Egg Nog Kugel

I believe the eighth night of Chanukah should be called the "fire hazard" night. We had seven chanukiot set up, which means that we had 63 candles burning (see picture to the left). Luckily most of the wrapped presents had already been unwrapped, so the chances of an errant candle setting off a horrific holiday blaze were somewhat reduced.

But what's a holiday without a sense of danger.
Switching topics...after my previous rant...uh, I mean homily...one might mistakenly think that I oppose ALL blending of cultures. Not true, not true, not true. And on Chanukah next year, I can think of no better way to celebrate the season than by making the traditional Chanukah noodle kugel with a slight Christmas twist.

Egg Nog Kugel

8 oz. wide egg noodles
4 oz. butter or margarine
6 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup egg nog
¼ cup sugar
½ cup raisins

Topping:
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup brown sugar
2 Tbs. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cook noodles in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and add butter. Set aside. Beat together eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, egg nog, and sugar. Add raisins. Add mixture to noodles. Pour into greased 8 x 12-inch baking dish. Mix together topping ingredients. Sprinkle over kugel. Bake for one hour. Serves 10-12.

Chrismukkah? Feh! Humbug!

As amusing as I find the concept of “Chrismukkah”, I find it somewhat dangerous as well. It’s not the blending of two completely antithetical holidays that bothers me so much (Chanukah celebrates the victory of the Jews over religious persecution and assimilation, Christmas celebrates the perceived fulfillment of Judaism by the arrival of the prophesied Christian messiah). It's just that I fear that too few people will see the inherent irony of Chrismukkah and assume that haphazard blending of cultures can actually replace cultural sensitivity and representation. For too long, many have tried to justify government-sponsored religion under the argument that Christmas is a secular holiday (despite all the people who actually do celebrate the birth of Christ) and should in fact be equated with secular holidays such as Independence Day or Super Sunday (although many celebrate this holiday religiously).

Chanukah is, of course, one of the more minor holidays, so might I propose a list of other holidays with temporal proximity that can be blended:

Rosh Hashamadan (Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan): We celebrate the Jewish New Year, the Torah, and the revelation of the Quran all at once. For 40 days, from sun up to sundown, we blow the shofar and eat apples and honey.

Eastover (Pesach and Easter): We commemorate the Pesach seders. On the first night, we commemorate the very first seder that led to the giving of the Torah (the cornerstone of Judaism). On the second night, we commemorate the death, rebirth, and ascension of Jesus (the cornerstone of Christianity). After that, we search for soggy matzah on the front lawn and eat pesadic chocolate bunnies.

Purdi Gras (Purim and Marti Gras): We celebrate Esther’s bravery in ancient Persia on the last day before Lent. We dress in costume, drink heavily, and party like there’s no tomorrow. OK, so maybe this one actually works.

My point is simply that while the blending of traditions can be a good thing, the blending should not replace the original holiday, religion, or traditions. Celebrate Chanukah, or don’t. Celebrate Christmas, or don’t. Celebrate both if you like. But please don't believe that you can maintain a foot in your own heritage by replacing it with a blended version of another one.

Just some thoughts for 2007.

Happy Chanukah!

Happy 5th Day of Chanukah! I wish all of you a wonderful holiday filled with peace and light...and fried foods. Enyoy the latkes! Enjoy the sufganiyot! Enjoy the fichuelas!

Just be prepared to work it all off in January. You have until Purim.

Chag Sameach!

Bubbles of Incompetence

I have long held the belief that incompetence is not merely the lack of competence, but in fact a noncorporeal entity that exists in two forms: static and transient. Static incompetence takes up permanent residence in a single person, like our current president, or a single institution, like FEMA. Transient incompetence, on the other hand, exists in discrete bubbles that shift from one location to the next, occasionally encompassing an entire establishment. How else can one explain why a favorite restaurant suddenly can’t make change, drops all their dishes, and screws up your order…repeatedly?

Actually, this time it wasn’t my favorite restaurant…it was my mother’s. A couple of week’s ago, my mother and I went out to dinner at Nick’s Patio, her favorite restaurant in South Bend, Indiana. Nick’s serves American home-style food in very large, very tasty portions, but the restaurant has become her favorite because it is one of the few places in South Bend that can accommodate her low-salt, low-fat, low-spiciness diet. Recently, the owner of Nick’s had to put himself on a low-salt diet, and he has repeatedly assured my mother that she can get a good low-sodium meal there.

But every now and then, there is a bubble.

She ordered the vegetable stir fry and told the waitress that it needs to be low salt. “No soy sauce,” she said.

“No problem,” said the waitress.

When the plate came, my mother tried to ask the waitress about the noticeable brown sauce on the stir fry. “This is no soy sauce, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I told the kitchen, no soy sauce.”

So my mother started eating.

“Taste this,” she asked me. “Is there soy sauce in it?”

I tasted the stir fry. It actually had flavor, which is usually indicative of the presence of salt in some form. But who was I to argue with her favorite establishment?

“Um…” I said, “I’m not sure. Maybe they used a broth instead.”

My mother wasn’t convinced. After eating a third of the meal, she flagged down the waitress and asked her to ask the kitchen about the brown sauce. Eating with my mother is always entertaining.

It took a while for the waitress to get back to us. A long while. In the meantime, I had given my mother a third of my 4-egg omelette (which was low salt) so she wouldn’t starve. Finally, the waitress returned.

“It’s not soy sauce,” she said cheerfully. “It’s teriyaki sauce.”

There was an audible pause.

After my mother explained to her as politely as her New York blood would allow that a) teriyaki sauce was almost ENTIRELY made up of soy sauce and b) teriyaki sauce was extremely high in salt, she asked to speak to the owner. The owner wasn't there, so she spoke to the manager. The manager made sure that she got her meal re-made (although for some bizarre reason, it took two more times before the kitchen could get it right), and she didn’t charge us for my mother’s meal. It was very good customer service for one of Nick’s faithful patrons. If only the manager had left it there.

The manager patiently explained to us that the kitchen staff didn’t know what was in teriyaki sauce. “Furthermore,” she continued, “Most of them don’t even speak English.”

Sometimes honesty is NOT the best policy. Open letter to all restaurants that I patronize in the future: Please don’t ever tell me that a) the people preparing my food have no idea what they are putting into it or, b) nobody can accurately communicate my order to the kitchen staff. If necessary, make something up. Anything. “Oh, we’re sorry about that. The chef’s wife ran away today with the plumber, and he’s been messing up everyone’s order.” I’ll accept that. I’d prefer that.

Didn’t know that teriyaki sauce had soy sauce in it? Honestly. What did they think made it salty? Magic?

We decided to go elsewhere for dessert, and after another comedy of errors (where all of our favorite ice cream establishments were closed), we ended up at McDonalds to get chocolate-dipped cones. There were only about 4 other patrons in the restaurant, but after putting my order in, we had to wait about 7 minutes to get the cones because - and I kid you not - none of the staff knew how to make chocolate-dipped cones.

I felt like jumping across the counter and offering to make them myself. Look, I would say, ice cream…chocolate sauce…dip…twirl…done! But I didn’t. It wasn’t their fault. The bubble had simply encompassed all of South Bend, and there was nothing I could do but wait for the bubble to get bored and move on.

Healthy? You betcha!

I missed a day of work yesterday due to this nasty cold that I'm trying to shake. I can't help but wonder how much healthier I might have been had I remained in Minnesota instead of moving back to Indiana 4 years ago.

Minnesota has been named the healthiest state for the fourth consecutive year by the United Health Foundation. Not too shabby, considering that this is the land that popularized fried cheese curds.

Indiana is 33rd this year. Not so good, considering it dropped from 32nd place last year. New York is 29th this year, having dropped from 26th place last year.

We'll see if Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempts to save NYC despite itself will do any good next year. In his first term, he banned smoking from bars and restaurants. Today the Board of Health voted to make New York the nation's first city to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats at restaurants. Sure, all the libertarians are crying foul now, but we'll see who's laughing when the New York raises itself up to be the 25th most healthy state.

In the meantime, I can dream about returning to the Land of 10,000 Lakes where the government looks out for the health of its consituents. I can already taste the cheese curds.

Thanksgiving Wild Rice Pilaf with Tofu

Happy Thanksgiving! Well, Happy 2nd day of Thanksgiving to be exact. We are spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws who have moved their big feast to the day after Thanksgiving to better accommodate everyone's holiday family expectations. Now my sister-in-law can feast with her in-laws in Oblong, Illinois, on Thursday and feast with her parents in Terre Haute on Friday. This creates a defacto 2nd seder for Thanksgiving. My in-laws aren't Jewish, but they have a better understanding of Jewish ritual than do most Jews.

This creates a new tradition for the Thanksgiving meal: lasagna. Although the 2nd seder always has the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc., the 1st seder for the last two years has been vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread. It makes for a great Thanksgiving meal, but it's a little difficult to slice into sandwiches for leftovers.

Many have asked me, “Just what do vegetarians EAT during Thanksgiving?” I suspect many have an image of my family meagerly scraping the last of the mashed potatoes and corn onto our plate while the rest of the extended family, omnivores all of them, greedily gorge themselves on turkey and giblet gravy and toss half of their crescent roll to my hungry children to watch them scuffle over the buttery roll, all the time taking bets on who will end up with the black eye.

Although I have experimented with many vegetarian main dishes in the past on Thanksgiving, nowadays we just create a balanced meal of side dishes rather than a hierarchical meal of main dish and back-up singers. Having said that, some side dishes do get elevated to the status of “signature dish.” The wild rice pilaf with tofu has become a new tradition (three years running). Although it doesn't slice into sandwiches like turkey, it makes a great tortilla wrap for the week after Thanksgiving.

Wild Rice Pilaf with Tofu

Ingredients:
1 lb. (1 block) of extra-firm tofu, Chinese style
3 cups vegetarian broth (I recommend Rapunzel Vegetable Bouillon)
1 cup brown rice
1/2 cup wild rice (make sure it's Minnesota-grown)
1/4-1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 15 oz. can mandarin oranges, drained, syrup reserved
1 cup chopped pecans
sprig of rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400oF. Drain the tofu and press out the excess water on 2-3 paper towels. Cut the tofu into cubes. Marinate the tofu in 1-2 cups of broth for 30 minutes at room temperature or for several hours in the refrigerator. Remove the tofu from the broth and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Turn each piece of tofu over and bake for another 10 minutes until tofu is firm and light brown, but not burnt.

In a large sauce pot, saute the onions in the oil. Add the brown rice, 1 cup broth, 1/4 cup reserved mandarin orange syrup, and 1/4-1/2 cup water and cook until rice is tender. In a separate pot, cook the wild rice in 1 cup of water.

Mix together the brown rice, wild rice, chopped pecans, and tofu. Serve on a large platter, garnished with mandarin orange slices and a couple of sprigs of rosemary (optional).

Amber Indian, Revisited

Forget what I previously said about the desserts at Amber Indian. I went to the lunch buffet yesterday, and the gulab jamun was perfect. They were warm and flavorful, with a good amount of cardamom. Good desserts on an Indian lunch buffet (at least in Indianapolis) seems like such a rarity that I am always impressed when I find them.

Glutenschnitzel

Seitan, a vegetarian meat analog, is made from wheat gluten cooked in broth, traditionally a soy broth. Gluten is the protein found in whole wheat flour. It can be isolated from whole wheat flour by rinsing and kneading a flour/water mixture until all the starch is removed.

I used to make my own gluten from scratch back when I was in grad school. It was a lot of fun, but it was very time consuming, and it left a starchy mess that coated the entire kitchen. I finally gave it up and started making it the easy way by reconstituting store-bought gluten flour with liquid. I still miss making my own gluten. It's kind of like the difference between hunting wild game in the Boundary Waters and buying pre-packaged chicken wings at the deli counter.

The best book I have found on seitan is Cooking with Gluten and Seitan, by Dorothy R. Bates and Colby Wingate. I have had the best luck cooking seitan in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes instead of simmering it slowly. The pressure cooker gives a soft, slightly chewy seitan, whereas the simmering method always gives me a hard, rubbery seitan which is really not conducive to convincing your friends and relatives to become vegetarian.

Tonight I made glutenschnitzel, my own personal seitan recipe. It's made like vienerschnitzel or chicken schnitzel, but you don't have to pound the mean into flat cutlets. You simply slice the seitan into thin cutlets (about 1/4 inch thick).

I prepare three separate shallow bowls: one with white flour, one with an egg beaten with 1-2 teaspoons of water, and a third with bread crumbs. I coat the seitan cutlet with flour, transfer it to the egg and coat it completely, and then transfer the eggy cutlet to the bread crumbs. Each cutlet is then fried in about 1/4 inch thick of vegetable oil. I flip the cutlet over and fry the other side when the first side browns.

I usually serve Glutenschnitzel with a tomato sauce, such as a commercial spaghetti sauce.

Note: It is important to remember that like most meat analogs, seitan tastes and feels SIMILAR to meat but not EXACTLY LIKE meat. It is its own animal, so to speak. I find it important to appreciate seitan for what it is, rather than what it isn't.

The Quest for the Perfect Sukkah

For those of you new to Jewish holidays, Sukkot is a harvest holiday that occurs 9 days after Yom Kippur. On Sukkot we celebrate the harvest and commemorate the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the desert by building temporary structures called sukkot (singular sukkah), booths that are decorated with fruits, gourds, leaves, and well, pretty much anything that at least resembles nature.

There are a few rules for making a sukkah kosher, one of which is that you must be able to see the stars through the roof. Another rule is that the sukkah must be a TEMPORARY structure. Therefore, poking holes in the roof of your garage does not make a kosher sukkah unless you then completely disassemble the garage after Sukkot. It’s possible to do it, but not recommended.

Sukkot is now over, but the Quest for the Perfect Sukkah continues. We’ve been on this quest for six years.

Note, I didn’t say the biggest sukkah, nor the strongest sukkah, nor even (thankfully) the prettiest sukkah. I said the Perfect Sukkah. The Perfect Sukkah is an elusive concept, a combination of aesthetics, strength, and re-usability at a price that won’t require you to put your mortgage lender on speed dial.

It all started back in Minnesota, six years ago, when we first bought our townhouse. We looked out on our tiny plot of yard and decided that the best way to celebrate our escape from apartment life was to build our own sukkah. So, on the first day of Sukkot we scribbled out a simple design that made most shantytowns look like the Trump Towers, and drove to Home Depot. “We’ll need wood,” we decided. “Probably some 2x4s. Oh, and nails. And big cement blocks to hold up the corner posts.” Loaded down with about $50 worth of merchandise, we drove home and set upon hammering boards together.

Lesson # 1: Hammering 2x4s together is a BAD idea unless you have a saw horse, several clamps, and a sound-dampening room.

“KA-PAH! KA-PAH! KA-PAH!”

The ‘call of the inept’ echoed around our cul-de-sac. I pounded on the nails, hoping they would hold the 2x4s together. They didn’t.

“KA-PAH! KA-PAH! KA-PAH!”

About this time, many of our new neighbors came out of their houses, attracted by the ruckus.“What’cha doin’?” one of them asked us? So, as I pounded unsuccessfully on the wood, Shirah explained the holiday of Sukkot complete with its rich history and beautiful traditions.

“KA-PAH! KA-PAH! KA-PAH!”

“Hmm...,” she said. “Have you tried drilling holes and using screws instead of nails?”

Shirah and I looked at each other. Screws? What a novel idea. So, one more trip to Home Depot later, we set about the project again, drilling holes, screwing boards together, getting splinters, and loudly taking the Lord’s name in vain. Finally, we propped up our minimalist sukkah, set the poles in the large cement blocks, and covered the entire thing with chicken wire. It swayed uneasily. As we looked at it proudly, one of our neighbors tentatively asked the question we would hear every year, “So, this is a temporary thing, right?”

Fast forward two years to 2003 (5764). After moving to Indiana, we now had a single-family dwelling with our own yard. “Let’s put up a sukkah,” we decided. However, this time, we had learned the lessons from our last attempt.

Lesson #2: Don’t use cement blocks or chicken wire for a sukkah. Ever.
Lesson #3: Spend more than 30 seconds planning out your design.

This time we were prepared. We planned our sukkah carefully, we calculated the amount of lumber we needed, and we studiously avoided buying any more cement blocks or chicken wire, knowing that they would only sit in our yard for years to come serving no other purpose than to make mowing the lawn a painful experience.

Shirah went to Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards to compare prices on lumber. While searching for the necessary hardware, she ended up explaining the sukkah to each salesman. If you’ve never tried to explain a sukkah to a goyische hardware store clerk, we highly recommend you try it at least once in your lifetime. They all looked at her blankly. “You want to do what?” She showed them each the drawing and explained that YES she did want the whole thing made out of wood, and YES it was a temporary structure, and NO she didn’t want to glue it together with Elmer’s wood glue.

$100 worth of lumber and hardware later, we started to set up the sukkah. We used 4x4s for the corner posts, 2x4s for the cross beams, and wooden lattice for the roof. We bolted everything together with big nuts and bolts which had the advantage of easy construction but the disadvantage of slight instability.

I have decided that one of the requirements for making a sukkah kosher is that blood must be drawn at some point. Either that, or you must smash your thumb with the hammer at least twice. While I nursed my hand, Shirah explained the rich history of Sukkot to our neighbors. “So, it’s a temporary thing, right?” they asked.

The sukkah held for the full week of Sukkot.

Fast forward one year to 2004 (5765). All the lumber from the previous year’s sukkah had been neatly stored in the corner of our garage. We got it out and started to put up the sukkah in our front yard. My mother-in-law was visiting, so we pulled her into the project.

Lesson #4: In Indiana, 2x4s that are not stored in hermetically sealed containers will warp.

My mother-in-law, my wife, and I stared at the twisted wood thoughtfully, then decided to try putting the sukkah together anyway. Some boards bolted together nicely. Some...didn’t. When we finished, we had a couple of 2x4s sticking out at odd angles while the rest of the sukkah looked like something from a Dr. Suess book.

Would you eat it in a sukkah?
Would you smoke it in a hookah?

After our fit of giggles subsided, we were off to Home Depot to buy $50 to $75 of replacement lumber. Again, the sukkah held. Just barely, but it held.

Fast forward one more year to 2005 (5766). After replacing the newly warped wood from the previous year’s sukkah, we decided to revisit the whole design. We sketched and resketched and argued and debated until we finally came up with a new design that used corner brackets instead of nuts and bolts to hold the crossbeams together. This had the advantage of not tearing into the wood like bolts did. It had the added advantage of extra stability. It had the slight disadvantage of permanence.

Lesson #5: Before screwing metal plates onto wood, soap or wax the screws so they don’t get stuck in the wood forever.

When I tried to disassemble the sukkah after Sukkot, I discovered that the wood had swollen around many of the screws in the corner brackets, so that they now refused to come back out. After confirming that the children were safely out of earshot, I mumbled a string of obscenities and finally ended up stuffing a lot of 2x4s in the corner of the garage with the twisted wreckage of the corner brackets still tightly adhered.

Fast forward to this year (5767). I had had enough with warped wood, corner brackets, and heavy 4x4s. It was time for a complete paradigm shift. I decided to make the sukkah frame out of metal.

“How about we just buy a sukkah kit?” my wife pleaded.
“No,” I said. “We can do this. It will work. Trust me.”

She managed a faint smile and started repeating our marriage vows to herself like a mantra.

A month before Sukkot, I started my research. Galvanized steel pipe seemed the way to go. One Website recommended that I go to an awning supply store to buy all the connecting hardware. This seemed like a great idea until I tried to find an awning supply store that would sell me awning connectors. Such a store didn’t seem to exist in Indianapolis.

It was back to Home Depot. I flagged down a store clerk and showed him my new drawing. Skipping past the discussion of Sukkot’s rich history, I cut to the chase. “OK, I want to build a cube out of galvanized steel pipe. It should be 10 feet by 10 feet. It will be temporary, but it has to stand up for a week. What connectors should I use?” My goyische sales clerk thought about it. “I don’t think anything like that exists,” he stated.

Lesson #6: If the first hardware store clerk doesn’t give you the answer you want, find one who will. Hardware fittings are infinite. Sales clerk experience is finite. Sales clerk creativity is infinitesimal.

I must have gone back and forth to Lowe’s and Home Depot a half a dozen times to find all my materials. In the end, we used 1 3/8” fencing post with a variety of fencing post connectors. We borrowed a friend’s reciprocating saw to cut the metal posts down to size, and used construction-grade epoxy to fasten fencing caps to the ends of the cross beams. The front and back walls of the sukkah were squares made by fitting 4 fencing posts into elbow joints. The walls of the sukkah were made by attaching fencing posts from the front square to the back square by way of special fencing hardware that was presumably not originally intended for sukkah-use. If you are interested, I will send you our final design. I think I scribbled it on a napkin somewhere.

On the first day of Sukkot, we set about putting together all the pieces. Coincidently, my in-laws had come to visit that very same day.

“They’re not here to help with the sukkah,” my wife warned. “They’re just visiting.”
I laughed. They made the mistake of visiting on the day we’re building a sukkah. Of course they’ll help with the sukkah.

Lesson #7: Brilliant designs will be thwarted by sub-par materials.
Lesson #8: When using construction-grade epoxy, use a lot. I mean a whole lot. Otherwise, the caps pull off of the crossbeams and the sukkah falls down on you.

Naturally, the sukkah did not quite come off as planned. The front and back walls did not hold together firmly causing the whole sukkah to sway unpleasantly. Then, of course, the “epoxied” caps twisted off, causing the whole structure to collapse. My mother-in-law offered a suggestion that I had honestly never considered in my month of sukkah research.

“How about using duct tape to hold it together?” she said.

The sun was setting, so I acquiesced and taped the side beams into place. The sukkah frame tilted threateningly. “How about using duct tape on the corners?” my sister-in-law offered. We tried it, and magically the sukkah frame held up beautifully. After $250 worth of hardware, my sukkah was being held together by duct tape.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “It worked.”

“Look, dear,” my wife said gleefully, “We have our own redneck sukkah.”

The next day the sukkah collapsed. “I give up,” I said, looking outside at the wreckage. “That’s it. No more. I can’t put any more time into that thing.”

“I’m not ready to give up on it,” my wife said mysteriously. “I hate to see you left a broken man.”

I spent the rest of that day preparing dinner for 75 sisterhood women (see Beth-El Zedeck Sisterhood Opening Meeting). When I came home that evening, I discovered that unbeknownst to me, Shirah had spent the day salvaging our sukkah. She lashed the wooden lattice panels to the corners with rope and pulled it taut. She then decorated the lattice panels with Fall-themed banners. So, while I was working in the kitchen, Shirah was restoring the sukkah, my good name, and my manhood. I love my wife.

We ate dinner in the sukkah the next day. As you can see in the picture, Shirah created the Perfect Sukkah.

P.S. On Wednesday, the sukkah collapsed. The quest continues.

Israeli Fruit Salad

I created this simple recipe for the sisterhood opening meeting. It celebrates the fruits of Israel.

1 pomegranate
2 oranges
2 green apples
4 tsp. lemon juice
4 tsp. honey
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix lemon juice, honey, and cinnamon. Remove seeds from pomegranates. Peel oranges, separate sections, and cut into ¾ inch pieces. Core apple and chop into ¾ inch pieces. Immediately mix apples with the lemon-honey dressing (to prevent browning), and then mix apples the rest of the fruit. (Serves 4-6 people)

Beth-El Zedeck Sisterhood Opening Meeting

Last Sunday, the Sisterhood of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck held its annual opening meeting. As their semi-official milchik chef of exotic dishes, I was asked to plan out the menu and lead the catering for the dinner. With my army of Sisterhood and non-Sisterhood volunteers, we prepared a wonderful feast for the assembled throng: an Israeli dinner of falafel, hummus, pita, fruit salad, cucumber-tomato salad, borekas, and an orange/date/almond cake. Everything except for the pita bread was made from scratch. I wanted to bake pita bread, but my wife suggested that this would be a time-prohibitive process. In other words, “Are you meshugge?”

Shirah actually pulled me onto this project. I have catered for other Sisterhood events, but never the opening meeting. Shirah recently joined the Sisterhood board (to her tremendous surprise), and is part of the planning committee. So now whenever she comes home from a Sisterhood meeting, my first question is not, “how was the meeting?” but rather, “what did you volunteer me for now?”

Of course, I have to maintain a modest veneer of exasperation, just so no one takes me for granted. Truth be told, I love doing this. I get to plan out a menu, shop for food, cook in a giant kitchen, tell other people what to do, watch the kitchen staff do the dishes, and then pretend to look modest while all the Sisterhood women heap praises upon me.

One of the ladies saw me preparing the meal and teased, “You’re just doing this to be surrounded by ladies, aren’t you?”

Shirah offered this correction later. “No, you don’t do this to be surrounded by ladies. You do this to be surrounded by ladies singing your praises.”

Damn. She found me out.

But is it good for the Jews?

Will Texas repeat Minnesota's Jesse Ventura upset? Singer/ songwriter/ novelist/ entrepreneur/ public Jew Kinky Friedman is running for governor of Texas and leading the Democratic candidate Chris Bell in the polls.
http://origin.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/15727809.htm?source=rss&channel=dfw_news

Bell asked Kinky to pull out of the race so they could work together together to defeat Republican governor Rick Perry. “I’m ahead of him” in the polls, Friedman said. “Why would I be the one surrendering?”

I so wish I could vote for the man, my Indiana residence not withstanding. His Website is wonderful, and he's got some great commercials. And of course, he's still Kinky Friedman. http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/index.html

Maybe we could play off of the "My Man Mitch" slogan that Mitch Daniels used in the Indiana gubernatorial race. I want a bumper sticker that says, "My man is Kinky."

L'Shanah Tovah!

L'Shanah Tovah! May the year 5767 bring you health and happiness.

This blog is an experiment, as most blogs are. This blog will either sharpen my writing skills, capture my thoughts, and articulate my opinions...or it will simply become a good way to waste time. Or possibly, it will go idle for lack of use, gathering dust in the nether regions of the blogosphere.

Of course, nothing ever dies on the Internet. Professor Eppendorf is a good example. (http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q3/labnovel.html) I wrote this bit of witticism over 10 years ago and got it published on rec.humor.funny (kids, ask your parents about the good ole days of listservs). Now, it's all over the Internet. It will never die. It will forever be associated with my name through Google searches.

I suppose there are worse ways to achieve immortality.