Sabbath Meals

Shabbat cooking, right! meals 9/16-9/17/05

I have not been keeping up with posting my menus, recipes and recipe links. For one thing, my cooking is getting boring again, especially as I haven't been planning the menus in advance. This week the food was delicious, though, and I guess kind of typical of my Ashkenazi cooking.

red lentil soup (improvised)
carrot kugel (improvised)
baked tofu (improvised!)
rice noodles from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cookery
potato salad with pesto (improvised!)
steamed broccoli
fresh tomatoes (present from guests!)

The red lentil soup was a variation on the famous Claudia Roden recipe. I put a cup of lentils and four cups of water in the pot with a finely diced shallot, and cooked them together until the lentils were a fine purée, about 30 minutes. Then I added a teaspoon each of turmeric and cumin, a tiny pinch of powdered chili pepper, the juice of a lime (out of lemons!) and a can of the Muir Glen roasted organic tomatoes.

The kugel I also improvised using the famous "shit method." I grated about 6 carrots. I did it by hand because I just couldn't find the grater attachment to the food processor. I added a little less than a cup of wheat germ (of course, I am the wheat-germ-in-kugel person) a big spoon of tofu mayonnaise, four eggs, a dollop of honey and a big handful of yellow raisins. I baked it in my fabulous oval casserole dish on 375  (fahrenheit, because I am an American you know) for 40 minutes, until the top was nicely brown. My son really liked the kugel! He's often nervous about eating mixtures of things, but not this. Since it was little better than a carrot cake, it's not a surprise.

The baked tofu was two sliced cloves of garlic, sprinkle of soy sauce and sesame oil of random proportions, baked in oven with kugel. Why did it taste so great? Don't know. When the kugel and tofu looked done, I just turned the oven off and didn't take them out, so maybe that helped the tofu absorb more marinade.

I improvised the basil pesto for the potatoes (basil, walnuts, garlic, olive oil in food processor) and then the potato salad (boiled potatoes, pesto, champagne vinegar and more olive oil, salt.) But it was good. Better with the tomatoes from our guests' garden.

If you don't have the Julie Sahni book, it's not from my not having flogged it sufficiently. That rice noodle recipe is the best of a whole book of fabulous bests.

Sometimes I can cook well even when I don't feel like it.

What is community-building, really?

I wrote about Naomi Chana's shidduch that it was a wonderful instance of community building, and I was kidding. Though now that I think about it, there is no better way to build a community than to hook up community members so that they marry and maybe even have children together. It's a good way to get nice people to stay in your area. But that is not what I generally mean by "community building." It would be kind of like my mother, who through the many years that I was single used the words "social life" exclusively to mean "finding a husband," no matter how many times I misunderstood her.

In fact, inviting people to your Sabbath table is one of the best ways to build your Jewish community. Especially if you actually invite people to your home. I know that potlucks or catered oneg shabbat meals can make people feel close to one another. Nevertheless I find that inviting people into your messy house helps you to convey the idea that you want to get to know them. Even if they think it's weird that you are eating tofu instead of a cholent full of flanken. Even if you are religious and they are not. Not everyone wants to be proselytized to be Jewish in the way that you are, but they do want to be proselytized to nosh and hum, to hang out wiping the dishes dry at 5:30 PM on a dark winter afternoon post-Shabbos, talking about movies or philosophy or children. Hey, even if you are not religious and they ARE, if you provide an appropriate kosher meal and a warm friendly place to eat it, it will go a long way to making you friends.

Let me go one step further with this idea, before I let go of it to return to it later. Inviting your non-Jewish friends  for your  special ritual meal will help you build your personal community. I have been thinking of ways this was successful for me in the past. It's hard to extend yourself and let the most important, private part of your life be known. To me, it's very private that I am attempting to have some kind of relationship with God. I know people who aren't Jewish will think it's weird that I don't operate light switches on Shabbat (and that my husband does, that's complicated!).  In writing this I'm trying to remind myself of how welcome I have made people who aren't Jewish feel in my life by showing my authentic self. Sometimes it's so difficult to be real. Obviously, I'm not even giving my real name on this blog, I have some sense that it's not so safe, these days, to be a Jew in public. Anyway this is a direction I think I need to take things, because this is the time that we need to be thinking about building those bridges.

Invitations

How are you about this, dear readers? Do you invite people in advance, and plan a special meal for your guests, or do you pick up guests while you are at synagogue? Or do you almost never have guests for Shabbat, because it's your special family time?

Or do you have a regular guest? When I was growing up, our regular Shabbat guests were my grandmother and my great uncle. I looked forward to seeing them every week.

I am often smitten with regret because I figure "Oh, I won't have time to cook much this week" and then I do cook a lot and I haven't invited anyone over to eat it. Not everyone likes a last-minute invitation, and sometimes you can't get them to come over unless you make plans weeks ahead. I am sad about this because I find that if we invite people to our house for lunch after services, they come back to services! It makes a difference even if you only share a bowl of cold cereal (and of course the obligatory stale matzot for motzi! Or am I the only one who was charmed by such a meal?)

Let's see if keeping this blog makes me a little more organized about inviting people!

Welcome to my humble abode

I have a great idea. I would love to have a space on the internet where Jews can share our Shabbat meal ideas and experiences with each other. I am setting up this blog to share my own menus and recipes with you, and I am delighted to invite you to send me your menus and recipes via email for me to publish here.

Because of the principle found in Pirkei Avot 6:6, "One who properly cites sources brings redemption to the world", I don't want to violate copyright or fail to acknowledge the work of great cookbook writers. Plus it's a big pain to type in a correct copy of a published recipe when you could just refer people to the book. So intead I plan to link from posts here to websites where people can learn more about the source of a recipe. If the recipe is already online, I'll link it here. Of course what I am really salivating about is sharing original recipes--especially vegetarian ones.

I would also like to share snatches of Shabbat table conversation, Torah discussions, and other positive mitzvot and mellow Shabbat enjoyments.

I am Ashkenazi, vegetarian and I mostly cook pareve meals. I'm a new mom of one toddler. I'm a progressive, both in my Judaism and my politics. I also observe Shabbat and kashrut. You might be from a different background, eat differently, and do Judaism differently. Or maybe you are one of my non-Jewish friends whom I invited to come  enjoy  some virtual meals! You are very welcome here.