I had this at a men’s cooking class with Kavana recently, need to remember to make these myself after Pesach (Passover):
Thanks Michael… They were fantastic.
Sent this email to some co-workers who were interested this morning, thought it might be generally interesting to more (though I’ve posted similar things in the past)
Since you were interested, (or at least I discussed with you) in the crazy food rules of the next week for me for Passover – it’s once a year, so I may have sent similar links last year.
(The holiday of Pesach, or Passover, celebrates God’s freeing the Jews from bondage in Egypt (through the leadership of Moses). A lot of this is around making sure we eat only Matzah, and not bread, as Matzoh is made with flour and water, prepared and baked very quickly so that it never has the chance to rise. Matzoh is identified on the one hand as the “bread of affliction” and “poor man’s bread,” being an extremely humble, plain sort of food that recalls the days of slavery; on the other hand, it also symbolizes freedom, as it was eaten by the Jews as they hurriedly left Egypt for good.)
Here’s a good general overview of rules of food on Passover: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/kosher1.html
If you want a major detailed version, here’s the local Seattle (Orthodox, so more observant than I, but I follow most of these rules) guide: http://seattlevaad.org/uploads/passover_directory_5768-2008.pdf
non-pdf: http://seattlevaad.org/Passover_5768.html
Key words to understand that guide – let me know if you any other words you want translated:
- Ashkenazim/Ashkenazic – Jews from an Eastern Europe background (I am)
- Sephardim/Sephardic – Jews from a Spanish background (think Inquisition time period) – more liberal for the holiday rules
- Chametz – bread, or technically, anything made from one of 5 biblical grains other than matzah
- Kitniyot – legumes, corn, etc… okay for Sephardim to eat, but not Ashkenazim
- Matzah – think a cracker like substance. I brought some in last year for all. Likely will do again. Or you can just see me eating lunch starting Monday for the week…
And no, we are not changing the food we feed Molly, our dog, though technically, we are supposed to. That rule is stupid. She’s a dog, not a person.
While Purim is the next major Jewish holiday (tonight in fact), it seems to be never too early to start thinking about Passover (Pesach) and the rules surrounding it. In the past, I’ve always had a series of blog postings on the holiday, so might as well start now.
This came up even more last night; over the past few months, I have been participating in Kavana Seattle’s Living Room Learning, a weekly Jewish Text study in the living room of community members (or more likely, our Rabbi, Rachel Nussbaum’s). I have not gone every week, but have been trying to go fairly regularly – it has been a great group of people analyzing the text, but none of which are true text scholars; so it is not scary like some other groups I have seen in the past. I really enjoy it.
A few months ago, the group decided to transition away from Torah study, and focus on Mishnah (Talmud) study, as it tends to have more practical impact on our daily lives, and it is an area of study most of us had never done. To start, we’ve focused on Mishnah Peach, one of the rabbinic texts (written in the 2nd century of the Common Era) focusing on Passover customs & observance, so right up my alley of interest.
Last night, we analyzed Chapter 10, which focuses on the actual rules and order of the Seder (the Passover Meal).
However, we soon realized that this year has some different rules, due to the fact that Passover starts on Saturday evening this year, and thus, runs in Shabbat (the Sabbath) starting right before it, which complicates things, especially regarding the prohibition against having or eating Chametz (leavened bread) during the holiday and also in the day before the holiday; which conflicts with the rules to eat 3 full meals on Shabbat itself. There’s also an issue of a Fast Day (no eating/drinking/etc… that first born sons are supposed to follow the day before the holiday as a memorial for the felled Egyptians who lost their first born sons as the last plague), which also conflicts with the Shabbat meal requirement.
As none of us were quite sure how this all works in this scenario, and being curious, I just looked up a bunch of rules… I’m following up with my Rabbi to see how Conservative rules differ from the Orthodox ones, but here they are:
http://www.arzeidarom.org/hilchot.html has a bunch of good insight (Orthodox rules; not sure how it varies among other denominations), as does the Seattle Va’ad (http://www.seattlevaad.org/Motzaei_Shabbat.html, again Orthodox rules, not sure how it differs), but here are a few key notes I see…
Fast of the First Born (according to Congregation Arzei Darom):
“It is customary for the firstborn to fast Erev Pesach. However this year since Erev Pesach falls out on a Shabbat the fast for the firstborn takes place on Thursday April 17.”
Meals on Shabbat/Searching/Burning Chametz (according to Seattle Va’ad):
“Bedikat Chametz (Search for Chametz) takes place on Thursday night before Shabbat in the same manner as any other year and with the recitation of the bracha. In order not to distinguish the burning of the chametz from any other year, it is destroyed on Friday morning.”
“Although the Shulchan Aruch states that we perform the procedure of Biur Chametz (Burning of Chametz) of Friday, nevertheless enough chametz food can be left over for the Shabbat meals on Friday night and Shabbat morning.
For Ashkenazim concerned with the problem of having chametz on Shabbat, after the procedure of Biur Chametz was completed, egg Matzah may be substituted for bread on Friday night and Shabbat morning (See Igros Moshe I, paragraph 155). Although Ashkenazi Jews are prohibited from egg Matzah during Pesach, that does not include the morning of Erev Pesach. The eating of egg Matzah according to HaRav Moshe Feinstein, OBM, should stop at the same time it is forbidden to eat chametz. “
Working from home today, in order to get some private time to work on my team’s annual reviews, I found myself in need of a change of location to keep my productivity up. Since I knew I had to be in Redmond at 6 pm for my friend’s bachelor dinner, I decided to head that way and beat traffic.
I stopped at the Redmond Library due to their free WiFi, and immediately noticed they had a pretty nice coffee vending machine (not quite the same look as the picture, but you get the idea). I rather enjoyed my cafe latte with medium strength and 1 sugar, thank you very much (and even more so that they had separate buttons to figure this all out).
Which brought me to a question that perplexed me – how come you see these vending coffee machines that serve liquid in a cup, but never see vending machines for pop/soda that do the same thing? They are always in cans or bottles. It is even more perplexing since there is always the drink machines (such as the picture on the right) at fast food places and other food establishments, but they aren’t acting as vending machines in those contexts. Anyone have any ideas?
(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later- actual written time, 8:33 AM, Dec 11)
(And yes, this is a safe-for-work story even though it may not seem like it as it progresses)
After the last car-magical-starting experience, I thought I should drive the car around for a bit just to rebuild the battery up since I had probably drained the battery a bit by trying to start and stop it so much.
So driving up Highway 99, I made my way up to Shoreline, where I turned around, and decided to grab a latte before heading home.
I pull over into one of those drive-through stands, where you have the person in the booth serving you coffee.
As I pullup, but before I could place my order, I hear the barista-lady say to me: “Oh sorry!” as she pulls off her sweater, and leaves herself wearing a see-through white T-shirt and a flowery bra. I say: “No problem”, but am not really sure what the apology is for yet.
The next comment from her is one that I will remember forever: “Sorry – normally I am not wearing much of anything, but I’ve worked 6 straight days and was just tired today.” I’ll be honest – that’s not something I’ve ever had a coffee barista apologize to me for.
Highly confused, I look around the rest of the booth, and notice pictures of scantilly clad women on the roof of the booth, and all of their specials have suggestive names. I order a generic latte, which Kate, as she informs me her name is, decorates with a sticker of lips on the opening in the cup, along with a sticker advertising the coffee shop on the side. I drive away, highly confused, but determined to lookup the store when I get home.
Turns out the http://www.thesweetspotcafe.com is part of a growing trend in Seattle of barista-babe coffee shops where they use sexual suggestion to sell coffee. Apparently, it does very well in repeat business (i.e. men coming by every morning), and pulling people away from Starbucks, getting press recognition from USA Today, Northwest Cable News, MSNBC, and Fox News. They also get a ton of inquisitive (men, I assume) people stopping by “just to check it out.”
Fascinating (albeit strange) branding strategy – I wonder what the long term success rate will be. That said, the brand is highly, highly confusing when you are just an accidental drive-by customer. I somehow suspect I won’t get too many waitresses apologizing for wearing too much clothing elsewhere in the future!
