And now for the food segment of this broadcast

 Through all of the mad sewing of this past week I still had to get ready for Rosh haShanah. 

As always my journey towards self reflection begins with cooking vast quantities of food. I stated this year's journey by consulting the flyleaf of my Settlement Cookbook.

These are the notes I took during a long ago rambling conversation with my mother. Do not follow my mother's instructions regarding amounts. The correct amount for each item on the list is more. I  brown the onion and the meat on the stove top and then just put my covered roasting pan in the oven on a low temp---for a long time.

This is a before shot. I have replaced the white potato with yucca and other mystery tubers because I love my potato allergic son in law.

Here are two stages of after...

cooked and then in the freezer.

I ended up with three gallons of tzimmes.

At some point I baked challah.

I didn't have the mental energy for cute shapes. They are round. this year--- that's good enough. The loaves are filled with the oddly named Tunas fig jam. I  doctored up the flavor and texture by heating up the jam with vanilla and ginger and a bit of tapioca starch.

The same big roasting pan was also used to cook stuffed cabbage. I didn't consult a cook book but just my memory.  My memory failed me in terms of taking photos of either the finished result or the process.

When Shawna would join us for Rosh haShanah she would often bring her spectacular apple cake. It was an impossibly tall cake studded with apple slices. The cake was moist because Shawna would soak the cake with half a bottle of bourbon. It was the best thing to eat to celebrate the new year. I had thought about trying to recreate that cake. It was however too soon after Shawna's death to make it or even eat it.  I think that it would make us all cry. 

My daughter is making honey cake. I had thought that perhaps I would make an apple and honey flavored non dairy ice cream. But my fruit guy was selling beautiful damson plums. all thoughts of the apple and honey ice cream left me. I would make a Rosh haShanah plum tart like all of my late German buddies. 

I made a crust using coconut oil for the fat. I used a mix of ground faro and white flour, brown sugar, a pinch of salt and probably some spices as well in the crust. 

Ideally I would have had some apricot jam in the fridge. I did not. Instead I used the dregs of the pomegranate jam i had bought for Passover, and some lovely raspberry jam melted together with a bit of citric acid for a bit of brightness.

I laid out the plum halves over the jammy dough and then constructed a custard. This is for a meat meal so dairy is out. I used some white wine for the liquid in the custard and flavored the mixture with more brown sugar, vanilla and autumnal spices. I think I remember seeing wine used in such a way in old cookbooks. I don't think that I completely made that up.

Right after baking it looked like this.

After cooling for more time the plums shriveled up a bit.

I cut the tart into four pieces. and did sneak a taste off the knife. The wine is amazing in the custard.

One of the things that drove me crazy about eating at my late mother in law's is that she was such a nervous hostess. There was never one protein, or one vegetable or one starch. she always worried that perhaps the guests would prefer a different choice.

So I thought about my late mother in law as i used that granite-wear roaster again this mornign and put up a tray of chicken thighs.

I am not suffering from Jewish hostess syndrome and preparing an insane amount of food for our guests. This isn't for one meal but these meals should take us until after Yom Kippur.

I still have to buy apples and vegetable matter for the first night. but we are now OK for the holiday. I love how these meals remind me so much  of my mother cooking these foods each high holiday season, my mother's memories of learning how to cook these dishes in 1950s Halifax, my dear friends Herta nd Ida who baked the plum tarts each year to remember their own childhoods in Berlin and in Hungary. There is also the very absent apple cake which for this year I will just have to taste in my memories.