Top Ten Laws of Cooking

I used to think this is how brownies were made. 

For the last year-and-a-half, I have made three meals a day. Every day (except times when we were guests somewhere else). This week, it's coming to an end because my husband is no longer coming home for lunch. So, two meals a day. 


 I cooked before marriage, but it was whatever I felt like eating, whenever I felt like it. No oil? Great! On a raw kick? Why not? Being a housewife is a whole different ball game. I also went out to eat a lot as a single person. I was never home so why would I cook that much? 


This recent change made me reflect on the top ten things I have learned in the last year-and-a-half of cooking.


1. Cook double and freeze. 
For first three months of my marriage, we had a mini-fridge with an even mini-er freezer (literally the size of a dictionary). I couldn't save or cook ahead at all. Not to mention, I was new on the job. I would literally prep, serve, clean up, prep, serve, clean up, and repeat. Once we got a regular fridge with a real freezer, my world got a lot simpler. Use your freezer. 


2. Before making dough, spray your mixing bowl with Pam. 
It makes the cleanup much, much quicker, even if you don't get around to it till later.


3. Get a dough scraper.
This is a useful little thingey-doo made of silicon that is straight on one side, round on the other. It's the key to transferring anything goopey from the bowl to the board/other bowl/baking pan. 


4. When in doubt, use a LOW FLAME.
You can always cook more, but you can't un-cook (much as I would have liked to, many, many times). And there are no short-cuts. 


5. Learn how to freeze.
   Some things freeze well, others don't. Don't freeze something until it has cooled completely, and leave space in the container for expansion.


6. Set-up and clean-up is the same amount of effort for a small quanitity as for a large. So make the large. 
This is true for many things, like tuna salad (fry some into balls, put some into a sandwich, use the rest for a tuna casserole). Or chopped vegetables (what recipe DOESN'T require them?). Or cookie dough- double the recipe and freeze in logs. You can have fresh cookies ready in 10 minutes, any time. 


7. Defrost in advance.
This happened to me so many times. 


8. Don't dress the salad. 
It will soon become inedible. An undressed salad (dressing served on side) can last almost 2 full days.


9. Onions don't need to be in the fridge.
Who knew?


10. If you change or sub a recipe, write down what you did. Or else, you won't be able to re-create it (if it comes out successfully). And recipes from people you know always work much better than internet recipes.


Do you have anything to add?

I'm a Quitter.

the most tsnius one I could find (that alone says something)

Once upon a time, I was an avid magazine reader. My mainstays were Self, Lucky, and Allure. Unlike my friend, Alice.


 Alice was a confident, stylish, talented grad student who had spent a lot of time figuring things out. One day, she said to me 'You shouldn't read magazines. They're not good for you.' 
I smiled and nodded while thinking, 'well, Lucky is just shopping, Allure is just makeup, and Self, well, Self is practically therapy! Vogue or Cosmo are the damaging ones, probably. Not that I read them anyway.'
One day, I asked Alice (just for clarification): 'Did you mean...all magazines? What about Self or Shape? They are all about health and self-esteem.' 
She said: 'Even Self and Shape.'
I thought: 'That's a little extreme.'


But Alice was right. I don't deny that women's magazines are fun to read. But I don't feel good after reading them. I feel conflicted. To this day, I never know if I should be eating whole wheat, or avoiding processed grain all together, or if I should be lining my top lid, or bottom, or both, and if that should be in black, navy, or brown liner. Liquid liner, pencil, or powder with a thin, wet brush? 


Why do I hesitate to decide? Because I have been told to go left, to make that right, to drive to the dead end and turn around, and every other direction possible, by some article at some point in my mag-reading years. They vacillated between
 'willowy!' and 'athletic!'
 and 'bangs!' and 'no bangs!' 
so many times, that sometimes (more than I'd like) I do the same in my head when it comes to menial decisions about what to eat, how to exercise (running is good! running is bad!), and how to make myself presentable. 


I never sat there and thought 'gee, I wish I looked like Kate Moss.' The damage wasn't that obvious. It gave me a subtle message that I don't know what's right, but They Do. And that I needed them to tell me. If I could write my own issue now, the headlines would read:


"Makeup Technique: Determined by Your Unique Face! Your face is unprecedented in human history (even if you are an identical twin)!"


"Nutrition Rules: Relative to Your Unique Body and Lifestyle!"


"Wear Clothes That You Love! What Do You Naturally Gravitate Toward?"


That would not be good for sales.

luxury

I am now the proud owner of a dryer. 

Thanks, Dad!

Motzei Shabbos: Space and Action

 It's a time of the week when you return to 'reality' 

and descend out of the spiritual realm, 

 into the weekday realm.

 It's the time to clean up, to prepare,

 to put into action the revelations you had in the past 25 hours. 

Those 25 hours are a gift of space where there is normally congestion.

 Motzei Shabbos is a blend of the space and the action. 

Gradually the space fades and the action expands,  

until the end of the week when the space is prepared and created, 

once more.

'tarbut beyerushalayim'

    I just got a dose of chizuk (inner strength) about being a frum performer.

    I received this random email (I think it was from Janglo?) that had local info including a link for "Jerusalem theatergoers". I was curious, so I clicked it. I was sort of curious about what's going on 'out there', in the world of secular theater in Jerusalem. I guess my real question was, 'what am I missing?'. I know the theater of NYC and chose to leave it behind. Today, I was wondering what the theater scene in Jerusalem actually had to offer (not that I'd go back- it was just a morbid curiosity).

    I read that there is a company putting on a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta at a theater downtown, in the upcoming week.  And there was a link to a clip from one of their rehearsals. So I clicked that, too. And it showed a very community-theater-style/quality level of show in the making. So I thought, 'Yeah. No thanks.' But then I was curious about the venue they were using- it was conveniently located, and seemed nice from the pictures. I wondered how much they charge to rent it out, and how many people it could seat. So I clicked on a link to the theater's page. There, amongst other tidbits of info, it proclaimed that it was a 'center for the non-religious of Jerusalem to enjoy Western Culture, on days that most cultural centers in the city are off limits to them'. Translation: 'We are proud to be open on Shabbos!!'

    I again thought 'Yeah. No thanks.' Hashem must have felt that I needed the reminder that no, I am not missing anything.

   Meanwhile, our show continues to sell out and inspire. I am so lucky to be a part of my show and NOT a cheesy operetta on Shabbos.

The Baby Gym

this is our exact model (the gym, not the baby)

My baby didn't have a baby gym. I had made a few unsuccessful phone calls, heard a few vague ideas (of people or places to borrow one from), and I had even made a couple of trips out to stores to buy one for her. On the first trip (to Shefa), the store was out of baby gyms. On the second trip (to Malcha), the prices of the gyms almost knocked me over. I had sent my husband, after work, to pick one up from a friend who had offered to give us her extra one, but he couldn't find her address and eventually gave up and came home. A neighbor proclaimed that she had one, and generously drove it down to our house and lent it to us. But only then did I discover that Europeans (this neighbor is from Belgium) have an entirely different item in mind when they say 'baby gym'. It was more of a plastic board with buttons and music that a child could play with when they are old enough to sit up on their own. Sigh.


I told myself, it's not a life necessity. I can dangle toys above her and achieve the same effect. 


Then at my last Tipat Chalav (well-baby clinic) appointment, they said 'she is not advanced enough at reaching things and grabbing things that are dangled above her- these are the muscles that lead to crawling'. 


Bummer. Even though everyone says you need to take Tipat Chalav with a grain of salt (they don't know your baby and they have textbook standards when raising a child is anything but textbook), it's easy to take these things kind of hard when you're a first-time mother. In light of the still-absent baby gym, I felt guilty. 


Last week, someone gave us some money as a gift. My husband's first thought was: let's get a baby gym. So we went together to the baby store and picked out one from Lamaze. The price at this store was much more reasonable than my initial expedition. And the truth is, it is really great for her development. There are toys and mirrors that hang down, it plays music, and it features beautiful colors and images for her to stare at. It's good for tummy time and it keeps her busy and occupied (well, at least for a couple of minutes). And there is something nice about owning a great toy that you know you will use in the future. Next time, I won't wait so long.


In my community, people are more than happy to lend me clothes, toys, bassinets, all the short-term-use items that babies require. But owning certain things and knowing that our subsequent children will one day have them, or that I could one day lend them to someone else, is a nice feeling. 


I just visited my landlady who lives next door. She is a great-grandmother. She pulled out a box of toys for my baby to play with during our visit, and showed me blocks that her great-grandchildren use, that are from HER childhood. Imagine toys being used for 4 generations!

Dear Lauren

I started writing this blog for a few reasons. One of those reasons was my dear friend, Lauren, who is no longer with us. She was the first 'follower' of this blog.

I started writing this 10 months ago after we got back in touch. Although we grew up together in Morristown, through elementary school, middle school, and high school, we hadn't corresponded in years. This was my fault- I had been living as a student in Israel for a few years, with intermittent email/internet/international phone access. Most of my friends from home (especially high-school friends) didn't hear from me on a regular basis.

 I realized that there were so many things to catch her up on-

 why and how I chose to live in Israel- Jerusalem, no less...

why I was going by Shoshana when she'd always known me as Susan...

who I had married and how that had happened...

my baby that I was still expecting at the time..

                             basically, what had transpired in my life in the last few years. It was clear to her that a lot had changed, and I wanted to fill in the gaps. So I started writing. Then I realized that there were many friends and relatives I wanted to do this for. And so I started writing for those people, too. But everyone knows that when you write (same as acting), you need to be speaking to someone specific. Your narrative has to have a clear audience. I always think of it in these terms: in order to reach everyone, speak to SOMEone. So as I wrote my first entries, I decided:

 I am speaking to Lauren.  

This year, towards the end of my pregnancy, the week I started recording my album, Lauren passed away. Suddenly and tragically. To the heartbreak of our entire community. And we are all still in the aftershock. It was, and is, difficult. 

Lauren was always a beam of light. And the only thing that I can guess about why G-d chose to take her and not another, is that she really had outstanding character traits. Generosity, humility, gratitude, poise, intelligence, true inner (and outer- although that's not a character trait) beauty...I could go on. 

How could G-d take someone like Lauren? We won't get the full answer while we are still in this world, but I heard once from Rabbi Chalkowski that G-d sometimes takes, specifically, the righteous people. The purpose of this world is to give us opportunities to perfect ourselves and help us to grow into who we are in potential. If someone is righteous and has already achieved their inner goals, they don't need to be here anymore. So they are taken to the next world to receive their reward. But the rest of us still need to be here, we need every minute here, to reach our inner goals. And G-d, by taking just one outstanding person, forces hundreds of us regular people to vividly remember her strengths, learn from them, and become more like her in some small way.

I always knew she was special, but like everyone else, I would never have sat and thought and cried and conjured up all my memories of her, without this tragic event's occurrence. We're so busy, so occupied, that we don't appreciate people like that on a normal basis, to the degree that they deserve. 

We needed a wake-up call. 

In Lauren's memory, we slowly become better. And she would have wanted that. And now that she is in a place of true clarity, of only clarity, she can see the true impact that she has made on us, in her life and in her passing. 

donate to Lauren's foundation here:

http://www.laurenfoundation.com/

A Rock and a Hard Place

Sometimes there are situations where you are really stuck

 between a rock and a hard place.

I don't want to get too specific, 

but that's just how I feel at the moment. 

I know it will get better.

 I know I will look back on this later with clarity, with the whole picture, 

with the answer to the 'why'.

 But for now, I am in that place.

Every time I've heard that expression, by the way, 

I have had the exact same thought:

"How redundant. A rock IS a hard place."

It's like saying,

 "I am stuck between a pillow

 and something mushy and soft  that you put your head on..."

I am an adult now.

Everyone is sick in my house. Me, my husband, and my baby. And every time the baby wakes up miserable and needing help, and my husband can barely move, and I can barely move, but I'm moving anyway, I think, 

"I guess I'm an adult now". And every time I have to go to work, even though I am sick, because my husband's sicker and not therefore able to work, I think, "I am definitely an adult now". 

I spoke to my friend about this yesterday. She pointed out that I was an adult before I got married. That an adult is someone who can take care of themselves. This is more than being an adult, it's being a mother and a wife. Being someone who can take care of others under all circumstances. This is like, what its all about.

This friend and I were students together in Seminary. There we learned that moments like this are character-defining. That this is when the cameras start rolling on that film which will be played back to you after arriving in the next world. These times of testing, of being pushed to your perceived limits, are why we came to this world. Believe it or not, comfort and satisfaction is not the goal. Growth is the goal.

As such, I am able to know, even when its hard, that this is valuable and I am being challenged, not punished.  

I just need to keep asking G-d for his assistance and healing. It really works, and it's also good for me to remind myself of exactly on Whom I am relying.