Connecting with the past

The other day I got a call from a very nice woman who tried to schedule an appointment with me. She is not someone who celebrates the Jewish holidays. I explained that i wasn't able to meet with her until after the High Holiday season is over because during three of the four weeks this month I am preparing for  the equivalent three Thanksgiving dinners on three consecutive evenings. I didn't tell her that this week we have the equivalent of one of those dinners eaten much to early and much too quickly followed by another about 27 hours later. All the food for all the meals needs to be stored in my apartment sized fridge.

Much of tonight's eaten much too fast  before the fast dinner is more of the food I had prepared for Rosh Ha Shanah, beef, stuffed cabbage and chicken.We will also eat some vegetable matter and some dessert.

Yesterday I began the ritual of the cholesterol death Kugel. My mother got this recipe from her friend Temi. There are many recipes for this sort of sweet dairy kugel. Temi's version is special because of it's unrestrained lush use of butter fat in many forms.

This is the dairy stuff that went into the kugel, not including a stick of butter. Not every bit of what is pictured got included, but nearly all of it did.

Unlike Temi, I made my own noodles. I like how my pre-holiday physical labor will become what sustains the people I love at the end of their fast. On Rosh HaShanah my husband gave a d'var Torah about thinking about god both as Aveinu, our father, and Malkeinu, the king.

I think of this kugel as being a food that perfectly expresses the best of maternal love.

My tools for noodle making are simple.

Noodle dough is quickly made but needs a rest before it is shaped.  I cut off a bit of rested dough.

and rolled it until it was thin.

I roll the sheet of noodle  up and cut. I like my noodle kugel with wide noodles.

The noodles dry on a tea towel until there are enough to make the kugel.

After more rolling and cutting, the dough is all rolled out and cut.

I had pre heated the pan with a stick of butter put into the pan to melt. Once the oven was pre headet, the butter was melted. I added the noodles to the bottom of the pan.

The dairy has been mixed with eggs (8) some sugar (you want this to barely sweet), salt  (a pinch) and vanilla.

The egg and dairy mix get poured over the noodles and butter in the pan. I ought to have done a better job mixing, so do a better job than I did. Top the pan with lots of cinnamon, allspice and ground cloves. I added a bit of sugar as well. 

Bake at 350 until the center is barely set.

Once it was cooled I cut up the kugel wrapped it up and put it in the fridge where it is waiting to comfort us after the hardships and abstinence of Yom Kippur.

We will also eat some lemon ginger cake.