Feeling Hungary...?

I've started writing for the Metro Section of the Jerusalem Post. This weekend supplement is circulated throughout the Central Region of Israel.

I visited a great Hungarian cafe in Tel Aviv, and you can read about it here.

Foodraising...

The secret to really good cookies, I mean the really good kind - the kind that has you polishing off a plate single-handedly - is butter.

That’s it.

To the kosher baker, the ones who never use butter, in order to keep their baking utensils parve, I’m sorry to be the barer of bad news, but it is the truth. Only the simplest of ingredients mixed together will give you the best cookies. Use lower grade fat, like margarine or vegetable shortening, and even though your cookies will look like the real thing, they won’t taste it. If your flour is stale, or your flavoring dull, so too, your cookies. When using such a short list of ingredients, it is paramount that you use the cleanest, purest and best. That is the only way the magic really happens.

This may be a stretch, but charity work is the same. If you come into it with anything less than the purest of intentions, the project may look the part but give it a nudge, a prod, and it will fall apart. On the other hand, a charity based on the best of intentions, with clear thinking leaders and attainable objectives has all it takes in order to succeed. All that is needed is a great “baker” at its helm.

Table to Table is just such an organization. Our friend, Joseph Gitler, having been inspired by the American organization Second Harvest (now called Feeding America), knew that the idea was ripe for Israel. So, five years ago, he put his food were his mouth is, and started Israel’s most successful food rescue charity, today rescuing food from catering halls, corporate functions, manufacturers and growers and feeding over 10,000 families a week.

The world economy, in my mind, looks like a dollar sign with a sad face plummeting to the depths of a deep ravine, the type where you can’t see the bottom. And just as the dollar sign, wiping it proverbial brow finds a tiny little ledge on which to perch itself, it looses its footing and keeps tumbling downwards, shock and surprise etched in its now super-extended eyebrows. The downwards spiral and the use of inferior ingredients has never been more apparent than in this week’s news of the scandal surrounding Bernie Madoff. The number of charities affected by the latest of dishonesties is going to test our philanthropic activities in the months to come.

What I can tell you is what I tell my friends who want to know about baking with butter. I know that as Kashrut-observant Jews, we can not eat the butter cookies after a meat meal but, for the good cookies, isn’t worth waiting a few hours? So, too, with charity. Perhaps we can’t give everyone to the extent we were giving before, but let’s keep on giving even if it isn’t with cash alone. Volunteering of you time and energy is charity within itself. Either way, baking and charity will make you feel better about that poor ever-dwindling dollar sign, spiraling out of control.

Tea, anyone?

Shabbat afternoon is when we have friends over for tea. In our world, everyone entertains on Shabbat. Friday night dinners and Shabbat lunches are really the only ways to socialize, since going out for drinks on a causal Wednesday would be looked upon with suspicion. But Shabbat meals are all about having other folks over, and taking your time, sans distraction. No phones, no TV, no electronics and no cooking to get in the way. In fact, if you don’t entertain on a particular Shabbat, one finds an array of excuses to cover oneself. Most common is, “We are having a quiet one”. Less so, “Little Molly has the chickenpox”. But none is more acceptable than, “I’m cooked out!” which is understandable, since most of what we serve at these weekly lunches and dinners are akin to what people in the real world would serve for Thanksgiving or Christmas for a modest group of 18. More often than not, I’ll take a week off from the big Shabbat meal and just have people over for tea.

Tea is great. It’s the English answer to feeling uncomfortable. As my mother-in-law says, “It gives one something to do with one’s hands like pouring and stirring”, so acceptable when one has nothing to say. Though I always have something to say, I like knowing that I have the security of a cup, and that sipping is not only acceptable, but required.

Our usual spread at Shabbat tea is, well, tea and scones. Since the prohibition of cooking on Shabbat is, shall we say, prohibitive, I whip up the scones before Shabbat. As soon as they have cooled, I pop them in the freezer and only take them out an hour before tea, at which point I place them on the hot plate. If my timing is good, by the time we come to eat them, they are hot. If I overshoot, they are hot with very crusty bottoms. Regardless, we eat away.

Next to the scones there is always butter, a variety of jams and marmalade, plus whipped cream. I know this should say “clotted cream”, but no such beast exists in Israel, and making it myself is also out of the question, since even full-fat cream in this country doesn’t contain enough fat to get to clotted heaven…(in Hebrew, you would say “Lo Kurrah Kloom” literally, “nothing happened”, which will explain away anything from a multi-vehicle road accident on the Ayalon Freeway to a fight with the supermarket cashier). We sit, sip and eat, piling our scones high with fatty sweet goodies, while our numerous children run around picking biscuits and yogurts off the table.

This week, we entertained our friends Daniel & Rachelle and David & Gina. These couples have that great mix of “Australian-guy-meets-sensible-English-girl” chemistry going on, and no-one needs the whole tea-and-scones concept explained to them. The conversation, the food and Rachelle’s gift of extremely good, extremely dark chocolate all went over a treat, but my personal highlight of the afternoon was David’s great-grandmother’s Chocolate Apricot Cake. There is so much to tell you about this cake, but you’ll just have to be patient until we meet again in the blogosphere.

Scones

For now, I give you “make-now-and-freeze-to-serve-later” scones. Seriously, this is so indulgent and fun at the same time, it makes tea perhaps more enjoyable than a Shabbat lunch.

2 cups flour (250g)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
5 tbsp cold butter (70g) cut into small pieces
2/3 cup whole milk (150ml)

Pre heat oven to 425F (220C)
In a large bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Using your fingers, rub butter into dry ingredients. Once the flour feels like wet sand, add the milk and mix with a spoon until just combined.
Using your hands, knead until dough holds together, and pat the dough down until it is less than an inch thick.
Using a round cookie cutter or a glass, cut out round scones. You will get about six to eight scones, then re-roll the dough to get another two scones.
Place on a lightly greased tray and bake for about 12-15 minutes.

The Big Cheese

Another article of mine appeared in the In Jerusalem supplement of The Jerusalem Post on Friday, which you can read by clicking here.

Cooking Class

I don’t know if it has something to do with the economic downturn that more people are home cooking and registering for cooking classes. Or perhaps the fact that for a few hours on Sunday night, my op-ed was on the front page of the Jerusalem Post website. No matter the reason my confidence is up, and with my confidence soaring, I offered to teach two good friends how to make pastry from scratch. Previously I had spent ages contemplating the pros or cons of teaching anyone anything.

Pros:

1. My pastry-making skills are relatively good. During my first pregnancy I had a thing for apple pie. Not only did I make one twice a week for nearly ten months, but I also ate them (my son was well overdue).
2. My kitchen – though nobody’s dream – is user friendly. I can get a nice number of tushes bouncing around, each in its own little station, without anyone invading anyone else’s personal space.
3. I wasn’t charging my friends, so even if my lesson was, as the Israelis say, “on the faces” (say this with Adam Sandler’s pseudo-Israeli accent from – ‘You Don’t Mess With The Zohan’ and it sounds more intimidating), all I really would be wasting would be about an hour and a half of their time, and a whole lot of flour. With my tail between my legs, I could go back to my semi-agoraphobic life.

Cons:

1. My friends, after being bored out of their wits, may never talk to me again. A great loss since both are friendly and funny.
2. My pastry-making skills may be mine alone, and translating them to someone else may be impossible, like the thought of teaching someone to drive. I know how to drive fairly well but, for the life of me, I don’t think I could teach someone else to do so.
3. I may be great at it, and my friends will love it, and encourage me to teach others, and here comes the con – I will need to open myself up to criticism from less friendly people. Agoraphobia is sounding better and better by the minute.

But Joy of Joys; on Monday morning, I woke up, threw my Pro/Con list in the recycling bin and called my friends. By Tuesday, my kitchen was covered in a fine mist of flour.

The lesson went astonishingly well. We learned how to make lemon curd, flaky pastry and rugelach. A strange syllabus, I assure you, but it all made sense.

Both Michelle and Debralee wanted to learn how to make pastry, and their biggest problem was rolling it out. Michelle wanted a suggestion for using fresh-from-the-market strawberries, and thus my syllabus developed.

Pastry for pastry’s sake, rugelach for rolling experience and lemon curd for filling the blind baked pastry and topping it off with fresh berries.

The class was fun, and informative, and my friends can now roll pastry with the best of them.

Perhaps next week I can teach an unsuspecting friend how to drive.

Strawberry Heaven

I wish I could zip up my new boots, tie a scarf around my neck, get cosy with a loved one and a cup of steaming hot cocoa, and daydream while watching logs burn slowly in a fire place. But just the thought of it makes me sweat.

I can feel the slow, uncomfortable trickle of sweat down the centre of my back. I live in Israel, and winters here are unpredictable. We wait from October through most of December with baited breath for the winter to start. Those who pray in the morning, pray for rain, in the hopes of hydrating our parched land, but so far no luck. We are now firmly into December and the forecast for today is a balmy 69 F. Last week, one of our friends went to the beach.

Though I moan, there are two things you should know about Israeli winters. The first is that when it does eventually rain, it pours. Everyone’s house springs a leak, and no amount of protective clothing will keep you dry. And second, because it is so mild, while the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is busy pulling apples and potatoes out of their hampers, from early December until well past March Israeli fruit stands are laden with citrus fruit and strawberries.

Every citrus fruit you can imagine is just waiting to be squeezed, sipped, slurped and eaten. Unfortunately, the citrus pales in comparison to the amazing strawberries. The red jewels call out to you from every supermarket shelf. On a Friday, you don’t even need to go to the markets to get them, you can pick your own. On the coastal side of Israel in the Sharon region, children and adults alike are welcome to pick fruit from the fields, and if you know that you want the experience of picking without having to devise a way to use up your personal 20 pounds of berries, volunteer to pick fruit for Table to Table (more on them next week).

As incongruous as it may sound, strawberries around here are a winter fruit. But like strawberries the world over, they need the same care and attention. This means only buying or picking bright red plump fruit, with the green doily (stem) attached. The smaller the berry, the more flavorful. I find that as the Israeli season progresses, they tend to morph into “gigant-o-berries” that sometimes suffer from a watery character. Only wash them immediately before serving, and cut off the green parts after washing. To reduce water absorption, store in a single layer on a paper-towel-lined tray in the fridge.

One of the great benefits of having strawberries in the winter is the boost of vitamin C just as your nose starts running. Furthermore, making strawberry jam in December (even if its 69 F out) is nowhere near as sweaty as making strawberry jam in June, when all you really want to do is play outdoors.

The easiest and quickest way to serve strawberries and yet look like a gourmet, is to macerate them (to soften something by soaking it in liquid, or become soft by soaking in liquid). My Italian friend Itzik uses red wine, other friends just use a sprinkling of sugar. You can try rose water, sherry, lemon juice or orange flower water.

Strawberries have a spongy texture, at first soaking up the new flavors, and then creating a unique strawberry juice, flavored with your chosen addition. The liquid and the berries themselves are amazing served over ice cream, sponge cakes, shortcake, pound cake, cream… the varieties are endless. To me, though, nothing is better than the combination of strawberries with vanilla and balsamic vinegar.

Start with 450 grams (1lb) of strawberries. Rinse, trim and then cut in half or quarters, depending on size. Sprinkle between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of sugar over them (this really depends on the sweetness of your berries). Add one tablespoon of really good balsamic vinegar, and one teaspoon vanilla paste if you want to splurge, or vanilla extract to be more frugal (I tend to use half a teaspoon of each). Gently toss the strawberries in the liquid to coat, let the fruit sit on the counter for half an hour to an hour before serving, giving it the laziest of tosses every fifteen minutes or so.

For a truly indulgent treat, make an Eton Mess using these berries. I like using home made vanilla meringue and unsweetened whipped cream.

Spice & Spirit

by Ilana Epstein

(printed in The Jerusalem Post, "In Jerusalem" section, p.26, Friday 5 December 2008)

I collect cookbooks the way other people collect coins, shot glasses, or miniature tea spoons. The cookbook collection started a few weeks before our wedding and today, I know it intimately. I know in which book to find which recipe, which book has the best pictures, and even which one lays flat when opened, making it easier to read while cooking.

I can also tell you which book is my favorite, which was my first purchase, and which I use most often. My ‘Spice and Sprit; the Complete Kosher Jewish Cookbook’ by the ladies of the Lubavitch community, probably known better by its semi-official title, ‘The Purple Book’, holds pride of place in my collection. Not only was it my first cookbook, but it is also esteemed because its older, yellow version was my mother’s first cookbook. The yellow cookbook kept my mother’s already kosher kitchen “heimische” no matter where in the world we were living.

The book has accompanied me on a veritable cooking odyssey, from spicy cheese lasagne to summer fruit soup. At other times, it has led me through the details of rolling knish dough and kneading challah. I have traveled to China with lemon chicken and South America with empanadas. I once inquired of my mother if the Lubavitch women had collected their recipes from all the different Chabad houses around the globe. My mom said she wouldn’t have been surprised, though she couldn’t for the life of her imagine which national cuisine had spawned ‘beer-batter-covered deep fried meatballs’. The Purple cookbook is a highly recommended addition to any cook’s reference library, from novice to Michelin-starred chef.

My early childhood was spent in Caracas. The Chabad House in Caracas was like a second home to me. It was a fun-filled place to go on a Sunday morning. My mother would teach arts and crafts in the back room, my brothers would run in and out of rooms teasing each other and anyone else who came past them. While the younger kids were busy making cardboard marionettes or yarn pompoms, the older ones played educational games or learned torah with the Chabad emissaries. On one memorable rainy Sunday, a young Chabad emissary taught us South American kids how to play his new American game, ‘Twister’. I can still remember us as young kids, hopelessly tangled, with the young Chabadnik laughing along with us.

The summers in Caracas were spent traveling back and forth on the school bus to Chabad Camp. At camp, my brothers were three-star generals and I was a cadet. These were our ranks in the Tzivos Hashem or “G-d’s Army” (please don’t think for a second that there were any militant over- or undertones to any of this). Our ranks were determined by how many good deeds we had done. On one memorable outing, my brothers made up a song concerning me, and to this day - thirty years later - anyone on the bus that day can remember the Ilana song; word for word. Let me just say that Ilana and banana rhyme perfectly in any language. I believe that for creating that song alone, they should have been stripped of their stars.

A few years later my parents took the show on the road again; this time to Hong Kong, where the Chabad emissaries made every Jew who came to town – whether transient or permanent – feel welcome. In this outpost, so far from the communities in which most of us grew up, the welcome was a wonderful surprise. Lubavitch in the Far East (“LIFE”) made Judaism as accessible to the traveler or resident as chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant. Yet again, the tremendous energy that the Chabad emissaries bring to their jobs has never failed to impress me.

The loss of any life is to be mourned, yet G-d is kind to us. He lets us feel only the closest of deaths with heartbreak, with complete sadness. But a death within the Chabad community, a community that for years has seen their charter as offering Judaism in every corner of the globe, affects us all. Orthodox or secular, traveler or resident, the Chabad representatives who venture out into the world are not missionaries. They are emissaries.

View from Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, India (5"x 7")

(by kind permission of Nira Spitz)

A missionary is a persuader. His job is to convince you that his way is correct, and that what you have been doing until now is incorrect. An emissary is an ambassador, his job is to represent his boss; be it a country, an organization or a religion. With diplomacy, he offers another point of view. Chabad’s job is to teach that Judaism is not only possible wherever you may find yourself, it is desirable.

I can’t comment on global terrorism, or the age old question of why good people suffer. I don’t know how the Lubavitch community will deal with the tremendous loss their family, their community has suffered in the last week. For my part I’ll bake. It’s the only way I know how to deal with any crisis. Whether stressed or sad, I have one surefire coping mechanism. The more I “potchker” with my food, the more time I spend on a particular recipe, the closer I feel to G-d as if by creating puff pastry from scratch, I can hold on, even for a millisecond, to some ever-fleeting godliness. This week, you can be sure that I will be using my Chabad cookbook for inspiration. Perhaps the baking will help me find the strength to cross the chasm of despair into faith. When we lose something, we each find a way to make it better in our own minds.

This coming week, find a way to commune with G-d. Light Shabbat candles, do good deeds, put on tefillin. That is what the people in Chabad recommend. For my part, I will bake.

Mmmmmmmgood!!!!

Eating kosher is a study in living vicariously. You stand on the side lines while your fellow humans travel wherever they want, never having to think about how difficult it may be to source kosher food in say…Barcelona. At other times, especially outside of Israel, it means hitting three different shops for a simple dinner.

Years ago, I attended the BBC Good Food Show in London’s Earl’s Court. As I walked up and down the aisles, packed with the most delectable fancy food I could ever imagine, it never even occurred to me to ask for samples, I knew my limitations – if only such self sacrifice extended to my dieting. The pink champagne truffles were meant for someone else, and the mini fish pies had other destinations. None of them would be coming home with me.

I was so busy feeling sorry for myself, that I walked straight through the Kosher wine stand, without noticing the outstretched arms beckoning me to taste their wares in tiny plastic cups. In retrospect that was a good thing. Sampling wine, on an empty stomach, and then attempting to make it back home on the Tube, would have proven an adventure worth writing about.

But throughout my childhood, it was the Campbell’s soup ads more than anything else that had me wishing I might wake up one morning to find that I was adopted and my birth parents didn’t keep a kosher kitchen.

I wanted the soup that “eats like a meal”. I wanted to say my soup was “mmmmmmgood!” Mind you, for as long as I can remember, even when we were living in the Tropics, every dinner of my childhood was accompanied by soup. It didn’t matter that it would never be that super-American, smooth beautiful tomato soup that you could dip your crackers into (no crackers ever appeared on my childhood table, it was always pumpernickel or rye bread).

(For a great homemade cracker recipe, go here.)

Knowing my limitations, I still enjoy life. No, I’ll never know the pleasures of walking and tasting through a food show (unless the whole “adopted” thing comes up trumps), so I satisfy myself with The Kosher Food Show. All kidding aside, Kosherfest is food heaven, kosher or not.

When Campbell’s vegetarian vegetable soup went kosher, I was there. It didn’t really matter that kosher canned soup has been around for years, I wanted the Campbell’s. As I opened the can, I realized how pathetic a canned soup could be. This was dinner for ONE; that ONE eats alone on a TV tray while mindlessly dribbling alphabet noodles down ONE’S solitary, slightly quivering chin.



Give me my Mom’s pot of soup any day of the week. It always came with brothers, parents, a table and proper chairs. Yet regardless of my revelation, I still wanted Campbell’s tomato soup. It just looked so clean, so “shall-we-say” American, and then I got what I was after. On the Cooks Illustrated website a month ago, there was a video for tomato soup – and my only thought was “Could this be it? Could this be the soup I spent my childhood dreaming about?” Well, as far I could judge from looks alone, having never tasted it, I’m guessing that my ‘Campbell’s Kosher, not-out-of-a-can Tomato Soup probably surpassed the real thing.

Score one for kosher!


Campbell’s Kosher "Not-Out-Of-A-Can" Tomato Soup
(Adapted from Cooks Illustrated recipe)

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped (about one cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
2 x 28-ounce cans (800g) whole peeled tomatoes in juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
4 slices good bread, crust removed, torn into small pieces
2 cups parev chicken broth, hot
2 tablespoons brandy
Salt to taste
Loads of freshly ground pepper

In a large soup pot, heat oil, add the onions and sauté over medium heat until the onions are very soft and starting to colour.
Cooks Note: Do not, under any circumstances, skip this step. A lot of sweetness comes from the sautéed onions, and if you jump the gun and add the tomatoes too soon, the acid in the tomatoes will stop the onions from cooking, and then you get pieces of crunchy semi-raw (or is it semi-cooked) onions in your soup.
On that note, once the onions are fully soft, add the garlic, and stir for about thirty seconds until you can smell the garlicky goodness.
Add the bay leaf, and the tomatoes plus their juices. Using a potato masher, break up the tomatoes.
Now stir in the brown sugar and bread.
Allow soup to simmer until the bread starts to break down, about five minutes.
To get smooth soup, remove the bay leaf and blend the soup in batches.
Return blended soup to pot and start adding the chicken broth and stirring until you get the consistency you are after. The two full cups of broth will give you a thinner version.
Once you reach desired consistency, add the brandy, adjust the seasoning to taste (did I mention that loads of pepper is so good right here) and bring soup to a boil.
Simmer for two minutes.

Now you are ready to star in your very own Campbell’s ad.

Ruffling my feathers...

As I write this, I am sipping tea from my favorite domestic diva mug, listening to some seriously mellow music, relishing that clean house smell. This is not to say that I’m a diva, a music aficionado, or fastidiously clean. It’s just that I have an appreciation for some of the simple pleasures in life.

I’m also not naïve. I know how hard we work as a family to afford ourselves these simple pleasures. Nor am I obtuse enough to think that these pleasures are guaranteed. A lovely mug, a great CD, and a clean house are indications of the fact that things in our life resemble some sort of equilibrium.

In Israel, strangers and friends alike seem to know everything about you. Something about the way one stands, holds their head, their very demeanor, gives away where they come from, what their political and religious standing is and even who they will vote will for in the next election. All before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I found myself in the middle of a surreal scene in the supermarket, where many assumptions were made about who I am, and how much was in my non-existent trust fund. I was standing in line on a busy Thursday morning. The woman in front of me, and the two ladies behind me, hailed from different parts of the world to me. The ladies behind me were having a discussion about the price of chicken, how you needed to spend NIS 100 in order to qualify for the “chicken discount”. They had no intention of spending NIS 100, but wouldn’t it be convenient if they could find some unsuspecting soul (sucker?) who was spending NIS 100 and yet was not buying chickens, of whom they could request said discount. Invariably, the ladies glanced into my cart, filled with yogurts, fruits and vegetables, which must have appeared like a flaming sign saying “Use Me!”

On most occasions, I’m happy and willing to help a friend or stranger – I’ll find a stranger to vouch for me. However, on this day my antenna was up. Something about the two ladies put me on my guard. The over-processed hair and super-decorated nails were not the deciding factor. It was the dishonesty of the tone. Inevitably, I was asked by the ladies if I would cooperate. I nodded my consent, concerned that if they heard my accent, something unexpected may occur.

And it did.

While I was busy with the ladies behind me, I wasn’t aware of the scene unfolding in front of me. The lady ahead of me walked straight up to me, my personal space utterly violated, and said “You’ll pay my bill, right?”. This was not so much a question as a statement of fact. Understandably, I was surprised. I said, “No, I’m sorry, not today…” my accent out on display. One would think that the flat out refusal would have been enough, but no. I was told that since I was a lady who would be giving charity this holiday season, I should cut out the middle man and go straight to the source. I can’t even begin to fathom the number of assumptions in that sentence. No witty reply came to me, though the music from the Twilight Zone did feature. Again, I said, “No I’m sorry.” The reply came back: “Because of you, my child will not have nappies tonight, and I see that yours will.” I casually told her that by returning the six-pack of Cola, the two boxes of chocolate and the seven bags of Doritos, all things my children would not be having that evening, she would have enough money to buy the nappies. Now the weeping started, the ladies behind me got involved, and asked what the big deal was. A lady of my accented birthplace could pay the bill for the entire supermarket. Honestly; does my accent automatically and biologically link me to Warren Buffet? If so, can some one send me his details?

I refused to move either from my spot, or my premise that I wouldn’t pay for the other lady’s groceries. Now the chicken ladies’ bill came out to NIS 130. She kindly offered that I could pay thirty and she would pay the remaining hundred. This was the last straw. I paid my bill, left the supermarket, went to load the car, and realized that my cool storming off was for naught, as I had forgotten my keys by the cashier. Had it been anything else; glasses, water bottle, a kidney, I would have left it, but how could I explain to my husband that I had donated the car to the greater good? Back to the scene I went, tail between my legs, looking for my keys, when all three ladies asked me for a ride home.

Every time we look up, we think that as people, as individuals, we have exceeded our capacity to meet challenges; that we can not handle all the stumbling blocks and burdens that are placed before us. I know that we are blessed because, as we look up, we realize that our capacity is limitless, that our hope will cover all burdens with its comforting blanket and thus we will move forward. As we enter a winter of financial uncertainty, let us cling to our capacity to hope, and our empathy for those around as.

Corn Chowder:
Two of my favorite budget friendly tips are soup, and cooking with seasonal products. Not only is the recipe below extraordinarily yummy, it is also budget friendly and fast.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 large onions finely diced
2 teaspoons coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground pepper
A healthy dash of turmeric
3 cups parev chicken stock
3 cups water
4 medium diced potatoes, unpeeled
5 cups corn kernels (strip about six cobs or use frozen)
Cheddar cheeses grated, to serve

In a large stock pot, heat oil and butter over medium heat until butter is melted.
Add the onions, salt, pepper and turmeric and cook until very soft, stirring often.
While the onions cook, prepare the rest of the vegetables.
When the onions are soft but not colored, about 10 minutes, add the stock and water. Now add the potatoes, bring the whole mess to a boil, allow to simmer uncovered for fifteen minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.
Add the corn kernels to the soup; bring soup back to the boil and serve topped with grated cheddar. Yumm!

Happy Fortieth!

I can’t believe it’s only been a week, but that was it. Seven days ago, I threw my parents a ‘happy fortieth wedding anniversary’ bar-b-q. The problem wasn’t the party. It’s the backlash, a full seven days later, and it’s as if I’m recovering from a major car accident.

True; a fortieth wedding anniversary isn’t a surprise. I should have seen it coming, at least since anniversary number thirty nine. They have made it this long, the chances were they would carry on together for another year. Regardless, my parents were going to stay home. Only on Wednesday night did they inform me they would be flying into town for the weekend, and that is when the realization hit - at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday - that Sunday night my parents would be needing a party, with forty of their closest friends and family to celebrate every year of their happiness. Being one of five children, this should have gone without a hitch. With many hands to help, we could have gotten it done. No such luck. All my siblings were busy and I was the fall back. In my house, all went into military mode. The children were given specific instructions (“don’t talk to mommy unless a limb is falling off - and it better be a major one”) and the count down started.

The kids were still on their summer break, so with forty hours to go, I took the “gantza mishpacha” (Yiddish for “large crowd of closely related individuals”) with me to Ikea to get supplies, candles and glass votives, paper light fixtures, napkins, serving dishes and blue wicker baskets. Then we went to the nursery and picked up thirty potted pansies, and then high-tailed it to the city to buy ten meters of red and white checked fabric. That concluded Thursday, two full tanks of gas, and all my energy.

On Friday, I went shopping: coal, extra bar-b-q, hotdogs, ground beef, steak, chicken, fixings for half a dozen salads and desserts. And then the search was on for the staff, if only I had one in place. I needed a cleaning lady to pick up after I had destroyed my kitchen, a babysitter to look after the kids, someone to man the bar-b-qs and someone on a keyboard to play music. As it turns out, everyone was available and, wit the exception of the music guy, everyone was also great. From now on, my line for shoes will henceforth be used for entertainers as well: don’t buy cheap, you will always be blistered and disappointed.

Sunday came, and my red, white and blue theme came together, and even the moon cooperated by being full and mincing my Ikea, line of round paper light fixtures in the yard. The bar-b-q and the cute guy manning it were a life saver. Besides marinating, I didn’t have to prepare a main dish. I was concerned about keeping the drinks cold, and not poisoning my guests with e-coli, so fridge space was at a premium. My solution, I filled my neighbour’s huge wheelbarrow with ice and pushed all the drinks in. The beer was frigid by the time the guests arrived.

I placed the salads, relishes, condiments and buns on a buffet table and people helped themselves. As the meat came off the grill, my husband offered it around.
As far as the salads were concerned, if anyone asked what they could do I told them to bring a salad. Sure there were three types of coleslaw, and two potato salads, but it became a cook-a-thon with my great aunts fighting the ‘did you have my coleslaw’ war.

For dessert, I cut up a huge watermelon. It was hiding at the bottom of the wheel barrow getting cold all night. I made my parents a mini wedding cake. It was “to die for”. I used the double chocolate layer cake recipe from www.epicurious.com, and separated the batter between, a nine-inch, six-inch and three-inch spring forms. I decorated the frosted cake with red grapes, and then placed forty candles on it. Sure we almost needed a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, but the look on my parent’s faces was worth it.

A few tips for a last minute party:

If you can’t prepare ahead, choose a menu that has the least fuss involved, like a bar-b-q, “make your own pizza”, or a taco bar.
If guests offer to help, take them up on it.
Use recipes you are familiar with. A party is not the time to start experimenting.
When decorating for a party think more, not less. This is supposed to be over the top, use a lot of one colour. Don’t use one or two candles per table, use ten or twelve. To create continuity, make sure everything matches.
Have enough chairs. This is not musical chairs, no one should be left standing in the middle.
Have an activity planned, just in case things get dull: music, a game, speeches, or public opening of gifts, but be just as prepared not to do anything if the conversation is flowing.
Children and adults alike love receiving welcoming or parting gifts. We gave out colourful fans and instructions on how to flirt while using a fan at the beginning of the night, so the August heat was tolerable in more ways than one.