Heading Towards the New Year

 

This weekend our summer came to an end and we now turn towards the New Year. I have been practicing shofar. You can hear me on the second day of the holiday if you come to my synagogue. (I will be doing the big shofar blowing before Musaph.)

Thursday I walked into my local pharmacy to ask if I could get the new COVID vaccine. I didn't need an appointment and the pharmacist suggested that I also take the second half of  the shingles vaccine and my flu shot at the same time.  I think we were both worried about the future availability of vaccines in this country. Three vaccines at one time is a whole lot for one body to absorb. Luckily I didn't have all that much to do, so I could spend my weekend doing very little except feeling crummy.

So yesterday, after several days off line, so to speak, I was ready to start the rest of getting ready for the High Holidays. My husband and I did another pre-holiday adventure to Bingo, the kosher version of Costco.

As soon as we parked the car we saw this sukkah in the parking lot available for sale. We saw many versions of this exact sukkah  in Ashkelon two years ago. I still find the Christmas-sy garlands stars and balls to be enormously amusing.

I have spent enough time with young boys to find this product name amusing.

I did not buy this product. I am baking my own on Sunday.

Their fruits and vegetables at Bingo are beautiful, really spectacular. I didn't take photos of the meat displays but I purchased lots of it.

A fellow shopper explained to me several times that when she cooks a roast she wraps it twice in foil, then twice in Saran wrap and then again in foil to get a really juicy roast. Maybe it works for her, but I don't like eating food cooked in plastic. All of us buying meat were a bit puzzled by the names of the meat cuts (all of them were unfamiliar to all of us) but we all did the best that we could and just purchased lots of meat.

One of my favorite things about shopping at Bingo are the products made for a very tiny market.

This pressed foil object is made to hold one particular kind of havdalah candle. 

In my household, we just crumple tin foil to the right proportions.

Below is a tiny disposable set of candles for Shabbat and Havdalah.

Here is a tray to catch hairs when trimming hair and beard. In our house we use newspaper. I was amused that this product is being distributed by a music company. One doesn't usually associate hair cutting equipment and music.

I loved that they sold two different really loud alarm clocks.

At other times I have seen Bingo selling alarm clocks that don't disturb the other person sleeping in the room with you so a husband can wake up early to go to services and not awaken his wife. I guess that kind of clock didn't work all that well and religious men overslept.

There was a display of toy and real shofarot.

I was tempted to test out one of the shofarot but ultimately did not.

I admired the sets of Menchies.

 There are books to purchase for little kids where the illustrations seem to be Menchies!

I have a dear friend who collects these sets. I just own one and admire the new sets that I see.

Some brilliant person put together a set of  plushies for a young child to bring to services during this season.

This is what is inside.

If I had grandchildren I would have bought one.

If you don't already candle sticks you can purchase this gold and silver plated one.

You can purchase an acrylic mountable plaque with the prayer one recites after leaving the bathroom printed on it. 

 Traditionally at services men will often use a "shtender" in modern parlance it is a standing desk used during services Bingo offers several versions of shtenders to be used in the home when one prays at home.

I particularly liked the  "Shtendable" that can be used when sitting or standing and it even folds up into a briefcase. I was less impressed with the shtender displayed next to  the "Shtendable" with a clock  because the clock isn't visible when the shtender is being used.

Despite all of the wonders at Bingo that we didn't exactly need we were both disciplined and only purchased things we actually needed.

Once I got home I started phase one of cooking.

Someone on a Jewish food Facebook group I belong to asked what new foods people are cooking for the holiday. I wrote that my goal is to recreate the aromas and the flavors of my childhood home at this season. It isn't that every aspect of my childhood was so wonderful but, perhaps irrationally, I hope that if my children absorb the aromas and flavors of  the High Holiday season they will also absorb the best of my memories of the holidays.

I made the meat tzimmes that is as much part of the season for me of the season as the traditional musical modes.

I also made a vegetarian version of the tzimmes.

This is the beginning of the process of making stuffed cabbage, steaming the leaves off of the cabbage head.

First I made a batch of vegetarian stuffed cabbage( not pictured but cooking away in my oven as i type).

I then got to work turning the ground beef and ground lamb that I bought yesterday 

into stuffed cabbage.

Below the pan is about half way full. This is the pan that I usually cook my Thanksgiving turkey in.

I ran out of cabbage leaves and finished the pot off with the rest of the chopped meat mixture just rolled into meatballs. the whole thing will cook for a few hours.

I hope that as you prepare for the holidays you feed both your bodies and your souls.