Throweth Thou Back

June 1999.  Younger Daughter is one day old!

“And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.  We shall call it Thursday.  And we shall throw back on this Thursday, because we like alliteration.  And we shall display all manner of ancient photographs, especially those from our children’s earliest years.  For they look adorable and bring joy to our hearts.”

                                                            - The Book of Jubilations 3:1-3

December 1999

July 2001

Story time.  January 2002.

Happy Halloween 2002

Scary Halloween 2002

In our favorite tree (of blessed memory) 2003

And a HUUUUUUGE leap forward in time, to last month.

They bring joy to my heart. I am so very blessed to know these three fine people.

Not Your Grandmother's Kugel

In the days of the ancestors, it was decreed that the whole people should gather in a solemn assembly to celebrate the Lord’s creation, and to begin the Days of Awe. 

And the Lord said to the people, “Thus shall you celebrate:  by preparing a sweet mixture of eggs, sour cream, sugar, wide egg noodles and dried fruit of the vine.  And you shall call this mixture noodle kugel.  From this day forward you and your children and your children’s children shall partake of this meal.”

And the mother-in-law said to the daughter-in-law:  “You shall make my noodle kugel recipe, for there is no other that will please my son.  I have decreed it.”

And the daughter-in-law undertook to do as she was instructed to do.  She approached this task with joy, saying, “At last, a Jewish recipe that does not involve chopping everything into little bits or cooking a hunk of meat for hours.”  But lo, her mother-in-law’s recipe for noodle kugel listed not all of the ingredients.  It was not clear if it required ½ an ephah or ¼ an ephah of sugar.  It gave not the baking temperature; neither did it tell the type of baking pan to use.

And so the daughter-in-law set out to gather unto her all manner of noodle kugel recipes.  She took butter of kine, egg of chicken, cream of sour, wide noodles of egg, and brought forth a fine noodle kugel in a lordly dish.  And she saw that the thing pleased her husband.

As the years passed, the daughter-in-law began to be horrified at the fat content of the noodle kugel and at the vast quantity the recipe made. The heart of her husband was not well within him.  Seeking to do her husband good, like a merchant ship she launched forth and communed secretly with Google to find a healthier and smaller recipe.

And so, at the beginning of this year 5775, the husband spake unto his wife, saying, “Lo, the high holidays are upon us.  It is my fondest wish that we should have noodle kugel during this time of festive convocations.”

And so she girded her loins with strength, and assembled lower-fat ingredients; she set to cooking.  Eating not the bread of idleness, while the noodle kugel was baking she went outside and raked a multitude of leaves to the top of the hill.

Looking well to the ways of her household, she served the noodle kugel.  And lo, her teenaged child arose up, and called her blessed; her husband also, and he praised her, saying, “Now this is the only dish which is not made better by adding cream of mushroom soup.  Many daughters-in-law have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that maketh a good low-fat noodle kugel, she shall be praised.

                                                                                        - The Book of Comestibles 31:10-31

     Noodle Kugel 

    

Makes one 9x9 square pan.

     1 cup cottage cheese (lowfat is fine)

     1 ½  cups (12 ounces) sour cream (lowfat is fine)

     1 ½ Tablespoons milk

     3 eggs, beaten

     1/4 cup sugar

     ½ tsp. vanilla

     ¼ cup raisins, or chopped apple, optional – I use both

     8 ounces wide egg noodles

     cinnamon and sugar for topping (mix together 1 Tbsp sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon)

     ¼ cup corn flakes, crushed

Grease a 9x9 square baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cook the egg noodles in a large pot of water till tender. Drain.

Meanwhile, mix in a very large bowl the first 7 ingredients. Combine with the cooked noodles, and turn into the baking pan.

Top with some cinnamon and sugar, and also some crushed cornflakes if you like. Bake in a 350 oven for about 45 – 60 minutes. Cut into squares to serve.

Makes 12 servings.

(If you use 1% cottage cheese and low-fat sour cream, each serving is 5 Weight Watchers PointsPlus.)

Our Biennial Holiday

Tales of New York will have to wait.  First I must bring you a word of sca-ripture.  (When Christians say, “a word” they usually mean “many words.”)

* * * * * * * *

For lo, when the sky promises to be blue, and the floodgates of the heavens close, and the seers foretell that the rains will cease for at least two days, then shall a holiday be declared at the Common Household.  You shall don all manner of festive clothing and celebrate this Special Day. 

Festive clothing indeed

It is the commandment of the master of the Common Household that this holiday shall occur every two years whether you like it or not.  You shall celebrate with the ritual of the covering of the deck with a substance that is very like pitch.  The stink of this substance shall reach your nostrils with a smell more powerful than the Nile River full of dead fish.

You shall gather all the male progeny of your tribe, of which there is one in the Common Household.  At the hour when the sun is still low in the sky, you shall say to your son, “Awake, awake! Take up paintbrush and ladder; arise and come to my aid.” 

And when your son has completed painting the outside slats of the deck, you shall say unto him, “You also need to paint between the slats.”  And he shall say to you, “But I don’t want to use the ladder any more.  Can I use that pole?”  And you shall reply, “O, my son, there is no way to attach the paintbrush to this pole.”   He will answer with a firm and sure voice, “I shall use lashings.”  And you shall stand in awe at how the Boy Scouts have filled your son with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills, including rope lashings.

Thank you, Boy Scouts, for teaching my son the skill of lashings.

The husband takes his turn with the new implement.

Then you shall see that the day that the Lord has made is good; indeed, the humidity is low and the sun does not burn hot on your back.  And in joyfulness you shall hum the opening bars of the Brahms’ piano concerto, the one that is disguised as a horn concerto at the beginning.  Then shall your son lay down his paintbrush and run in the house.  Fear not!  Your son has not abandoned you.  He shall remain faithful to the task you have set before him; he shall return with his iPod and speaker and shall provide the full piano concerto for you, for your family, and for the entire neighborhood.  Thus you shall know that classical music is not dead; this is an awesome wonder that a 19-year-old prefers music written before the year 1900. 

Still Life With Bird Nest, I-Pod, and Wireless Speaker

But lo, after the Brahms, your husband shall request opera, and your heart shall sink within you.  Dread not!  For the closest thing to opera on your son’s iPod is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.  O Freude!  Your joy will be restored.

And then it shall come to pass that you have finished painting all the vertical slats, and it is time to paint the horizontal surface of the deck.  You shall look upon the feet of your son, and you shall ask, “Are those your only shoes?  They are going to get spattered with paint.”  And once again he shall arise and show wisdom, and shall wrap bags of plastic around his shoes. 

Soon and very soon you shall finish your labors, and lo, you will find that it only took 3 ½ hours.  And you will indeed be thankful to God that you have a husband, and a son, and a deck.  And you shall breathe free with gratitude that you don’t have to celebrate “Be Glad You Have a Deck” Day for another two years.

- The Book of Exertions 3: 25-57

 

My painting shoes.

A Mighty Army in the Night

Thus says the Lord: You shall arise and go to a faraway place, to attend a memorial service, and you shall lodge in the hotel chosen by your husband’s brother. 

And lo, even on that selfsame day I shall cause a great horde of teenaged girls to descend upon that same hotel.  I shall set you in the midst of them; verily, even shall you be staying on the same floor of the hotel as this mighty army of girls. 

And it shall come to pass, in the black and dark hours of the night, that they shall run up and down the hallway making a noise very like Pharaoh’s chariots and horses rushing into battle.  At all hours of the watch they shall talk and cackle and make all manner of noise, like a grievous swarm of flies. They shall repeatedly open and close doors, and across the hall from your room they shall stand at the door and knock, saying in a shrill voice, “Where is Benita?  She has my key!”

Then shall you arise from your bed, cry out in the night, and phone the hotel front desk, pouring out your heart like water.  And lo, for a short time all will be quiet.   Do not rest easy, though, for does not nature teach you that teenage girls without a chaperone must make noise, a noise even as the sound of war?  And lo, it shall come to pass, in less than twenty minutes time, that the noise shall be as before.

Be not hasty in your spirit to be angry: you shall for a time lie in your bed.  And you shall, in your mind, alphabetically go through hymns, singing the first verse of these praises to the Lord:

            Amazing Grace

            Be Thou My Vision

            Crown Him with Many Crowns

Draw Us In the Spirit’s Tether

            Every Time I Feel the Spirit

            Fairest Lord Jesus

And lo, you shall reach the letter “M” and be sore vexed that it is 2 a.m. and the young maidens are still awake, shouting as if in battle, slamming doors, making a joyful noise.

You shall arise once more, in your lavender paisley pajamas with hair askew. And you shall suddenly open your door, and shall confront the teenage girls who stand frozen in place in the hotel hallway, holding hair dryers and makeup.  And you shall say to them with the voice of the fierce lion, “You girls have got to quiet down!”  And they shall reply in unison, each while pointing to another, “It’s her fault.”

Then shall the Lord say unto you: Forsake your wrath.  Be joyful that these girls are not malicious.  Upon seeing you in your lavender paisley pajamas they did not mock you; neither did they threaten you or take up violence against you.  Be glad that they are not breaking the furniture or setting things on fire.  With thanksgiving in your heart, think of your own child, who is not riotous or unruly, and remember in the light of morning to tell that child that she had better not behave like these girls when she is on the marching band trip, or else.   

And there was evening and there was morning, only one night, but a really long one.  In the morning light, you shall descend to the first floor for breakfast. And there in the breaking of the bread you shall meet your husband’s brother.  And you shall recount to him the tale of your woeful night.  And he shall say to you, “What noise?  There was no noise on the fourth floor.”

                                                                                    - The Book of Peregrinations 5:1-57

Teenage Girls (but not the ones in this passage)
 - capable of making a
great deal of noise at night