Food Friday---Went to a funeral mass edition

 First a review of last week's Shabbat dinner-- also known as FleishFest. It was delicious and festive. 

I admit that I made an insane amount of meat. Despite sending all of my kids home with meat there were several days this week when my husband and I ate meat for both lunch and dinner to make a dent in the leftovers. We still have a bag of frozen pigs-in-blankets in the freezer if you have a craving for some--they are yours.

This has been a week of life cycle events. I attended (virtually) the wedding of a cousin in Israel. There is something so profound about seeing faces of people I love on people a generation or two or three younger.

We virtually attended the shiva of the father of a synagogue friend and last night and this morning I attended funeral services for the father of one of our doormen. Mass this morning was in this 

 beautiful church that manages to make you feel both enveloped as well as giving you the sense of the infinite at the same time. The core of a mass is essentially kiddush and motzi, the sanctification of the bread and the wine.  The mass is kiddush and motzi elevated to high theatre. Today also made me think about processing as a religious act. We followed the casket into the church, people processed to get the sacrament and then at the end of the service we processed out of the church following the casket again.

After I got home from the funeral I got to work forming the last challot I will be making until after Passover.

This batch is stuffed with a mix of dried cranberries, dates, prunes, poppyseeds vanilla, orange juice, and sour salt all briefly cooked in the microwave and then whizzed in the food processor. It is jammy but not terribly sweet.   The poppyseeds make me feel close to my Eastern European roots. It is funny, this mixture and the one I made for filling hamentaschen isn't exactly traditional but I think it would taste familiar to any of my grandparents or great grandparents.

Here are the challot, stuffed and waiting to go into the oven.

And here they are baked and stacked.

I just pulled our spicy cod out of the oven. It is made with gochujang, honey, and chopped fresh ginger. I tasted the sauce and I think I need to make a bland grain to absorb some of the heat.

We are having a big green salad and that's Shabbat dinner.

I have been working away on both the wings tallit and the Torah mantle but haven't the energy to post about them right now. Just know that progress has been made even if I haven't written about it.

Shabbat Shalom!