Cheesy!
Remember the Omer? No, of course you don’t, it’s moved off the first page. It’s the seven week period beginning at Passover and this week it finally ends. What does this mean for me? A holiday! What does that mean for you? No posts! That is to say, last year I had a kind guest poster but this year I just wasn’t organized enough. Maybe I’ll have it more together by Rosh Hashanah (see me after class if you want to guest post in September). Anyhoo, the holiday is imaginatively called Shavu’ot (weeks) and that’s because I’ll be trapped in the suburbs for what will seem like weeks. Pray for Becca!
Should you not have brushed up on Jewish Holiday Trivia since last year, this is the one where you eat mostly dairy to celebrate receiving the laws telling us what kind of meat we can eat (hint: no bacon, no Mickey D’s). Because before that, it was non-stop blintzes. Or something. But I will be making blintzes, actually, although unlike the Hamentaschen from a few months ago there will be no pictures. This is a labor-intensive job which takes several hours, two people, three crepe pans, four fillings, and a lot of burnt fingers. Did I mention we’re making blintzes for fifteen people? Cameras just aren’t going to work.
Here’s the picture from the Interweb that best matches what the ones my family recipe produce look like (in the pan no less). Because I won’t be around to answer comments (although someone will be moderating – don’t be naughty), I’ll answer the inevitable question now: why blintzes? Because they’re dairy and because despite the fact that Jewish holidays go back to ancient times, most recipes which Ashkenazic Jews use seem to have originated in Eastern Europe in the last 300 years. I guess the Jews lost their cookbooks on the way to the Pale of Settlement.
Anyway, have a cheese-filled couple of days and think of me and my box of Lactaid. If you’re already vegetarian, uh, carry on as normal. Oh, and while you’re thinking milky thoughts, please enjoy this “demotivator poster” I put together with the fun tool I learned about on JF’s site. I dedicate it to the 2007 NY Yankees. Consider making your own and have a contest while I’m gone! I’ll save a blintze for the winner.
I do like the optimism hidden in the demotivational poster for our bumbling Yanks. But hey, two in a row!
I actually celebrated National Grilled Cheese Month by making a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches one night. Those silly national holiday schedulers should have waited!
Will you be posting a blintz recipe later? Must I google one all by myself? How will I know that it’s authentic? When will you be back?
Will my questions go unanswered? I do have a magic 8-ball at the house but I just don’t think it will feel the same.
Pardon me while I go sit in the corner and sob uncontrollably, okay?
Ben, I know! Now we’re only 87 games back!
Wait, wait, wait, Ima. Why was I not informed that there is a National Grilled Cheese Month? Is one allowed to celebrate late?
Here’s the problem with the recipe: it’s just a list of ingredients. You have to mix them by feel and taste. I’m not sure that would translate well online. It’s too bad Magic 8-Balls don’t have recipe answers.
PS, I’ll be back Friday!
Thanks Becca I’m honoured.. I could have been the first to comment but I was so deeply immersed in your profound statement and all its implications that I finally decided to keep silent.
Instead, I did this as a tribute to your culinary talent : http://www.365questions.org/2007/05/21/demotivated/blintzjpg/
Haaa! That’s excellent and actually made me laugh out loud (rather than that fake LOL thing). I take your poster as referring to the burning of my fingers, but like poetry it has so many possible interpretations.
It was the coolest, Becca. Because timing of the grilling and cheeses, I didn’t get any pictures so I didn’t blog about it but I went to Atlanta Bread Company to see if they sold bread by the slice. Not so much. But, I told the kids behind the counter what I was trying to do and they thought it was so cool that they decided to go over to the deli area and get me two slices of every kind of bread they make. Then, they didn’t know how to charge me so they charged me for the cheapest loaf of bread – a baguette. $2.04 and I was outta there. Nice kids.
I did:
peanut butter, thin sliced apple and cheddar (ff) on cracked wheat with butter.
cheddar, candian bacon, and brown mustard on french with butter.
Proscuitto, swiss, thousand island dressing on pumpernickel, spread with canola mayo
goat cheese on 9-grain with canola. This needed something. The cheese was too tart by itself.
Pecorino-romano, mozzarella (ff) and sundried tomatos on …dang it, can’t remember the bread… spread with olive oil then grilled. It needed something, maybe basil or oregano or something.
Feta (ff) and bacon on honey wheat with olive oil. The bacon was not to my liking on this. It would have been good with different bacon or chopped cucumber or something else. Bad flavor combination.
April was National Grilled Cheese Month and I did it the last Wednesday. I’d also planned on making grilled cheese desserts with bread and/or polenta; cream, mascarpone, or other mild cheeses; and some kind of raspberry or other fruit compote-y kinds of things. Problem was we were sofa king full after the sandwiches that we didn’t want anything else.
I think you can celebrate late. It’s like extending the season or something.
Shavu’ot is cancelled. I’m going to Ima’s house.
This post has some of my favorite things: cheese, Nirvana, and the Yankees sucking. Yay!
I assume your poster picture is from the NYC marathon, as there is a visible Starbucks. I can send you a picture of me dragging my ass across the Boston finish line if you’d like to us my stunning image instead.
(Its been so long since I commented that I didn’t even know you needed my e-mail address!)
First the blintzes, then Ima’s cheese filled post…you guys are killing me.
Go Yanks!
(sticking tongue out at Soxy, but with much love)
Shavous. That’s not the one with the lemon the size of your head, is it?
Sarpon, the lemon the size of your head (well, a lot of people call it an “etrog,” or in English a citron) is Sukkot. Sukkot gets not just the lemon, but also the booth that you eat in outdoors (http://magicjewball.com/2006/10/06/oh-waitress-can-we-have-the-booth/#comments).
This is really not that fair, because Shavuot gets, basically, nothing. Except blintzes.
Fun Posters! OK I made one. Where should we post them for judging? Here’s mine: http://flickr.com/photos/kellybean/511276099/
Shavuot needs a better PR campaign. I had basically no idea what it was, or that it was important, until I got to college and all the yeshiva kids were upset because they had finals during Shavuot. I’d heard of it, but am pretty sure I’d never observed it. (Still haven’t, really.)
I realized in retrospect that I only knew about holidays that fell when Sunday school was in session. I would *never* have heard of Tisha B’Av if it weren’t for the couple of summers I happened to be at Jewish overnight camp then.
It looks like everything was well taken care of while I was gone. Kb, I love that poster! I think I may need one for my apartment.
Oh, and Soxy, that picture is indeed from the Boston Marathon. And the putting in your e-mail thing is recent as I had a commenter who I wanted to reach but who hadn’t left one. Then there was the commenter whose comment I deleted but even though I e-mailed him to tell him why, he never responded and came back to look at that page about 45 times. The lesson is: use a real e-mail address and check your e-mail.
I just came back here because I’m hungry and there is nothing good at my house. This virtual cheesefest is all I have. Hmph.