Food Friday - Cleaning out the Fridge Edition

This week I was going through a copy of The New York Times Menu Cookbook by Craig Claiborne from 1966. I was deciding if I ought to keep it, or put it out on the give-away table in my lobby. Aside from the fussy- inefficiency of the recipes. Claiborne inevitably chooses a method that is time consuming and and difficult over easy and efficient methods.

The other thing that struck me was the recipe names. I realize that isn't how I cook at all.

Today I was cooking chicken for Shabbat. I checked out what I had in the fridge. I noticed that I had a pomegranate that was looking a bit exhausted. There were some apples in the fruit drawer that were less than delicious and an orange. I decided to throw all of them on the chicken. I opened the pomegranate into a bowl, peeled pithed and cut up the orange, cut up the apples and added them to the bowl. Then I added mustard, olive oil, Jamaican curry and a bit of honey and tossed that over the chicken. I suppose I could make up a name for the chicken, Multi-Culti Tutti Frutti chicken. Actually probably the best name for the chicken is -chicken with a whole bunch of about to go bad fruit.

I think I will get rid of the cook book.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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sarah in nyc

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