I'm Lighting Shabbat Candles For Israel, Meatballs and Meatstick

"Can I have meatballs," the Wolfman's Brother said just now.  "It smells so good," he continued as the smells of Shabbat are wafting through our house.  

So happy for our cozy home.  

So sad for the news from Israel today.

Some of you may have heard of this, but over 2,000 women are Lighting Shabbat Candles for Israel tonight.  Specifically have in mind 23 year old Hadar Goldin from Kfar Saba who was abducted today.

His name is Hadar ben Hedva Leah.

Go ahead please write down his name or print this page.  

Have him in mind. 

(The name hedva appears in the traditional wedding blessings and is often sung out loud "gila, rina, ditza v'hedva, ahava, achva, shalom v'reut")

May Hadar, a Givati soldier, get home safely and may he have a Shabbat shalom.

Let's hope that one day the smell of Shabbat and even just maybe the good tunes unite us all.

photo from kveller.com

Vitamin H...Kind of Like an Amp Goes to 11, But It Works!

You've heard about Vitamin C, Vitamin B, Vitamin E...

but Vitamin H???

I bought this duty free in Tegel Airport duty free a few years ago

My nails are feeling a little brittle.  Cuticles are peeling.  I broke out my shmancy Bio-H-Tin Nail Cream (nagelcreme) that I bought in Germany a few years ago, and my cuticles have relief.  What exactly is Vitamin H, anyway?

It is actually called Biotin, and is a complex B vitamin.  According to this online medical dictionary, it no longer goes by the name Vitamin H.  It is a "colorless, crystalline, water-soluble B complex vitamin that acts as a coenzyme in fatty acid production and in the oxidation of fatty acids and carbohydrates...Rich sources are egg yolk, beef liver, kidney, unpolished rice, brewer's yeast, peanuts, cauliflower, and mushrooms." 

The University of Maryland states  "very weak evidence suggests that biotin supplements may improve thin, splitting, or brittle toe and fingernails," but I applied the cream directly to the cuticle, and I feel a difference already.  So, if you want to just chalk it up to psychological effects, so be it.  Anyway, there are a whole host of things that exist in nature, help people get better, and yet have no scientific evidence to back up the proof.  If it works, I use it. Sorry, Terps, you guys can't convince me.  Or German skin care professionals, evidently.

When I heard about Vitamin H, of course I thought, wait, this is going like to the next level, but in a good way.  Sure, I have heard of Vitamin K, but only for its controversial use in newborns.

And going to the next level is classic Spinal Tap.

Obviously Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest don't want folks to embed this clip, since every single clip of the Amp scene that goes to 11 on YouTube of this scene is disabled, so I ask you, dear reader, to click any of these links and you will see the awesome scene.  C'mon, Rob, why are you being such a meathead?

Vitamin H not only goes to 11 but if you take out the little horizontal line in the letter, it actually IS ELEVEN!!!  You do know that I love the 11:11 phenomenon, right?

Since I referenced the Maryland Terps, which is an abbreviation for their mascot the Terrapins, at least I can leave you with a classic Terrapin Station by The Grateful Dead.  Jerry and his friends haven't disabled any embedding, and that plays to the spirit of the band, which always was about sharing.





And, Rob Reiner, I apologize for relying too obviously on your past by calling you a meathead for not allowing video embedding by the little folk like me who take time out of their busy schedules to write their blogs.  I am sure you are a great guy.  Maybe you will enjoy this Meatstick from last year as a peace offering.  And for any of you who kept reading to the end of this lengthy blog (make yourself known with a comment below!), I reiterate that I am not writing a Phish blog

Fleischmanns and talking mano a mano

There is a town in the Catskills called Fleischmanns, which, loosely translated, means:  meat man.  Likely those with the root "fleisch" in their last name (Fleischer included) were, in the old country, butchers.

1/4/10 *edited to add*:  Why we didn't mention Ari Fleischer is beyond us.  I guess we're just not the politcal type.

And how it is that we just came to learn of the film Zombieland, directed by Ruben Fleischer, isn't too far fetched.  We love Abigail Breslin...as family pholks, we recently watched her in American Girl:  Kit Kittredge.  Joan Cusack was, as usual, superbly entertaining.  No neck brace ala Sixteen Candles, no water fountain, but all of her spunk and pizazz still there.

Back to the Fleisch...

For those of us who grew up Kosher, we are all familiar with Fleischmann's margarine, which as educated consumers now, we believe to be not working towards a positive goal...aside from margarine's proven track record as being bad for the body, they are owned by the corporate conglomerate ConAgra.  Not big fans of corporate food industrialization.  But that's for another day.  Or at least for discussion with the Jew and Carrot folks.

Fleisch = Meat

There is also Fleischmann's Yeast, also owned by a large food conglomerate, albeit smaller-sounding and British-based.

Today we met quite an erudite, helpful man, a real landsman, who grew up in the '40s outside of the town of Fleischmanns.  He is of the JTS-ilk, totally old school seminary style.  Though he said he would never want to go back (he lives comfortably in Manhattan), his upbringing there helped him form solid memories of a good life.  Phone calls were made via picking up their old rotary and connecting to an operator who would then make the connection to a call down in the city.

We were talking about computers that run automobile dashboards.
How they often fail.
How a manual car, with a 6 speed engine and no computer behind it, can run smooth as a whistle for years.
But we need the computers.   We are, indeed, in a digital age, there is no denying that.
But going back to a time when we just connect face to face.

Real, live interactions with our peeps.


Talking about fleisch and meat, did you catch the multi-ethnic Meatstick at MSG on 12/31/10?
Now, *that* is fun stuff!