Last night was the first night of Chanuka, and sooo nice!  We had eight different menorahs being lit, and gave our six year old his gift – the new menorah – before lighting so he could use it.  He was so excited – it was very sweet to watch him; he kept going back to it after he lit and stroking and touching it.  After we light the menorahs, we sing, and then my husband dances together with all of the kids; it’s been our ritual for many years, at least since my oldest was three.  Then we give presents, if there are any to give that night.

The kids and my husband all liked the taffeta gift bags that I made to put the gifts in – most of them hadn’t seen them yet.  We try to organize things so that on each night, each person doesn’t get more than one gift, everyone gets one, and everyone gets to give one.  That’s a lot more complicated than it sounds because of the number of people involved – last year I remember thinking seriously about making a chart to keep track of who was doing what, each night!

But this year because we’re simplifying even more than usual, the kids haven’t gotten each other too much, which is good.  My oldest son, 15, gave me my Chanuka present from him last night – a beautiful solar oven!  He’s spent 20 – 30 hours building it – I knew he was building it, but I had no idea how nice it would be.  When he initially asked if there was a link of what I wanted that he could look at, I gave him a site to check out (http://www.cookwiththesun.com/solar.htm – the oven at the top of the page).  But he made some improvements that really added to the look of it, like making an adjustable prop for the lid, painting the outside black, and building a bumper so if the lid slammed, the mirror wouldn’t break (important keeping in mind how things go around here :)).

When we redid our kitchen last year, we replaced our regular oven with a double oven, each of which is much smaller than a standard oven, and my turkey roaster no longer fit.  I didn’t give it away, though, because in the back of my mind I thought it would be the perfect pan for a solar oven since it’s black (the recommended pot color for solar cooking because it absorbs heat).   That was the pan he based the size of the oven on – most solar ovens are too small for our needs.

He recycled as many materials as possible – the plywood came from the neighbors who remodelled their basement three months ago, the plexiglass for the lid from my inlaws (it wasn’t quite the right size, so he built a frame for it so it would fit), the mirror was one we had in the house that we weren’t using, and the insulation was newspaper and cardboard.  He used some leftover black foam pipe insulation to frame the top lid. The main costs were: black bbq paint – $8, aluminum flashing for the interior – $8, aluminum tape – $3.50, hinges – $3, and having the mirror cut down to the size we needed – $10.  He’s planning to put wheels on the bottom, since it’s pretty heavy, due to the weight of the wood, glass, and mirror.  So whatever that costs will get added to the total, but in any case, it’s a bargain!   (If you’ve ever priced solar ovens, you’ll understand how pricey they can be.)

Today was freezing – the wind chill factor brought it down to below zero early this morning when the boys walked to shul (synagogue), and though it warmed up slightly, it wasn’t exactly a toasty day.  Since there was sunlight, the kids wanted to try out the solar oven, despite the low temps. I don’t know why they decided to fry an egg, but it wasn’t the best choice – slow cooking is the watchword for solar cooking, and frying eggs is a quickie dish.  The cooker steamed up and the edges of the egg cooked, but it was so cold that the kids quickly lost the desire to go outside and readjust the mirror so it was angled toward the sun (since obviously the sun is always moving), so the egg didn’t end up fully cooked.  Like I said, it wasn’t the best day or best food to try to cook, but we’ll try again when it’s a little warmer.  For the sake of the people involved, not the cooker – apparently what matters is that the sun is out, not the temperature of the air.

I wanted a solar cooker for when the weather is hot, because it seems like a shame to have all that natural energy of the sun wasted, and have the house heated up when extra heat is the last thing you want (unlike today, when we wouldn’t have minded extra heat!)  I also like the idea of having a back up cooking source that isn’t dependent on store bought fuel.  When it gets warmer, we’ll get busy experimenting!

And as nice a present as it was (and it really is nice!), what touched me most was the love and thought my son put into it, to make something I would enjoy and appreciate.

Avivah