Food Friday- some hamentashen thoughts

Like everyone else who is on the internet, my Facebook feed these days is filled with ideas for hamentashen. I assume that those of you who bake will be pulling out recipes this Sunday to have them ready to give out on Purim.

Before you start to bake, I am going to give you a gift.

The gift is a recipe for the best hamentashen on the planet. My friend Marla is a beautiful writer, a wonderful photographer, and a really excellent cook.

Marla's grandmother's Hamentashen The link includes both a lovely essay and the recipe. Make them

Hamentashen should be made out of a soft smooth fine-grained dough. I often describe it as leathery, I know that sounds gross but if you think not of shoe-leather but say fine kidskin but in dough form, that's what a good hamentash should be made out of. A crumbly sugar cookie has its place, but not connected to hamentashen.

My sister loves to tell a story of the elderly uncle of a friend who was in a coma. it looked like the end was near. It was nearly Purim and his nieces and nephews brought hamentashen to the hospital room. They yelled into their Uncle's ear,
" We brought you hamentashen." The Uncle opened his eyes, and said, "Hamentashen!let me have one'. They did and he lived for another few months, those hamentashen chased away the Angel of Death for a little while.

If I am ever in a coma, I will wake up for Marla's hamentashen, but not for the nasty crumbly ones.

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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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