The Feast of Saint Valentine

We went to George’s Kitchen, a diner in Cleveland, for a late breakfast on Valentine’s Day.  Our party consisted of me, the Common Household Husband, Older Daughter and her husband.

It was the diner-iest looking diner I have seen in a long time.  Our seasoned waitress was clad in a beautiful bright red sweater, appropriate for this saint’s day.  As we arrived at our table, I observed several patrons shoving money into the waitress’s apron pocket as they were leaving.  They clearly adored her.  

George wants everyone to eat a lot of eggs.  The menu discouraged the ordering of eggs in increments of one or two.  All breakfast dishes were THREE eggs plus something else, such as corned beef hash, or bacon & hash browns, or an omelette.  EXCEPT, if you ordered pancakes, you could then add TWO eggs.  

The menu said, “Absolutely no substitutions” at the top of every page.  I was downright afraid to ask for just two eggs, without ordering pancakes.

The waitress took our order, calling my 30+ year-old daughter “dear”, a requirement in a diner.  On the down side, orange juice was the only juice available.  On the up side, the CHH was excited to order corned beef hash.  He’s not going to get that at home.

When we were finished giving our order, the waitress said, “Ok, thanks.  I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” and walked away.

A short time later, she served us our large meals. A while later she came back to check on us.  Upon seeing that the CHH had cleaned bare his plate of corned beef hash, she said, “Oh, you did a good job on that!”  CHH teased, “Well, I was waiting for you to bring me some breakfast.”  She replied that she was all alone because she had killed two husbands. 

As we were lingering over breakfast, we heard the man at the table behind us call our waitress over.  I did not look, but could hear that he had a baby with him.  We overheard him say, “I have a huge request. And there will be a big tip in it for you.  Would you be able to watch my baby while I go out to the car?  I know it’s a big thing to ask, but I will only be gone a few minutes.”  I guess he had not heard her comment about former husbands.    She agreed to look after Baby.

At our table, the CHH murmured his doubt that Single Dad would actually return.  We held our breath.  A minute passed. The waitress cooed at the baby.  Our tension increased.  Two minutes.  Then, sigh of relief, Single Dad returned.  Faith in human beings restored, at least for today!

I’m not much into Valentine’s Day, but our red-sweatered waitress showed us the day of love in action.  (Perhaps we should ask those deceased husbands if they know St. Valentine, who might be hanging out with them in martyr’s row in heaven).  

I wish I could write novels, if only so I could put that waitress into a book.   

Handwritten sign on the door
listing the hours.  
No service after 2:45 PM!

Two Certain Things in Life

Yesterday Youngest Daughter pointed out that I haven’t posted on the blog for a “really long time.”   In her view, photos of snow, as populated my last post, are not real posts.

“I’ve been very busy!” I protested.  “I have to do the taxes!”

When one is self-employed, one always has to do taxes.  I don’t necessarily object to paying the taxes, but to the filling out and sending of forms that is ever hanging over my head.  These days I am responsible for more people’s tax documents than my own.

I added, “But you know, I have five or six blog posts floating around in my head all the time.  I don’t get to write them down, and eventually they float away and disappear.”

YD:  “Mom, that’s so sad.  You should put off the taxes and write on your blog.”

Me: “But the punishment for not filing your taxes on time is pretty severe.” 

YD:  “It couldn’t possibly be as bad as a disappearing blog post.”

That’s the spirit.  Accountants, make way for the writers!  (I hope accountants do not take offense.  We are extremely grateful to the accountants who prepare the tax returns for all our elderly relatives.)

The truth is, there is way more to do around here than tax returns.  There are two sure things in the life of the Common Household:  taxes and Passover food.  Folks, Passover is almost upon us.  It’s time to pull out the special recipes and baking materials. 

I didn't have a gold medal, so the
matzo meal has won the Celtic art medal instead.

In the Great Baking Race that is the Common Household preparation for Passover, the three top contenders are matzo meal, cake meal, and potato starch.   Matzo meal gets the gold medal: while most Passover desserts require cake meal and/or potato starch, traditional Passover meal recipes usually call for matzo meal.  You cannot make matzo balls of any size without matzo meal.

For some reason, these matzo balls remind me of
alligators lurking below the surface of the water.

In Passover cooking, eggs get their own category.  They are the heavy-weight champs.  It would be nearly impossible to have the expected Passover without eggs.

 

For some reason, egg whites at stiff peak do not
count as leavening.  Good thing!

A successful Passover cake, but, according to my husband,
 never as good as my mother-in-law's cake

Passover will be different this year, because we are not having a seder at our house at all.  No cooking of brisket will occur here.  But still, I should get busy baking our family’s three favorites:  Passover lemon squares, Passover brownies, and Passover bagels.

So if you are looking for me, you can find me either at www.irs.gov or in the kitchen.  Because it would just be wrong to lie around all day reading Barbara Pym novels and eating bonbons.

Proof of Spring, Inside

And now photographs of spring indoors.

- Still life of Apple Pie with Milk -

Maybe this is not strictly related to spring but it is a sign
of joy anyway because my Mom felt active enough to
make this pie with Youngest Daughter.

Setting up to dye Easter eggs.

Not a happy bunny. That's YD giving me her best evil eye.

We dyed 30 eggs in all.

A ritual of spring: serving gefilte fish.  Extra points for
having the nerve to serve it right next to the ham salad.

See, it was intentional!

Soup recipe

This happened when Youngest Daughter was in first grade.  I referenced it in my bat mitzvah speech, and afterwards had many requests for the recipe.  So here it is.

Written to my extended family on May 18, 2006

I get lots of papers home from school requesting me to do various things - approve the field trip, send in flowers for the teachers, make a meal for the teachers, etc.  A few weeks ago, a request came home from Youngest Daughter's teacher to please send in my two favorite recipes, one appetizer and one dessert.  I tossed the paper, deciding that I did not have time to send recipes in to school.

On Mother's Day, Youngest Daughter gave me lots of gifts, all made at school. (Making Mothers' Day gifts has been deemed an educational activity.  But not making Father's Day gifts.)  One of them was a wonderful recipe book, containing favorite recipes, submitted by all the Moms of first graders.  I leafed through it, finding recipes for Crab Loaf Dip, Cheese Fondue, Stuffed Mushrooms, and the like.  I knew that there would no recipe under my name.  But much to my surprise, I found my name on the following, written in Youngest Daughter's printing:

    Elephant Soup

1 cup Elephant meat

1/2 cup carrots

4 eggs

Elephant mix

3 Elephant toenails

1 cup mushrooms

1/2 cup marshmellows

1/3 cup brocili

Back in the "Desserts" section, I found:

    Apple Cake

1 1/2 cup water

1 c. aeg

3 eggs

1 T Youngest Daughter

This was also submitted under my name.  So I think it will be a long time before I live down my reputation among the Moms of first-graders!

It's a Wrap

When the egg carton looks like this, it’s time for Passover to be over.

And it is, for now.  Next year, in Jerusalem?

Things I learned during this Passover:

For Easter, Jesus did all the hard work.  For Passover, the women do all the hard work.

It is possible to make it through Passover without making a sponge cake.  Whether my husband will enjoy such a Passover is another question.

Regular matzo is the Bread of Affliction for those with a wheat gluten allergy.  And gluten-free matzo doesn’t come cheap.  For the second night of Passover, we visited friends who follow a gluten-free diet.  At one point in the seder, our friends’ teenaged son was reading the haggadah:  “This is the bread of poverty.... which costs $32 a box.”   

For some people, Passover lasts 7 days. 

According to my mother-in-law, “If you make the Passover brownies without the oil, you will lose weight.”

Some photos from the second seder:

The antidote to too much matzo.  Yum!

Second Seder

I love this solution to finding a lamb shankbone!

What the Israelites actually took when they was leaving Egypt

Exodus 12:35-36

³⁵ The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. ³⁶ The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

What the scripture doesn’t tell us is that the Israelites also asked the Egyptians for food processors, electric mixers, dishwashers, and all their egg-laying chickens.  Without this Egyptian plunder the Israelite ladies would not be able to prepare their Seder meal in the years to come.

The chickens are especially crucial.  I already have about 25 Passover bagels and one Passover chocolate-apple torte in the freezer.  That’s about 18 eggs right there. 

Passover Tools:

Wine bottle for cooling sponge cake

Electric mixer for whipping egg whites

Food processor for grating just about every ingredient

The manual version, when the food processor is not available

Please excuse the post title.  I'm reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Hail to the Egg-Layers

This week we are taking advantage of the huge efforts of egg-laying chickens. As of yesterday (Thursday) I have used 1.5 dozen eggs to prepare: the egg for the Seder plate, a sponge cake, cookies, Passover rolls, lemon squares, and matzo ball mix. Plus one of our Seder guests is a vegetarian, so I’m adding 0.5 dozen hard boiled eggs to our table, since she can’t eat the fish or chicken soup.

My son is not a big fan of matzo or any Passover food, really. I asked him what he would eat for breakfast during Passover, and he said “eggs.” Scrambled, that is.

Today I went to the store to get more Passover staples: 2 dozen eggs and 3 pounds of onions.

We have not dyed any eggs for Easter eggs. The plastic, colored eggs with candy inside are starting to look more appealing, just for variety’s sake.