Food Friday- back in the kitchen at last

Being away has its pleasures. it is really nice to be in charge of your own food though.

This was the rub that went onto the chickens.

Let me see if I can remember what actually went into this now that mixing up this melange of spices took place many hours ago. I think but can't swear to it that this was made with sweet paprika, smoked paprika, sumac, cayenne turmeric and black pepper.

This was the result.

This was also a challah baking week. A friendly reminder to those of you new to challah baking. Make your strands short and then pull the strands as you braid. Long and skinny braids make for anemic looking challah.

Pull the strands hard, as if you are a mean and impatient mother walking down Broadway with a pokey child. My older son and I once witnessed such a mean mother and child. My son was horrified. Years later I taught him how to properly braid challah by pretending to be the mean mother, grab a challah strand and yell "C'mon you lousy kid!" as he pulled the dough. It helped him to create a lovely braid.

Today sent out thank you notes to the various people who were gracious to us while we were away.

One friend was especially gracious and lent us her home for several days.

I enhanced this challah cover. The text is the Friday night kiddush. The text has been calligraphed on maroon silk shantung. The striped borders are Italian tie silks. The printed border is a silk shantung that I have built up with layers of block printing and embellished with a bit of machine embroidery.

I packed up my thank you gift

and sent it off at the post office.

On the way home I saw this.

I couldn't tarry too long because I knew I needed to make dessert.

I am sure that there is a name for what I made. I am sure that this dessert is part of the Central European dessert repertoire. There might be such a dessert in the English cookery with a name like flim flam, or burkle because old-time English desserts so often sound like they were named by children.

I did just wing this thing which is a meringue enhanced with breadcrumbs with mixed berries baked inside. Hopefully, I will be able to unmold this prettily on a plate. Otherwise, we will eat an ugly and delicious dessert. There are worse fates than eating an ugly but delicious dessert.

The cake emerged from the pan. If I were my mother I would fill the center with fresh berries or with a cut glass bowl of cooked berries to serve over each slice

Shabbat Shalom!

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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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