosing a site for new grocery stores in urban areas.
So, Trader Joe’s, if you are reading, in spite of Rochester being home to the world’s greatest supermarket chain, there is still room in our hearts for you. So come on up!
About Me
Kreativ Blogger
Versatile Blogger Award
Stacy Gittleman 