It was great to get back to baking challah.
This week our meal will be eaten some at our table and some at a Shabbat table three blocks away.
There is something about food that is made to comfort friends who have recently gone through a loss.
There is a famous story about a king who eats at a Shabbat table. He loves the food and asks his hosts for the recipe so the meal can be recreated at his palace. The recipes are given and the food is prepared by the palace chefs. The meal is somehow lacking. It just isn't as delicious as it was in the simple Jewish home. the king demands to know what spice was omitted from the recipes. After a bit of thought, the king is told that the special spice is Shabbat.
I don't know the truth of that famous story. I can say that I coordinated meals for mourners at my synagogue for years. I can't tell you how often a person who had volunteered to cook would tell me that the soup or the lasagna they had made for a Shiva house ended up being the best they had ever made. I will say that when I make a meal for someone as a meal of comfort I think about them, their loss and my relationship with them while I make them their meal. Tonight's meal was one of those meals. made with many thoughts of love and caring. My friends also got some chocolate meringues to help soothe them from their loss. We are not so sad so fruit will be sufficient for us.
Last night I finished the atara for the Ethiopian tallit.
All of the loose threads will be trimmed.
I could not be happier.
There is a famous story about a king who eats at a Shabbat table. He loves the food and asks his hosts for the recipe so the meal can be recreated at his palace. The recipes are given and the food is prepared by the palace chefs. The meal is somehow lacking. It just isn't as delicious as it was in the simple Jewish home. the king demands to know what spice was omitted from the recipes. After a bit of thought, the king is told that the special spice is Shabbat.
I don't know the truth of that famous story. I can say that I coordinated meals for mourners at my synagogue for years. I can't tell you how often a person who had volunteered to cook would tell me that the soup or the lasagna they had made for a Shiva house ended up being the best they had ever made. I will say that when I make a meal for someone as a meal of comfort I think about them, their loss and my relationship with them while I make them their meal. Tonight's meal was one of those meals. made with many thoughts of love and caring. My friends also got some chocolate meringues to help soothe them from their loss. We are not so sad so fruit will be sufficient for us.
Last night I finished the atara for the Ethiopian tallit.
All of the loose threads will be trimmed.
Lovely tallit because it involves the whole story to this stage and points to the future- and is still understated enough to please a young man!
ReplyDeleteI love how sharing you are with your food. May your friends be especially comforted in their grief.
Sandy
Our friends who we cooked for are the ones that brought me a Jerusalem kugel, sweet and peppery on the crummy day I came home to New York to sit Shiva for my mother. Our bus came back two(!) hours late so I missed Friday night services and the sweet solemn bit where mourners are invited into the community. I was so sad, and angry at the stupid traffic. But that kugel made me feel that at least people loved me.
ReplyDeleteNow I am doing fussy work on the corner pieces, because i was unhappy with what they looked like so far. more to show tomorrow ( I hope)