Tag: Chanukah

Hockey Puck Latkes on Chanukah? Oh The Humanity!

From time to time throughout life stuff happens for which there is no name. So as creative humans we find it necessary to make up a designation for a new disease or illness which medical science has not yet nor probably will ever recognize.

Thus I present to you a new sickness I contracted recently and from which I still suffer. Readers, may I introduce you to Latke Trauma?

No, I haven’t completely gone off the rails. Okay so I do teeter on the edge at times I admit, but this one is actually quite logical. I’m quite certain the same thing has happened to you as well. Only now we have a name for it instead of “Boy, that Christmas ham was so tough it turned me off ham for a year.”  May I present “Ham Trauma?” Or, “boy that awful tasting egg roll caused me to lose my appetite for Chinese food.” I give you “Egg Roll Trauma.”

Sorry, I never met a pizza I didn’t like so I guess that food would be exempt from such trauma. But latkes, sadly, are not.

At Chanukah meals it has long been the custom to allow the mighty latke to take either the lead, or a very important supporting role in a cast of yummy eats during the holiday.

Latkes, so rooted in tradition they call up the flavors of childhood even into old age. When one’s teeth are on their last legs they are still able to gum a latke down. Okay so it might take a bit more sour cream, or applesauce, but it’s well worth the effort.

So now that I’ve established how I feel about latkes you will better understand my illness.

Chanukah has just passed and I, as so many others, looked forward to chowing down on some crispy, perfectly fried latkes smothered in sour cream and or applesauce.

As we all know they always taste better at someone else’s house when you don’t have to fry them yourself and have the lingering smell of oil around for weeks.

So I was thrilled to be invited to a Chanukah party at a friend’s home and anticipating my first Chanukah latke of the year.

The crowd was large and platters of food covered the extensive table. But I was transfixed on only one thing. My eyes scanned the table for the golden discs with the perfect edges.

And then I saw them. Small yes, a bit oddly shaped, but uniform, with a large mound of applesauce in the middle of the platter.

I placed two on my plate and helped myself to the applesauce. Then I looked for the sour cream.

No sour cream. Refusing to panic I walked around the table thinking it must be somewhere else. No sour cream anywhere.

I looked in the kitchen on the island filled with foods and condiments, but none in sight.

My friend walked into the room and I asked her if she had sour cream to go with the latkes.

She wasn’t sure but checked the garage refrigerator and arrived back in the kitchen with a new container. Who serves Latkes without sour cream? I know but what can I say? She’s thin.

So I plopped a portion on my plate and set out to enjoy my first latke of 2024.

I placed my fork on the side of the latke and began pressing to release it from the whole. No movement. I tried again, but the latke was unwilling to part with any size piece at all. Perhaps a knife I thought.

I took a steak knife from the caddy and began sawing my way through the potato laden disc that had now taken on a rubbery consistency. I struggled to achieve a bite and when it finally came loose I dipped it into the applesauce and sour cream with great anticipation.

Now I don’t know about you, but at this age my teeth have cost quite a bit of money to keep in my mouth. Therefore, I am quite protective over each little molar and cuspid still hanging in there with me.

I bit down and the latke fought back.

Surprisingly it had a texture I struggle to find words to describe.

Okay, I’ll try…a gummy bear married a potato and they had a baby and it sat out in the dry air for a month.

It was painful. Oh, not just for my teeth, for my psyche.

It became instantly apparent I would be having no latkes. Quell disappointment!

But don’t cry for me Argentina, I drown my sorrows in jelly donuts, but I digress.

Now, despite the fact I have all the ingredients in my home within reach to create a generous supply of latkes, I have lost my taste for them. The memory of the hockey pucks disguised as latkes haunts me and has removed my craving for them in every way.

So although my waistline is happy about this new development, I can tell you my fat cells haven’t stopped bitching. Well they actually did when I started stuffing the jelly donuts into my mouth.

So although I will never have a vaccine named after me like Jonas Salk, I have managed to name a disease that afflicts us all at times.

“Favorite Food Trauma.” The only cure is the passage of time and for me at least, a jelly donut will always manage the pain.

If Only Life Was a Hallmark Movie

Unless you live on Mars, you or someone you know is watching Hallmark Christmas movies right now.

Men, women it doesn’t seem to matter, Hallmark has cornered the market on mushy and sentimental movies. By adding some fake snow, they cornered the Christmas market as well.

No wonder Hallmark starts its Christmas season in July.

Talk about the commercialization of Christmas!

Yet no one seems to mind.

There are of course other channels that run those schmaltzy two-hour tear jerkers, but Hallmark leads in finding the formula viewers will buy.

And formula is the operative word here.

It doesn’t matter to viewers that they are watching the same movie dressed in a new costume every time. They simply rehash the script, add some new Hallmark players as leads and viola. A new movie yeah, but not really.

We are all if nothing else creatures of habit. Hallmark, after selling us those syrupy cards our whole lives, knows what schmaltz we will embrace. And, of course in every Hallmark movie the embrace or Hallmark kiss as I call it, happens, wait for it, only at the end. There is usually an interrupted kiss somewhere along the line.

There is a definite formula that is followed to the letter in each movie. You can set your watch by it. Boy meets girl or now boy meets boy or girl meets girl, they dislike one another, or they click, both versions are available and lead to the same place. They fall in love, they solve a problem which depending on the season could be a pumpkin patch, strawberry field or school play problem. At Christmas there is a Santa Claus with nothing to do in December but help out one of the Hallmark players. So he makes Lacey Chabert or Jen Lilly fall in love with another player like Andrew Walker or Paul Campbell until it all falls apart. There is always a snippet of a conversation overheard and misunderstood, or a secret that should have been disclosed earlier that leads to a break up.

But rest assured all ends happy and the lovers reunite. The world is bright and then the Hallmark kiss at the end seals the deal.

It ain’t Shakespeare, but it sure seems to work.

Perhaps that’s why it does after all. The very fact we can count on every movie to end happy, have a Santa Claus to interfere, (because after all Santa has nowhere else to be at Christmas time), is actually a comfort of sorts. And there’s always holiday baking, tree trimming and a snowball fight to keep things real.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Royal movies where a prince or princess from some country ending in “ovia” falls in love despite his or her mother being dead set against a commoner in her palace. But of course in the end all is forgiven and crowns are placed on Hallmark stars’ heads.

There is no tension, no nail biting, no fear something is going to jump out and kill someone. Even the mysteries are charming and innocent. A woman, it’s always a woman, takes time out from catering, baking or running her flower shop to track down a killer. There is always a handsome cop to help her so no worries.

Oh sure they have become more inclusive, there is even a Chanukah movie or two with unlimited Yiddish words thrown in for good measure to ensure every base is covered.

So if we’ve seen every movie a thousand times, why do we keep watching? I’d have to vote on the fact it is so predictable that makes it so watchable.

Hallmark has not reinvented the wheel here. The Hallmark players, as I call them, are exactly the same as the contract actors Hollywood collected in the forties and fifties.

Stars were always attached to a major studio until later when they went rogue and became independent agents. Until then they cranked out movies every month or so. Actors like Bogart, June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Spencer Tracey and even Gable worked under contract to a major studio. An audience that attended an MGM musical could be certain Ann Miller would be tappy tapping alongside Bobby Van or Bob Fosse and Howard Keel would be belting out songs to leading ladies like Jane Powell or Katherine Grayson.

The familiarity and knowledge there would be no surprises brought audiences back again and again.

So is life like a Hallmark movie? No way and that’s why people watch them.

There is a kind of comfort in knowing that all will end well.

There are even humorous moments that seem to show up in certain Hallmark movies where actors kid one another and act like a family. It’s like the viewer is on the joke so we can laugh along.

Hallmark has latched onto a most seductive formula, certainty, escapism and optimism in an uncertain world.

And let’s not forget the pets. Dogs and cats are big in Hallmark world. Kittens and puppies populate the scene and nothing can lure you in faster than those adorable faces staring at you from a big screen. Lassie has come home on Hallmark.

Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt after all. It breeds viewers, sponsors and big bucks. I’d have to say no way is life like a Hallmark movie. That’s why we must rely on them to deliver us to a place where all is neatly wrapped up in a bow. Then deliver it all to us with a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine of reality go down easier.

Happy New Year everyone. I’m sure if you look you’ll find a Hallmark movie covering that holiday too.

Would You Live Your Life Over Again? Or is Once Enough?

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote a classic American novel entitled, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” These words seemed to resonate with most people who at times during their lives feel a need to return to their roots. To smell the smells, hear the noises and feel the feelings of being home again is enticing.

Of being in the safety and comfort of youth and innocence. A time when loved ones were still here and home meant warmth and security. A place to dream, plan and experience the excitement of a life not lived, but still only imagined. A future fraught with possibilities and a present filled with friends, fun and hope for the future.

I usually try to inject humor into my blogs, yet sometimes life isn’t funny. It’s sad, confusing and devastating. And perhaps that’s why I am suddenly drawn to memories.

I guess when you put it that way who wouldn’t want to go home again?

And yet as Wolfe reminded us, we can’t. These memories are a form of time travel transporting us back to happier times. And that realization is a moment of sadness. It fills us with a longing to return to our past we so covet and yearn to recapture. Memories keep the people and places we lost in our lives alive.

Oh, I’m not saying that we should live in the past, foregoing the present and future while wishing to go backward.

I’m just saying there are moments in life that seem to sneak up on us like a thief and rob us of the present. We find ourselves steeped in a memory.

But aren’t these recollections actually an important part of our present and future?

Isn’t what and who we are a product of what we were?

I myself find that there is no intention when these memories arise.

I will simply pass a store window and see a sofa and suddenly I’ll recall the living room of our first home. And I am drawn instantly back in time to the feelings and moments spent there. Of my late brother using the back of the couch as a horse pretending to be Hopalong Cassidy.

Or I could be watching a television show and see a bakery when suddenly I can smell the place on our corner I used to go with my mother to get bread and cakes. These feelings can be so powerful they stop us in our tracks and we are forced to remember, to experience, to luxuriate in the glow of our past.

So why does it seem at times we all desire a return to childhood. To innocence and hope?

Surely no one can honestly say they would like to go through it all again. To fight the war of existence and battles of becoming who we must be.

Eons ago as a teen I was watching a talk show and the host asked the audience how many would like to live their life over again.

Only a few hands were raised in response. I was shocked to see so many people would choose not to redo, to reconstruct their lives. I mean doesn’t everyone want a do over at times?

As I grew older, I fully understood the reason for their lack of enthusiasm reliving it all again.

I imagine a great part of that question and answer lies in the fact that as we age, we gain wisdom.

And a big part of that wisdom is understanding. Knowing if we went backward in time we’d have to repeat all our mistakes to gain the knowledge we now possess. The lessons, hard fought and difficult would certainly reoccur since we would lack the ability to know any better.

The caveat is I would like to go back knowing what I know now. So what’s the point?

What’s’ the point indeed?

What’s the reason that we stand transfixed when a sudden memory intrudes on the now? Perhaps memories are the way we do live our life over?

Still why are we sometimes filled with a longing to return to simpler times and familiar places?

Is it a flaw in our nature? Something that makes us want to escape the present instead of facing it head on?

I don’t believe that is the case.

I think these memories are a powerful reinforcement of our own humanity and the reality we are still in the world.

Most of us rarely sit and focus on how we became who we are. How we arrived in this place or achieved or failed at our goals.

Part of this may be the pain of knowing we can’t go back and change anything.

And perhaps that’s why we need to return so badly to the “then.” To a place where there is no reckoning, no judgement, no regret.

To feel that sense of freedom that the whole world lies before us and time is never ending.

That we have a lifetime to dream, hope and live. Or assured that years didn’t seem to fly by at an alarming rate as we stood by powerless and watched.

When we were kids, summer vacation seemed eons away. Christmas and Chanukah couldn’t come fast enough. November just dragged until we turned the calendar over to December.

Now we are faced with the fact the clocks speed along like a rocket and Monday becomes Friday in the blink of an eye.

We’re supposed to be psychologically healthy and grieve for our loved ones, yet afterward get on with life. That “life is for the living” is a mantra we all must adopt to be happy. Yet deep inside we question that is true.

If we’re honest with ourselves we fight against loss each day. When the past slips up on us in a memory, it is actually us giving in to the fact we miss happier times.

And that’s okay because that memory is a gift that allows us to revel in the past when we need comforting.

These moments we feel warmed by the happy times of the past us, the past them who are no longer here. Through these memories, they return and yes, it may be for only a few moments, but we need that time again. Who we are is what we were and who were in our lives.

To ignore this need goes against a pleasure in which we should all indulge.

So when you hear a bell ring, it’s okay to taste that Good Humor ice cream again. When you an old song plays it’s okay to dance and sing once more with friends while bouncing on your bed. When you taste a favorite food it’s wonderful to return to your family table once again and share a meal with loved ones.

It’s a necessary part of who we are and what we need to be us. To survive and thrive in a world that is too often unwelcoming and cold.

I wish everyone all the wonderful memories you require to feel the love and strength from what and who came before.

The Beatles Never Made Me Cry… Until Now

peppermitmandelcotti.jpg

The Beatles Never Made Me Cry. Until Now

The Beatles never made me cry. Until now.

I was not one of those screaming teens sobbing and beating their chest when the Fab Four performed their magic. Oh of course I sang danced and acted like someone on massive amounts of caffeine, but cry no.

I thought Eleanor Rigby was a sad song. What the hell did I know? I was a kid, merely in my teens when they hit the big time and took over the music world. I knew nothing because I hadn’t lived.

Now I see the song for what it is, true poetry. Sad, poignant and frighteningly true.

I am not a teen any longer; in fact so far from it I’d need a telescope to view my teens years again, so now I get it.

My question is, how did they?

The Beatles were young when they wrote their songs. How did they understand old age, loneliness and death?

Yes, I know John had the soul of a true artist. I still have his first book, but to understand the sadness that comes with the end of a lifetime, truly remarkable. I guess Paul was not just another pretty face because

I can’t listen to yesterday without crying now, but I imagine when you own so many yesterdays, you see things differently.

This is not intended as a mushy love letter by a star-struck fan, but a quiet revelation, like noticing a crocus on a warm spring day.

The new movie about them, Yesterday, speaks to their music and is less about them as to what they bestowed on the world. One can cast if off as a fun evening at the movies, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a reminder of genius, quality, poetry, and of a contribution to mankind that is always underestimated by those who undervalue the power of music and the arts. Perhaps too many of us need the reminding.

Of course the charisma of the Beatles can never be brought back without them as the carriers. We watch an award show when Sir Paul or Sir Ringo are marched out to receive a lifetime achievement award and there is the obligatory standing ovation. But the mystique, the energy, the grace that made them who and what they were can never be recaptured.

Their music is their legacy. Words like “all the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong” or “yesterday all my troubles seem so far away,” or “let it be,” or George Harrison’s love song to God, “My Sweet Lord,” even his uplifting “Here comes the sun,” filled with a hope and innocence we all wish we could recapture.

The beauty of the Beatles songs is they are uncomplicated and pure. There is no small talk, no complex meaning, just truth. It is life, truth and the human condition set to music.

And the world loved it. There is a reason why everyone everywhere craved more and was so touched by the depth of their message.

They reached other human beings in a way that was instant and universal.

Yes, I was a fan, but now I’m much more. I hear their music the way I view a Monet or a Picasso, or hear Bach. Perfect and complete.

And now I must go listen to “Dr. Pepper” while I clean the house, hopefully it will energize me some.

White Chocolate Peppermint Mandelcotti (Okay, so I made up the word

A mandel bread/biscotti Christmas and Chanukah recipe A Share the love special!

1 cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

3 1/4 cups flour

3 eggs

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon of peppermint extract

1 cup white chocolate

½ cup very finely chopped peppermint candy for inside recipe

¼ to ½ cup finely chopped peppermint for the topping

1 cup melted white chocolate for drizzling on top of cookies

 

Place oil and sugar in mixing bowl and mix well. Add eggs and mix until well until incorporated. Add extracts and mix.

Add baking powder and salt to flour and mix through

 

Add flour to wet ingredients in ¼ cups until done. Check for consistency. If dough is too wet add small amounts of flour until the dough has some body and isn’t loose.

Add white chocolate and peppermint and mix through.

Divide dough into four parts and form them into long rolls and place them on parchment paper.

Bake in 350 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes and check for doneness.

They will probably crack and be light brown on edges when done

Lower oven to 200 degrees

Let cookies sit for five minutes and cut into slanted slices. Separate them and place on baking sheet and bake until they are toasty to the touch, the longer in the oven the crunchier they will be so it’s a matter of taste. I like them to have a bit of softness left inside.

Let cool and melt chocolate.

Drizzle over cookies and then top with crushed peppermint while chocolate is still melty.

To give it a more holiday feel you can alternate the crushed peppermint on the top and use both green and red peppermint for a more Christmassy look.