Magic Jewball

My, the pictures in the last post looked good. You could practically taste them. If only you had the time or the inclination to make rugelach. Or you lived above Zabar’s. Or you knew me. Yes, I will be willing to make you a batch of rugelach (about 40-45) for a small donation to my favorite charity, Doctors Without Borders. And shipping. No handling. What the fuck does handling mean anyway? I don’t really want my stuff handled. So! Let’s have a FAQ, shall we? Faqtastic.

But Becca, I thought they were so labor intensive?
They are. Indeed. But I am off all next week. And did I mention? I won’t be in London. I will be right here.

What’s Doctors Without Borders?
To quote them, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.

To quote me, they are completely non-political and help poor and needy people who need healthcare all around the world.

You can read more here.

Who pays for the ingredients? Who pays for the shipping?
I pay for the ingredients. That’s my donation. And it isn’t even tax-deductible! You pay the shipping. That isn’t tax deductible either.

Shipping will be via USPS priority mail, otherwise they will be stale. If you want to pay for faster, be my guest. You can calculate your shipping here:

http://postcalc.usps.gov/

It will be about 1.5 pounds in a package from 10025. The average seems to be $6-$7.

But I don’t want you to know where I live.
Unless you would like to meet me on the west side of Manhattan, you will have to give me an address to ship to, sorry.

So how much of a donation?
Whatever you feel comfortable with. Let’s say, minimum $15. This part is tax-deductible.

I don’t like raspberry. Can you make another flavor?
Sure, anything they sell in jelly. Preserves don’t work. I hear apricot is good but I don’t like apricot. It’s my understanding that there are different strokes for different folks, though.

I’m allergic to nuts. Are you nuts?
Yes, I am. But the rugelach have no nuts. Or eggs. They do have wheat and milk, though. If this matters to you, they are suitable for vegetarians and are kosher-dairy. If it doesn’t matter to you, they are still suitable for vegetarians and kosher-dairy.

How many calories?
It’s for charity!

What’s your deadline? I mean, what if I want them in January? I have a lot of cookies in my world right now.
I’d like to be done by New Year’s But I can’t say how busy I’ll be later on; maybe we can work something out.

How do I pay?
I have a charity page set up at firstgiving and it all goes through them. It’s a secure website and you will get proof of your donation for tax purposes. They’re slow on FireFox, though, sorry about that.

Shipping goes directly to me through my PayPal account.

I’ll send you all the details when I get your e-mail. So that’s it! Drop me an email at becca at magicjewball dot com and place your order today. Feel free to ask any other questions in the comments area or through e-mail. Thanks for your interest in Jewish pastry!

PS, invest in good coffee beans in advance.

Well, Hannukah is over and if your calendar wasn’t evidence enough of that, below is a forlorn dreidl I saw under a subway seat the other day. Hot pink, no less. Sad, just sad. If you were wondering why I didn’t post any Hannukah related entries, it’s because I spent so long thinking about which spelling I wanted to use that the holiday was over by the time I made up my mind.

(click to enlarge)

But I do bake this time of year, mostly to solve the dilemma of what to get my co-workers for Generic Wintertime Holiday (they are of several different faiths). So I make something complicated, use fine ingredients, and package them all fancee. Voila! I last made rugelach five years ago and I’ve been recovering ever since. But, you know, I had a new mixer so it was time. By the way, really cold butter and cream cheese are vastly irritating to mix because at any speed they will stick in one large mass to the paddle attachment and just spin and spin. Whee!

So what are rugelach? They are a sort of filled Jewish pastry. Let’s make some, shall we?

OK! Let’s get started. Here’s the dough all rolled out (I needed both hands to do that, thus no picture). I made it the previous night. The night I kept having to poke chunks of butter and cream cheese through the paddle attachment.

I combined two steps into one picture. First you spread with raspberry jam, then brown sugar combined with white sugar. Kind of like that Michael Jackson song.

Then chocolate chips get sprinkled on. There’s no song about that. Then you start rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river. I was actually listening to Radiohead while I was doing this, though.

Oh look, here I’ve combined three steps into one photo. Crazy! So then you brush the rolled up log with milk, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and cut into small pieces.

Then repeat about 30 more times. Narf.

But finally you get this! Pretty striped waxed paper courtesy of The Container Store.

Alas, The Container Store only had Christmas (red & green, Santa, Jesus, you get it) and white tins left when I got there. And naturally, you remember I said my co-workers were not all Christmas celebrators. But that’s OK! I like to decorate things myself. Nice, right? And don’t forget! There are rugelach inside.

My, that was exhausting. This morning my co-worker’s daughter called to ask if I would be their full-time baker. Thank goodness I have a job all set up for when the music industry inevitably tanks.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary

And if you have five seconds to spare, let me tell you the story of my life…

Well, no, not really. I didn’t pick that song. But I do love that line. It’s The Smiths, people! I can’t believe I’ve never chosen a Smiths song as iSotW. Maybe because they’re all so good that I’d never be able to decide on one. But here’s what happened this week. I was testing my BlackBerry’s music capabilities (I mean, what’s the point of buying an add-on memory card to hold more music if the music sounds like crap - but it doesn’t!) and I needed a good short song because the BB doesn’t start out with all that much memory and it’s mostly taken up by BrickBreaker and things like that. So I sorted all my songs by size (way to commodify art) and eliminated all the “intro” type songs (hate those) and this one was at the top of the list. Or bottom, depending on how you look at it. Less than 2 MB!

And what a song! It has a short, whistly start and then goes full stop into the breakneck pace that throttles along for the rest of the track. Could you pack more song into a song? I think not. The chorus is only one sentence! And the story is immediately clear, even in that short space. Morrissey only has two themes to his songs and they are: a. I am pathetic (and I know it) and b. you are pathetic (but you may not know it). This song is fully b, with the person in question off by train to London, leaving everything behind, but we can all be pretty sure his problems will follow him there - after all, he’s a typical Smiths loser. Here’s a sample lyric. “You think they’re sad because you’re leaving, but did you see the jealousy in the eyes of the ones who had to stay behind?”

Anyway, you won’t need much time to listen this week, the whole thing is done in scarcely over two minutes. Oh, and this is as good a time as any to say, I will not be in London for the holiday, but here to entertain you. Did I mention? I spent my plane fare on a BlackBerry.

Napster:
The Smiths - London

Streaming audio available on the iPod Song of the Week page.

(A small sentimental reflection. The Napster version comes from a later compilation called “The World Won’t Listen.” But my track comes from “Louder Than Bombs,” a double album on one cassette which was given to me by my boyfriend in high school. A supreme sacrifice on his part since he was a metalhead. Alas, Napster does not have “Louder Than Bombs.”)

Thanks for taking over for me, fun commenters! Sorry I had to take a short leave but the fact is, I was in a bad mood and you know how those things are contagious. I couldn’t risk spreading it to you. Now that I’m all cheerful again, it’s time to share my negativity in a more constructive way. How? By a rant about stores. After all, it’s the holiday shopping season. Although, we Jews are all done. Burn! No, I kid, I have some goyim on my list too.

Yesterday, I went to the Genius Bar. This is my name for Jacques Torres’ Wicked Spicy Chocolate Bar but for some reason, it’s also the name of the repair desk at the Apple Store. Apple seems to have the same attitude towards appointments as my doctor’s office because when I got there for my 1:20 appointment I saw my name up on the big board as #12. Out of 12. This is something you do not want to see when you have gone across town on your lunch hour to basically show your power cord (heh, she said power cord) with the wires all frayed to some geek so you can get a new one a week before your warranty expires.

So, instead of spending five minutes and then walking out with a new power cord, I sat against a wall and waited. The first thing I noticed was that the stools for customers at the various desks (iPod Genius Bar, Mac Genius Bar, Studio - that’s the training one) are clearly designed to show off your underwear and buttcrack for the amusement of people forced to wait for appointments. This also goes for the various Apple store employees doing one-on-one training with the customers. The employee, sorry, genius, nearest me wore boxers, if you must know. I also noticed that everyone being trained was over fifty. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The woman waiting near me, who was probably sixty, kept looking at me and trying to catch my eye to start a conversation. Did I mention I was in a bad mood? Don’t talk to me, lady. But she tried. “Are you here for training?” she asked. “Nope,” I said, and took out my BlackBerry. I’m not sure non-iPhones are allowed in the Apple Store but I went for it anyway.

After that, I worked on naming all the Geniuses based on their appearance. The one with the kipa was FrumGenius, then there was HipsterGenius, TattooGenius, PerkyGenius, and CurlyGenius. They were all white guys. I watched myself move up the board. After about 40 minutes (40!), I was number three. Then I disappeared! I went up to one of the “concierges” (I should have asked him for tickets to The Lion King too) and asked him what happened. The conversation went like this:

Me: I was #3 and then I went off the list!
Him: Did you check in with me?
Me: Did anything say I was supposed to do that?
Him: What is your name?
Me: Becca
Him: Your appointment was canceled because you didn’t check in.
Me: I’ve been waiting 40 minutes! Can you put me back?
Him: Let me see…. OK.
Me: Am I at the back of the line now? I don’t see my name on the board.
Him: The board doesn’t really mean anything.
Me, thinking: well, if it’s meant as entertainment it is sorely lacking
Me, out loud: Your website should really mention that you have to check in.
Him: Melanie L! Melanie L!

Luckily, I showed up a second later on the board as #1. Board doesn’t mean anything, my ass! I got TattooGenius. Every other Genius was smiley and friendly. Except my guy. He seemed suspicious of my motives from the start and told me my warranty was up. I said, “I checked, it’s December 19th.” He looked skeptical. Listen, bud, if you cannot read your own system, I can’t really believe you are a genius. Albert Einstein would probably have realized that if I purchased my computer on December 20th, 2006, and today is December 11th, 2007, and the warranty is one year, then it is not up. Finally, that information sunk in and he replaced my cord. He also told me I had been pulling it out of the computer wrong, even though I never actually told him the method I use to remove it from the computer. Genius! When I mentioned a problem I read about with the hard drive on my model, he insisted there had been no such problem reported or he would know about it. Might I suggest Google, oh Genius? I suppose I’ll just wait for the catastrophic failure to happen after my warranty ends, which is how these things usually go.

But, you know, I did walk away with my cord. And it could be worse. It could have been CompUSA, which you may have heard is going out of business (shocking!). Now, no one could beat their prices, and by that I mean be more expensive than them, but they were always good for just grabbing a spindle of recordable DVD’s or whatever. However, their customer service, to me, was exemplified by these two experiences I had.

The first was a conversation I overheard in the Mac section.

Customer: Are Macs any good?
Employee: Sure, I plan on getting one soon myself.
Customer: Can I ask your reasons?
Employee: They look really cool.

Super. Just last week, I was waiting on line, the one line that existed for 20 customers because “everyone is on their break” at 7:30pm. One of the employees walks along the line and asks everyone if they have received a sales pass or something like that. He hands each of us a piece of paper with nonsense written on the back. I ask him what it is for. “Organizational purposes,” he says. When I get to the cashier, finally, I hand it to her, she rolls her eyes and throws it away. On the way out, I am forced to show my receipt to the security guard who does not bother looking in my bag, scribbles a circle on it and I leave.

There goes a well-run organization. With their 30% off sales they may just bring their prices in line with everywhere else. But hey, at least they never called themselves geniuses.

Title comes from the slogan on the Geniuses’ Christmas shirts.

Tom Tom Club - Genius Of Love

Due to circumstances beyond my control, J-Ball will be on a short hiatus. If you’d like to do your part in entertaining each other please fill in the blank of your choice.

a. You know what movie you should see? ______.
b. This one time at band camp ______.
c. ______ will win the ________ party nomination for President of the United States.

Thanks and see you soon.