The Key to Good Hollie

Hollie is what my Grandpa Al called the traditional Sabbath bread also known as challah.  You know, that gutteral "ch."  Hollie to me is actually Holly, who is a new friend of mine.  (Hi, Holly!)

This week is the first Shabbat after Passover and an old but only recently popularized custom is that of the "shlissel challah" or , key challah.  The idea is that you bake a challah in the shape of a key, or, alternately, bake a key directly into the challah.  One of the explanations given is that the key will open up the gates of heaven for the next 7 weeks until the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. 

Early this morning I remembered the shlissel challah, whipped up some dough, and even got the big kids to shape some loaves.  Glad they fit it in before the bus. 

I wonder if Grandpa Al knew of this custom or learned about it during his youth at Chaim Berlin Yeshiva.  For some reason, I doubt it.  But I know he would have chuckled at the joke my dear husband Stango offered up this morning as I pulled out the last loaves from the oven.  Something that I should do more often.  Shlissel while you work. 

no keys in here, but these are the loaves shaped by the 3 children shown above.  Nistar's is the top.  Ezra's is the bottom left, with help from his big sis.  Eli's is the bottom right.

Kinderlach's challahs baked and finished product

will be needing this spare house key!

for those who care about sepsis, indeed we wrap the key

I do the traditional three strand braid

wow, I had a manicure last week!

peekaboo, I see you, key!

I braid from the center.  See the key?

moving right along...

almost there

I flipped it over after braiding

I also shaped one in the shape of a key.  I brushed the loaves with an egg-oil-chopped onion-salt mixture.  Yummy onion taste, thanks again to dear Leah Shemtov for that tip

Whelp, that's all folks.  Thinking of Grandpa Al, and Grandma Martha, all of blessed memories, since I mentioned Grandpa Al above.  Hope they enjoyed my handiwork!  Good Shabbes to everyone on the planet and in the past in the future and all the energy bodies everywhere.

Here are my Grandma Martha and Grandpa Al, at my bat mitzvah, sitting in center.  Other dear family members include, from left to right, by couple:  Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Murray , Aunt Henny and later husband Dave, aforementioned Grandma Martha and Al , and Grandma Mayme and Grandpa Archie .  May all their memories be for a blessing.  Miss all these good people.  What a nice representation of families.

Hostess Gift #1: Glendale Organic Grape Juice & Taza Chocolate

We get invited to friends' homes frequently for Shabbat lunch on Saturday afternoon after synagogue.  There is always good food, many children, and yummy challah involved.  The traditional gift to bring is a bottle of wine or other readily edible food for that meal, but I put together something a little more original.

Glendale Farm Grape Juice from the Finger Lakes, NY with waiter-style table crumber.  Buy NOW as by Passover 2012 it will no longer be under the O-U

Organic Glendale Farm Grape juice, 2010 vintage.

Waiter-style table crumber

Tag made from PEZ candy cardboard package.

Bringing to our hosts for shabbat lunch.

Table crumber is essential for the challah crumbs!  Easily found in Judaica stores and Kosher food markets.  Or, just ask your waiter at Maialino if he has an extra to spare.

With children, grape juice is a necessity for the kiddush (blessing over the wine).  It is a 100% acceptable substitute.  It's even legit for adults to use it.

Enter the upscale organic Kosher grape juice.  Mix half with seltzer for a "juicy beverage," or, what many folks might know better as a spritzer.  Call it homemade soda, it's all the same goodness.  We have been buying this for years at Fairway in New York City.  It is available via special order through Whole Foods on the East Coast.  You need to order a case, and only this size bottle, 22 ounce, is available.  [If you are familiar, they used to be in a bottle that looked like the Santa Cruz juices bottle (not kosher),  but those days are currently over].

I spoke with the proprietor of Glendale Farm recently. He explained that the juice is now in a bottle that looks like his competitor Kedem (which, in my opinion taste-wise doesn't stand any comparison) because the Orthodox Union gave him no other option.  This is getting political and not my bag...

He was not bought out by Kedem.

He is hoping to get certification for his 2012 vintage with the OK Laboratories.

I plan to bring one bottle from my stash coupled with a nice bar of Parve Taza chocolate (also available at Whole Foods).

Taza chocolate is Parve, organic, made locally in Somerville, MA, under the OU

Go here to see more Taza Chocolate

Go here to see more Glendale Farms  (he is a small company, very under-the-radar, but highest quality).

I Am Jewish by Andrew Lustig

This comes from my mom's Syracuse Facebook friend...

 


Start at 1:00b to get past the intro.

My mom isn't such a big fan of when Andrew says "I'm the $100 challah cover that you'll never use."

Mom:  "What does that mean?  Why don't you use your challah cover?  At least put it in a frame."

Yep, that's right, go to 1:43 and this fellow Jew is also, "going to all 3 Phish shows this weekend."

Andrew:  you do know that there were 4 Phish shows over New Years, right?  I imagine you said that because you didn't go to the one on Friday night.  But, then, why weren't you using your challah cover?

Makin' Challah, or, Challah Life with Jade

Remember that old SNL skit, "Makin' Copies?"

Well, this isn't that.

This morning I made challah.  It is one of the 3 special mitzvot dedicated especially for woman.  I most gratefully thank Leah Shemtov for teaching me, in conjunction with my own reading in the Spice and Spirit Cookbook (which phans so avidly refer to it as the "purple cookbook"  no joke), the specifics of how to carry out this very holy act which will bring great peace to one's own home and the world.

This is the dough at 8:08am this morning (see clock).  I mixed up the dough sometime in the middle of the night, around 2:40am perhaps.

This is the actual challah.  The word itself, challah, or in Hebrew lihafrish means "to separate."  So, this is the piece I pulled off of the main big batch.  Notice it is next to the big bowl in photo #1 as well.  This is just a close-up.

Next, you burn it to a crisp in remembrance of the destruction of the Holy Temple (Beit haMikdash) in Jerusalem.  It is a sign of being hopeful for the rebuilding of the 3rd Temple, a time of redemption.   I know this sounds very, very, very bizarro to the untrained ear and mind.  But I am starting to make more sense of this part of the holy act (that is, after all, one of the meanings behind the word mitzvah).  Just the fact that I have posted my challah making this morning tells me the time is closer.  We'll get there.

Unbaked, braided loaves

Paint with egg.  Thanks again to Leah Shemtov; this egg brush is a product of her most excellent program at the Chabad House of Stamford.   Notice also mama's last remaining purple nail polish from last week!  (mama being me, Loony)

Aw, sweet sweet boy. He is a yum-bun.
This, my phriends, is The Wolfman's Brother.  He is almost 4 1/2.  He is making a robot challah.

Said robot.  Pretty spacey, right?  Do you see the two eyes and the tentacles? Pretty out there and phunky!



And, ladies and gentleman, the Pièce de résistance...

Challah Life with Jade.  (sorta like Still Life With Apples?   Cézanne anyone?  Do you know that I *still* have never made it to the Getty, where said painting resides?  The Original Bandana Boy (in my own existence) lived right near there but at the time of our acquaintance it was either closed or we couldn't get tickets.)

In wanting to capture an artful look at my homemade challahs, I just "grabbed" (though it isn't nice to grab) one of Stango's jade plants on the windowsill.  But since nothing happens by chance and everything happens for a reason, I ask the Nunever to really think deep and hard at the fact that I just seemingly randomly took a Jade plant.  Indeed, I was in a rush as it is Friday morning and the last thing I should be doing is blogging about interconnectivity, blah blah blah.

It is weird, I texted Jade the other night after we saw her at the end of the NYE 12/31/11 show that I don't use Jade (I like using her real name but then again the name I call her by isn't her original anyway...and hey Nun, neither is yours!).  Ask her if I wrote something to that effect.

However, it seems apropos that I have a Jade plant and I do hope that Jade and the Nunever will make an appearance on the Whole Phamily scene because it pretty much seems like the stars are aligned.

No, I don't know much about astrology.  But I asked Schwee about it last shabbes.  He knows a lot, but women like Cute Indian Girl and PurpleGirl and other women out there know more.  I don't want to misrepresent him.  But he is a scientist and he believes in physics and formulas.  And yet, Schwee is pretty much out of this orbit.  PurpleGirl, do you remember at mine and Stango's wedding, the guys who were rapping the machetunim song?  Schwee is one of those dudes.  Really smart, really out there.  Really not intimidated by that stuff any more because we can all benefit.  I mean, the dude is an Argentinian (or I could sound highbrow and say Argentine) tango dancer!

Nunever.  Jade.  Like my Mid-century kitchen furniture?