Limmud 2007!

The time is nigh to register for Limmud. I went last year and was amazed by the diversity of the folks in attendance as well as the workshops offered throughout the weekend. Frum Jews, secular Jews, Jews by choice, non-Jews… Yoga, Talmud study, singing and dancing, pluralism, Kabbalah, Islams and Jews….

I highly encourage any and all of you to register. (If you’re a full-time student, there’s a scholarship you can apply for along with your registration; if you live or work in NY you can also apply for financial aid. Last year I was awarded a student fellowship which made the long weekend conference more fiscally attainable.)

I’ll be going again this year, and will be driving down from Montreal for the weekend. Join me for the ride!

I also want to present a workshop, but I’m having a hard time choosing a topic. Any suggestions? The deadline to submit a workshop proposal is Friday. Eep.

Filed under: judaism, limmud, travels

Wind! Rain!

משב הרוח ומורד הגשם
Who makes the wind blow and the rain fall

This is the line we insert during the recitation of the Amidah everyday between Sukkot and Passover (from fall through spring). I don’t often think about the seasons, that the amount of rain will impact the growth of crops in the spring, will impact the harvests yielded in the summer and fall, will impact the soups I’ll make next year as the grey season returns again. We’re spoiled in that way, living in urban centres in North America; we have water that magically comes into our homes, and produce that magically appears in our stores. I feel quite separated from the process of agriculture; I take water for granted.

But this year, I noticed that Montreal got it’s first autumn rains at the end of Sukkos. In fact, the rain threatened us, but held off, for the week of Sukkos, allowing me to enjoy my outdoor shelter without getting soaked. So I took notice, as I prayed in the morning, looking out my bedroom window (which conveniently faces east) as the skies opened up and the rains fell, as I inserted the line “mashev haruach umorid hagashem.”

And I watched the trees. There are three trees in a row, across the street from my apartment; I see them when I look out my bedroom windows as I doven every morning. And this year, I really noticed their changes. The leaves turned colours, reds and oranges, one of them had a large patch of yellow leaves, then slowly started to shed their foliage. Every day, as I slowly exhaled the Sh’ma, I noticed the progress of autumn as marked on the trees. And it struck me as a really amazing event. It’s far too easy for me to get caught up in the bustle of my life, to blink and, whoosh, two weeks later look back and realise I’ve missed the subtler changes around me. But looking out my window at the trees every morning, I’m able to connect to some calmer, slower aspect of nature and G-d. I can’t articulate it, but it’s really been grounding for me. I don’t meditate, I don’t do yoga, but I do watch the trees while I pray.

And though I should feel fulfilled by the praying in and of itself, of fulfilling the mitzvot every morning in my ritual of putting on tzitzis, then tefillin, the donvening, I feel so much more connected this year than last. And the only difference is that my curtains are open and I’m watching the season’s work over the trees.

Filed under: judaism, seasons

How to bake challah

Watch Liz school us on bakin’ challah!

Filed under: friends, good eats, judaism, recipes

If you build it…

Despite being sick (my gastrointestinal system decided to deflect to another team), I cooked up a storm Thursday night. I didn’t taste anything as I went along, so I was a little weary come Friday’s dinner to serve to my guests. But, as 9 of us sat in my sukkah, I was complimented on the food. Dinner included a spinach salad with lemon vinaigrette, apricot couscous, carrot and apple kugel, and a butternut squash soup. There were also the two lovely challahs that one_in_progress brought, and dessert: my chocolate mousse pies, rugelleh, raisins, fresh dates, pomegranates, and booze. Aside from the kugel and challah, the meal was vegan. I tried to cook things that would reflect the harvest, fall vegetables, and be hearty enough to keep us warm while we ate outside.

It was Shabbat, so we don’t shake the lulav. Except that I grew up Reform which meant one day of holidays that are celebrated for 2 days in the Diaspora. Plus a mitzvah that’s joyous doesn’t negate the prohibition to work on Shabbat… Minus a wall, plus a cold, square the mean age of kittens trying to escape from the sukkah to freedom and…. A few people shook the lulav before leaving Friday night. I shook it on Saturday morning, after dovening in the sukkah, and eating brunch in there. And it’s a good thing too: This morning I woke to find one of the walls had blown down. (It seems that the load-bearing chair wasn’t heavy enough to resist the wind.)

So I dovened to the sound of flapping, whacking, banging tarps and wood this morning, then took that wall down completely.

Also, a tip: when a newly white coated doctor-to-be declares that she’s not contagious, only sip from the same kiddush cup as her if you want to have a cold by havdallah.

Some more sukkah photos are here.

All recipes are my own. If you use them, please give me some credit. Thanks!

Apple Carrot Kugel
2 lb bag of carrots, peeled and grated
6 empire apples, grated
1 sweet potato, greated
4 eggs
salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger, grated
1/2 cup matzah meal (or flour)

Grease a 3L (13×9) baking pan. Preheat oven to 350F. In a bowl, combine the carrots, apples, and potato. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs; mix in the salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Add the egg mixture to the veggies, mix to make sure they’re coated well. Add the matzah meal/flour and mix well. Pour into the pan. Bake for ~50mins, until nicely browned on top, and there isn’t any liquid left inside.

Butternut Squash Soup
3 butternut squashes
2 onions, roughly chopped
1 tbsp oil
enough veggie stock to cover (about 2 litres)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper

Prepare the squash by peeling, scooping out the seeds; cut into chunks, and arrange in a pan. Cook in the over for 1 hour, until softened, at 325F.

In a large pot, heat up oil. Add squash and onions. Cook until onions have softened. Add cinnamon, salt, pepper, and ginger; mix and cook another few minutes. Add stock. Bring to a boil then simmer, with the lid on, for a long time (I think I let mine go for 2 hours). Adjust seasoning as needed. with an immersion blender, purée the soup. (If you don’t have one, let the soup cool, then pour, in batches, into a blender. Remember: if it’s still warm, don’t put the lid on (steam needs to escape), instead hold a clean tea towel over the top to prevent the soup from escaping.)

You might want to add more stock when you’re done to get a thinner soup; I liked it really thick.

Chocolate Mousse Pie
Either buy chocolate wafer crumbs or graham cracker crumbs, or buy wafers and crush them yourself. Melt margarine. Combine with crumbs. Push moistened crumbs into a pie tin. Put in the fridge for the crust to harden/set.

Filling: Put a banana and a pack of silken tofu (or, dessert tofu) in a blender. Give it a whirl until it’s smooth. In a double boiler, melt some bitter-sweet chocolate. Add melted chocolate to the blender. Whirl. Add more chocolate if you find the taste of the tofu too noticeable. Pour the blender contents into the pie crust. Put back in the fridge for the mousse to set. Yum!

Optional: Put berries (I find raspberries are quite nice) into the mousse (don’t blend though!) or spread them out on top. Quite yummy.

Filed under: diy, friends, good eats, health, judaism, recipes, seasons

Reminder: Dinner! Friday!

To one and all-

You’re welcome to join me for dinner, Friday at 6pm, in my sukkah.

Please RSVP so I know how much to cook!

Good food, good drinks, good company,
Feygele

Filed under: good eats, judaism

Building an Urban Sukkah

What happens when my day’s “nutrition” consists almost entirely of coffee, coffee, and more coffee? I find myself outside, at 3:20am, measuring my balcony.

I live on the second floor of a three-story apartment building. As a result, my balcony has a “roof” – the balcony belonging to the folks above me. And by “balcony” I mean “glorified fire escape with a concrete floor.” Luckily, I’m the end suite, so my sukkah (a temporary dwelling place – hut – built for the festival of Sukkot) won’t prevent my neighbours from escaping in the event of a fire or, worse, getting to the garbage and recycling bins.

The biblical blueprints call for a roof through which you can see the stars. In order to construct it properly, I’m going to angle the roof so that I’ll be able to see the stars, instead of looking up at the concrete overhead. I plan on buying materials tomorrow, and building it tomorrow night.

Materials needed:

• Two 2.5m dowels
• One tarp, at least 5.5×2.5m
• heavy duty twine
• branches, leaves
• decorations (cheap/free, since they might get stolen – so gourds, leaves, etc)

If anyone would like to help build or decorate it one evening this week, please let me know. Otherwise, if anyone would like to come have Shabbat dinner in the sukkah with me, to fulfill the mitzvot of shaking the lulav and etrog and dwelling (sitting and eating) in the sukkah, please let me know.

Filed under: diy, judaism, seasons