After a two year Covid hiatus, we were privileged to join our children and their families for the last four days of Chanukah. Candle lighting was beautiful as each family member lit their own menorah. The flames danced and flickered in the darkness while we joined in singing Ma’oz Tzur, the Jewish liturgical poem or piyyut, celebrating our spiritual deliverance from our enemies. On Sunday we celebrated with a family…
My mother tasted a banana for the first time, as an eight-year-old girl in Paris, shortly after the end of the Second World War. The precious fruit was a gift from her uncle who was serving in the American army, and who decided to pay a call on the French branch of the family before returning home. Mom was perplexed by this new fruit, not realizing that she had to…
I dipped my spoon into a bowl of creamy, smooth mushroom soup and savored the rich umami flavor as it glided over my tongue. I tore off a small piece of crunchy multigrain bread, a house specialty, and gazed around the room. It was lunchtime and the restaurant was hopping. Friends catching up with each other, businessmen meeting, mothers and daughters laughing over the latest antics of precious children (who…
Attending to the myriad of details that accompany a shalom zachar, the gathering celebrating the arrival of a Jewish baby boy on the first Friday night after his birth, is very exciting. Tables and chairs are dragged into the dining room from their hidden storage places, older siblings very generously offer to test the candy platters purchased for the event, and neighbors and friends drop by with plates of homemade…
“I’m strong to the finish ’cause I eats me spinach.” With these immortal words, Popeye tears open a can of spinach, acquires superhuman strength, overcomes his nemesis Bluto and wins the undying devotion of his girlfriend Olive Oyl, that is, until the next cartoon. As a four-year-old fan of the plucky sailor, I asked my mother to buy a can of spinach but she demurred. “I don’t think you’ll like…
I scanned the leaden grey skies for a ray of sunshine, fruitlessly. Welcome to Toronto in December. The dull ceiling of clouds glowering above my head reflected my mood; it was time to go shopping for a treat. I was looking forward to the arrival of a new crop of blood oranges at my local fruit store. Strictly a winter fruit, my stash had been depleted months ago. I left…
This past Sunday morning, if you happened to see me face down on the ice at our neighborhood outdoor skating rink, rest assured, I was not in the middle of a sun salutation yoga pose. I was not even examining the whorls in the ice for evidence of fossils. The only fossil at the rink that day was lying on the ice. Last week I bought a pair of ice…
Last Sunday morning I looked up into the sky and felt the first flakes of snow falling gently on my face. And then I watched in amazement as the snow continued to descend steadily the rest of the day. By 5:00 p.m. there was an accumulation of at least six inches on my driveway as we inched our way down the street to a Covid-compliant family wedding, our first nuptial…
Once upon a time, pre-Covid19…I carefully studied the pictures of the salads on offer at the kosher Aroma Espresso Bar, where I was meeting friends for lunch. Each offering looked more inviting than the next, but my eye was repeatedly drawn back to the sweet potato lentil salad. Vibrant green arugula. Shiny dark lentils. Chunks of orange sweet potatoes. All tossed with a dressing of lemon and olive oil and…
Last Friday, the temperature in Toronto was a balmy 24 C. (approximately 75 F.). I pushed my down coat to the back of the closet and started planning al fresco meals with friends again. My excitement was very short-lived when the high the next day was 7 C. (about 45 F.) and I had to pull out my heavy coat again, with a pair of sheepskin gloves thrown in for…