>>Sorry to open a can of worms (and feel free to ignore the question if it’s too complicated)– what is the organic situation in Israel? My friends in Jerusalem subscribe to an organic CSA for weekly produce delivery, do you have any options like that up north?<<
And from someone else a few days ago:
>> Is organic produce available and how expensive is it? We shop here at Trader Joe’s where the organic produce is relatively reasonable.
We get our natural household products without the sulfates, parabens, phalates, etc. from places like Whole Foods. Are such products available over there? Are they exorbitantly priced?
I am wondering if dairy products are healthier over there. (Does the Israeli government allow bovine growth hormone to be used?) My kids don’t drink milk (only rice milk) b/c of the toxicity. Can you get raw milk there any easier than over here?
In general, from my research over the past year and a half on all health fronts, it seems that our wonderful U.S. government is literally the worst in the world when it comes to protecting the health of its citizens. Whether it’s the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, or the cancer industry, healthful information is deliberately hidden from the public, while any and all toxic substances are allowed to pass, as long as it will be profitable for them. I know that the Israelis in government are no saints but the question is, are they any better than the U.S.? I hear they are trying to get a law passed now over here to somehow shut down all health related websites so that we will no longer have any way of accessing info on health.<<
Organics – as I’ve written before, my budget unfortunately doesn’t have room for the extra cost of organics. In the past I’ve bought them when I could find them at a comparable price (eg salvage/discount stores). The only vegetables that we eat that I’m sure are organic are the things I harvest myself from local vegetation/fruit trees. So I haven’t yet found a local source because I haven’t looked.
However, I have seen notices of people posting about organic produce in various communities, and am sure this isn’t something that is difficult to do, as long as you have the budget for it.
Natural health products – I’m not sure what you use in the US. I use baking soda and vinegar for just about everything, and don’t buy any ‘green’ products. I found a place here where I was able to buy a 50 lb sack of baking soda, which was great since the teeny tiny containers they sell here are something like 40x the bulk price. I’ve been making my own laundry detergent for quite a while, but since all of the necessary ingredients aren’t available for purchase locally, have been buying the regular detergent and sometimes I add baking soda for an added boost. We use baking soda for toothbrushing and deodorant (works better than anything else I’ve ever tried!) and use regular shampoo without artificial colors added. There are health stores where overpriced ‘green’ products are sold, just like in the US – pretty much anything you would want here, I think you can find. There seems to be a lot of interest in the alternative health realm; to me it seems like more interest and openness than the US.
Raw milk – someone told me about raw cow milk, but it seems much easier to find raw goat milk. (Which is pretty understandable, being that this country is so tiny and cows take up much more space than goats.) I’ve been in touch with a couple of people about this and found sources about a 40 minute drive away, but not having a car makes this very difficult to arrange, particularly since those raising goats are usually living in areas with irregular bus transportation. It’s not realistic for us to take a bus to get the milk, due to cost and difficulty in bringing home an adequate amount for our family. The other option is renting a car for the day to get the milk, which also makes the cost shoot up (not to mention gas that costs $8 a gallon!). So we’ve pretty much cut out dairy, and the answer to how healthy the regular milk sold in the store is, I don’t know.
So basically these are lots of questions I’d also like more details on but don’t know the answers to. 🙂 However, I’m sure some of my readers do, so please share relevant details, suggestions, and contact information for people in the comments!
This week I did a biggish shopping trip – nothing major compared to my big stock-ups in the US, but I got a nice amount of staples for this month. Since I spent a little over 500 shekels, this trip comprised about 1/4 of our monthly food budget (which is 2000 shekels), and people have asked me for more specifics of what I buy and how much I pay, I’m sharing the details of my receipt here.
This is the store that I get the bulk of my vegetables, grains, and beans from. I was delighted when in December they began offering home delivery, since it was physically very exhausting for me to bring home even enough food for a week for our family by bus. Then I switched to calling a taxi to bring my order home, but I still had to pack up the groceries (cashiers here don’t bag your groceries unless you’re paying for home delivery), load them in the taxi, unload them at home, and carry them up a flight of steps to our apartment. I’m not complaining, just explaining why it was a real physical effort to go shopping in the past at this store, particularly for the quantities we need. But now for just 15 shekels, I can have my order packed up and brought into my house! While I used to go every week and would consciously think about the weight of every item I wanted to buy, knowing the physical effort involved, now I can make a big order once or twice a month and not have to deal with it – I LOVE this!
Here’s what I bought:
red lentils (8.99 shekels kg x 3.94 kg) – 35.42
dried chickpeas (9.99 shekels kg x 3.065 kg) – 30.62
buckwheat (12.99 shekels kg x 2.475 kg) – 32.15
quinoa (18.99 shekels kg x 1.100 kg) – 20.89
black eyed peas (10 shekels kg x 2.085) – 20.85
split peas (11.99 shekels kg x 4.85 kg) – 58.15
rice (6.99 shekels kg x 5.165) – 36.10
brown lentils ( 7.99 shekels kg x 3.125 kg) – 24.97
granny smith apples (4.99 shekels kg x .460) – 2.30 (this was snack for ds2 who was with me, plus some to share with his siblings when they got home)
fennel (4.99 shekels kg x 1.080 kg) – 5.39
2 large heads lettuce (2.99 each) – 5.98
cucumbers (3.99 shekels kg x 1.015 kg) – 4.05
tomatoes (1.99 shekels kg x 3.140 kg) – 6.25
3 – 1 kg containers of prepared hummus (9.99 ea) – 29.97
6 – 580 gram cans tomato paste (4.99 ea) – 29.94
2 – 540 gram cans sliced olives (7.99 ea) – 15.98
1 – kg sugar – 4.99
1 – 150 gram container powdered ginger – 6.99
My intent for this trip was to get enough staples to last through the end of the month; this was 77 pounds of grains/legumes and I think that will be enough. The grains are purchased from the bulk bins; there’s someone who works there, and I tell her how many kilograms I want of each item, she bags and prices everything for each customer. That’s why the grain/legume amounts aren’t in standard bag sizes of 500 grams or 1 kg. This is cheaper than buying the prepacked bags of these same items, usually about 20 – 25% cheaper. Someone last week said about a 6 shekel item, ‘Oh, it’s only 2 shekels less like that”, and I explained that paying 4 shekels a kilo instead of six was a savings of 30%! Small sums add up, though people often get stuck on the tiny amounts saved instead of looking at the overall picture of how much is saved in a month when you buy everything at discounted prices.
This time, I bought a couple of the more expensive grains that I’ve been avoiding for cost reasons until now: buckwheat and quinoa. By the way, I find it very funny that in Hebrew, it’s called kee-no-ah, based on the English spelling (instead of the proper pronunciation, keen-wa), so I have to consciously say the word incorrectly even though it’s an English word! I added these grains in because I wanted some more variety; meals were feeling too repetitive to me. I didn’t get a lot of them, just enough for to add a little something different to the menu. I had oats and barley at home.
As far as the vegetables, these are intended to last for a couple of weeks until my next trip, not through the end of the month. However, this trip isn’t representative of my typical buying habits since I usually don’t buy vegetables unless they’re under 3.99 kg (except for avocados), and really try to stay closer to 1.99 shekels a kilo. But I realized I haven’t been eating many fresh veggies, since the inexpensive root veggies that I’m buying at this season aren’t appealing when eaten raw. And then I end up not having such a good breakfast (I try to have protein and vegetables for breakfast) since I want to make something quick, and instead end up eating grains for breakfast and throughout the day. So call it a pregnancy splurge if you like, but the option is eating bread with hummus for breakfast, or what ends up happening more often is I don’t eat breakfast until lunchtime.
When I shop at the other supermarket I go to, I stick with the loss leaders on vegetables, usually limited to 1.99 kg (.25 cents lb). At this place, I get what is the best buy. I was really suprised that tomatoes were so cheap- why should tomatoes be only .25 cents a pound in the winter? They’re local, too. The heads of lettuce were huge and looked beautiful, which is typical of greens in this season. This produce is supplementing what I already had at home: carrots, onions, potatoes, kohlrabi, mushrooms, garlic, peppers, green and red cabbage, clementines, and grapefruits. So I have a decent variety of vegetables to use.
I buy prepared hummus rather than make my own, even though I have a really good recipe, it’s not hard, and would save me money, because I don’t have an immersion blender or food processor to make it with. So I buy it at the best price I can find it, and use this for the kids’ sandwiches for school every day, as well as for a spread on Shabbos. I bought the sliced olives with the intent to add it to the sandwiches sometimes, but saw that once I opened the can of olives, they all got snacked away, so I probably won’t do that often!
For those who may be wondering, no, we aren’t vegetarian. This shopping trip also supplemented the chickens, giblets, and liver that we bought last week (that order was also around 1/4 of our monthly budget). We usually have a meat meal daily, for lunch; I use the chicken that we buy as an ingredient in a dish, which extends it significantly over serving each person his own piece of chicken (which I do on Shabbos). We also buy about 7 trays of eggs every couple of weeks (a tray is 2.5 dozen), so that works out to about 32 – 35 dozen eggs a month (we used to buy 60 dozen a month).
Dairy has become a real splurge here. Last week dh picked up some milk and high fat yogurts for me to have for breakfast (because I seem to be reacting with indigestion to everything I eat, similar to what I usually feel in the ninth month of pregnancy, and I’m trying to figure out what proteins won’t trigger it). But dairy products are expensive here. For example, a liter of milk is about 5 shekels ($5.70 gallon). Cottage cheese, and cheese spreads are sold in these little containers that are about a cup big, enough for one person, but are over 5 shekels each ($1.40 per cup), single serving yogurts are cheaper at 1.50 – 4 shekel each. The organic cottage cheese and sour cream I used to use as a staple, as well as the shredded cheese I regularly cooked with is definitely a thing of the past!
Though prices aren’t low, I feel we still eat well. It’s true that we have more beans and grains, and hardly any nuts, no raw milk or pastured eggs, but we still have plenty to eat! My monthly budget is lower than it was in the US, and despite the higher prices here on every single category of food except produce, we’re managing just fine. We were sent what we needed in the US to stick with our budget, and the same One who took care of us there continues to send us what we need here in Israel!
We catered the entire bar mitzva weekend ourselves – this meant cooking for three meals, plus the kiddush. Friday night we had 25 people, for the kiddush there were around 200 (lots of kids!), for the main bar mitzva meal we had about 80, and for shalosh seudos (the third Sabbath meal), we had under 25.
This was definitely more work than hiring someone but: 1) in Karmiel there are no caterers so arranging catering from another city would have been complicated, and 2) we catered the kiddush for our last bar mitzva 5.5 years ago because it was a very busy time in our lives, and were extremely disappointed with the quantity, setup, and service.
I’ll backtrack for a minute and share with you that scenario – ten minutes before everyone entered the social hall, I came in and was horrified – a couple of other adults who saw it were also shocked – there had been just one table set up for men and women in the entire hall. Never, ever were receptions were set up in this way, and they had sent enough food for just one table! I had to ask that everything be rearranged at the last minute (the people who came down early immediately told the catering staff how it was supposed to be and started moving table around).
The young man who had been left in charge was very belligerent and unhelpful (the caterer had three events that weekend and wasn’t there), insisting it was all done just as it should have been. I had to have my kids run home with a baby stroller and bring back lots of food that I had for our main meal after the kiddush – kugels, salad, and big bags of cherries – to compensate for the caterer bringing enough for only half of the number we had paid for. I told the person in charge that I realized a mistake had been made, and asked him to put out the stuff we brought so the tables wouldn’t look empty. The worker was very upset at us – I think he was new to the job and insecure about it, and he didn’t want this to reflect badly on him – and though we thanked him repeatedly for his work and told him mistakes happen, we knew it wasn’t his fault – it was very, very stressful and unpleasant.
After the kiddush we took back whatever was left – the things we brought in addition to a small amount of cake and kugel the caterer had provided (which we ended up throwing away in a dumpster because it was so dry and unappetizing). When I spoke to the caterer after Shabbos, I was told that his worker claimed there was plenty of food (yes, because I brought so much!) and the proof was that there was food left over that I took home. I explained that I took back the food I had brought since I needed it for our meal following the kiddush, and there was only a small pan of the other things left that wasn’t what we had brought that I took back, but the clear implication was that I was lying. So no apology, no compensation – just accusations at me.
This was really upsetting to me because I was being treated like a manipulative liar, when I had been extremely reasonable about the entire situation, and really thought that there had been a mistake and the caterer would be embarrassed about this huge bungle. When I delegate something like this, I accept that if I’m not doing it, it’s going to be however it is – and as long as it falls into the range of acceptable, I don’t nitpick and I don’t micromanage – I trust whoever’s in charge to take care of things. He was more concerned about covering his ego and wouldn’t admit anything had been done wrong. The irony is that my husband had no idea of all that was going on behind the scenes of the setup – there was no time to tell him – and thanked the caterer publicly earlier that morning when he spoke, for the amazing kiddush that was so much nicer than we had expected! So our kiddush ended up being a feather in the cap for the caterer, and only a handful of people who saw things at the beginning knew that it was because I had worked hard in a very short amount of time to salvage what would have been a disaster.
I had people who told me right away that morning they’d back up what they saw if necessary when I spoke to the caterer (it was really bad), and could have made a big deal about this and insist on having part of the money paid refunded, but I just wanted to wash my hands of having to deal with the entire situation; we had paid in cash in advance so there was no leverage, and we would have had to fight for it. So in short, we paid a lot of money for the privilege of having all of it ‘taken care of for us’.
I wanted something different this time! By cooking and baking everything ourselves, it allowed us to have a variety and abundance of foods that we would have had to pay a lot to have had. Also, most caterers here seem to have the same basic menu, which is a lot of carbs that are all the same color (beige/brown/white), and I like when food on the table is visually appealing.
We did the baking for the kiddush the week before, mostly, and froze the cakes.The cooking was done entirely from Weds. evening through Friday morning. It may sound like a marathon but it really wasn’t – dd15 kept saying she felt like there should be more to do than there was.
For the bar mitzva kiddush (reception), we were told the norm here is cakes, drinks, fish (eg pickled herring), yerushalmi kugel, and sometimes crackers, dips, fruits and vegetables. Initially I considered this, but didn’t really like the idea since it made things more complicated with set up and clean up. I also feel like people are going home to a full Shabbos lunch, and I don’t need to provide a full meal for all of them before that. So I decided that I didn’t have to do that just because everyone else did, and would instead have just cakes and drinks.
(Below, ds4 helping spread filling for a the layer cake.)
Bar mitzva kiddush:
chocolate layer cake
6 layer strawberry cake
orange marmalade layer cake
oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
chocolate dipped shortbread cookies
chocolate chip loaf
chocolate chip pie
lemon pound cake
checkerboard cake
raspberry squares
fudge crinkles
chocolate cake
carrot cake
coconut snowballs
chocolate balls
marble cake
cinnamon blondies
peanut butter balls
A couple of people sent over yummy treats to put out, fancy looking concoctions that added a nice look to the dessert platters we put out, but I don’t know what they’re called. We took everything over to the hall before Shabbos, and set up for the kiddush late Friday night, including arranging all the platters. This was done by dd15, dd17, ds18, two 19 yo male guests, one 18yo female guest, dd11, and me. They all did a great job making the platters look fabulous. We covered the platters and put them on the tables, and the next morning we just had to uncover them when we got back from morning services. Very low pressure.
I heard yesterday from three different people how nice the kiddush was, and how impressive the many kinds of cake were – each of them had been told about it by several other people! That was very nice to hear, but we all felt good about how it went even before this – the tables looked nice and we had plenty for everyone.
200 challah rolls waiting to be baked
Bar mitzva meal:
First course –
homemade challah rolls
guacamole
hummus
Mediteranean chickpea salad
tomato onion salad
sweet carrot salad
coleslaw
cucumber salad
cauliflower salad
sweet-sour pepper salad with sesame seeds, almonds, craisins
savory carrot salad
Main course –
cholent (bean barley stew)
chicken
yerushalmi kugel (made by a friend)
sweet noodle kugel (made by a friend)
potato kugel
kishke (baked stuffing)
Dessert –
choice of lemon or strawberry pudding layer cake
We had the main meal in the same place as the kiddush, so we had to clear up from the kiddush before we could set up for the meal. When we got there from morning services, we had an hour before the kiddush began, and I used that time to begin cutting up the kugels and warming them up. A couple who came from Efrat for the bar mitzva came in to the kitchen to help, and cut up all the chicken, which was a big job.
After the kiddush, ds18 and three nineteen year old guests moved all the tables and chairs into place for the meal. Initially I had planned to set up the food buffet style, but realized that though it sounded easier, it would end up much more chaotic. So I decided to serve family style, which is what I do at home – I don’t like plating meals since I prefer for people to take the amount they want, of what they want.
Some younger guests who were around offered to help set the tables (their families were there for the kiddush and stayed for the meal) – I had so much help that I had to work hard to keep up with them all! While the tables were being set up, I was preparing dishes of salad for each table, so that they could be put on the table before everyone sat down to eat.
For the main course, I put out the kugels on the platters while everyone was still eating the first course – I could have asked someone to come in and help, but particularly my older girls and our 18yo guest had done so much that I really didn’t want to ask them to do more. They’re also entitled to enjoy the simcha! This was a big change from the hectic help of before the meal, when I had at least eight girls between the ages of 6 – 12 who kept coming in and asking for things to do, in addition to the help of the older girls. I kind of enjoyed the quiet; it wasn’t pressured at all. While I was setting up these platters, the older girls came in to the kitchen and began taking platters out to the tables.
Once I sat down to enjoy the main course, I didn’t get back up again. I let other people clear the serving platters and bring out individual plates of pudding cake, while I chatted with dear friends who came from Raanana. I stayed there chatting for a couple of hours, and didn’t do anymore food prep until it was time for shalosh seudos.
At that point, we rearranged the tables and chairs – again! – and set up for an informal shalosh seudos – rather than individual place settings, I set up buffet style – a pile of plates, napkins, cups, a basket of challah rolls, and then large serving bowls of salads and platters of kugel (planned leftovers from the main lunch meal). People began eating whenever they got there.
Then there was the final cleanup after Shabbos. All in all, it was a lot of work, but it didn’t feel tense or overwhelming at any time. And we were able to spend a lot less while getting a lot more.
How much did all of this cost? Dh took out 1200 shekels from the ATM and that went towards food and miscellaneous bar mitzva costs that came up (in addition to using some of our regular food budget money) but I don’t have any idea how it breaks down – honestly, it seems to me like it was too much. With all that was going on, we didn’t track the specific breakdown like we usually did. We spent an additional 400 shekels on paper goods. And the hall rental was 1100 shekels.
When figuring the total spent, I’m not taking into account that we have enough leftover chicken for another three or four Shabbosim, or any other leftovers that we’ll use at a different time (eg papergoods). Without working out the actual cost of what we used only for the bar mitva itself, we spent a total of 2700 shekels for the hall rental and catering for the entire weekend – at today’s exchange rate, this is equivalent to $715.
Considering that for our last bar mitzva over five years ago, we spent $1200 on catering for just the kiddush itself (and I already said how woefully inadequate the caterer’s provisions and set up were), we’re quite pleased that we were able to have the kind of event that we wanted without any compromises, while staying within a frugal budget!
Today has been a busy day from the minute I woke up!
My mom was scheduled to arrive at 5:30 am today, but we don’t have any way to get to the airport that early. The trains run through the night, but buses don’t, and from our city, we have to take a bus to connect with the train. So dd17 went to Haifa last night, spent the evening with friends, and got up super early to take the train to the airport in Tel Aviv.
My mom arrived at 6 am, and at 7:45, just after ds12 and I were commenting that she and dd17 must already be on the train to come home, I got a call from her – dd didn’t show up. This was a little concerning since dd is super responsible, and I knew she planned to take a train that would get her in by 6 am. This call coincided with the littles needing to leave to school and my husband needing to leave to a job interview, so there was a bit too much going on for a very overtired me (I woke up so tired that I told myself I’d take a nap as soon as the littles went to school – but I didn’t) for me to feel relaxed while I was trying to figure out what to do. After my first frantic thoughts of ‘oh, no’, I suggested to my mom that she wait another 45 minutes and then if dd wasn’t there, I’d come get her (about a three hour trip in each direction).
Fortunately it wasn’t long before we got a call that they met each other in the airport – there was a mix up about where we had said the meeting place would be, and though they were both there for over two hours by that point, dd had been sticking to the agreed on meeting place and my mom was walking around, so they kept missing each other. A little frustrating but the main thing is they found each other!
Back at home, dd15 and I were planning to use the day to do the bulk of the cooking for the bar mitzva this Shabbos. We prepared a number of salads, chicken, and desserts; though there are more things left for tomorrow morning than I had planned (I only wanted to bake challah then), it’s not overwhelming. Dd17 made a few more beautiful layer cakes after I listed what we were baking last week, and dd15 made a couple of large pudding layer cakes for lunch dessert (one strawberry, one lemon).
Ds12 went with dh to get a suit in Haifa last week, and he was so happy with the place he raved about it to his older brother. So they agreed it would be a good place to go for ds18 to freshen up his wardrobe, plus ds18 wanted to buy some things for ds12. Ds18 came directly from Jerusalem to Haifa, and ds13 took the bus there to meet him; they spent the whole day there together.
I went down to the hall we’re renting for the weekend to get the keys and got into a conversation with a man in his eighties who works there. He told me how Orthodox Jewish women are oppressed, and how women are treated better in the secular world – this was spurred by his question about why we were renting the hall, and when I said a bar mitzva, he said to the other person working there, a foreign worker who wasn’t sure a bar mitzva was for a boy or girl,”it’s for a boy’, they don’t care about the girls”.) I don’t mind talks like these, as long as people are reasonable. After about twenty minutes I told him I had to get home before my mom arrived from the airport, and invited him to join us at the bar mitzva reception on Shabbos morning. Very nice man – before I left he told me how unusual it is for someone ‘secular’ like him to be able to openly speak to someone ‘religious’ like me. He’s right, and that’s a shame that we allow ourselves to build walls between ourselves and others who have different lifestyles than us – we’re all just people trying to live life as best as we can.
My mom and dd17 finally got home at noon (we were originally expecting them by 10 am), and of course my mom immediately unpacked all the stuff she had brought for us. She really spent a lot of time looking for things she knew we needed, and I appreciated all of her time and effort. It’s not easy to shop for someone else, particularly for things that involve personal taste. (My mom and I have different styles, as do I and my girls!) She didn’t hit the bullseye entirely but she did really well, and even if she hadn’t, I would still appreciate the enormous amount of time she spent going to different places to get things she thought I would need.
Ds13 came home from his day with ds18 a little before dinner time, and my mom gave him a couple of cards and gifts from friends in the US that they asked her to deliver. He told me it was the best day he could think of and listed all the things that made it so nice! I didn’t tell him that his day was going to be getting even better later that evening, when he got a huge surprise for his bar mitzva. (I’ll post about this in detail when I have time to upload the video of when he saw his surprise.)
This morning, dd15 said that we should have made 2 ‘to do’ lists; one for us, and for to give out jobs to people who keep calling to ask what they can do to help! That’s something I really appreciate about living in Israel – people truly want to help in some way and be involved. In the last couple of days I’ve had a few people ask me what they could cook or bake for me, and today got three more requests to help. These aren’t necessarily all coming from people I know well – I don’t know many people here well – but from people I’ve gotten to know on a casual basis (three of ds4 and ds5’s teachers have all repeatedly offered to help). I had things pretty much organized by this point, though dd15 pointed out that I could have asked them to make dips, since I only have a couple of those so far. And those who asked before I had it all cooked/baked myself are definitely helping out – two of the three kugels we’re serving for the lunch meal are being prepared by other people.
Just three weeks ago, I was feeling so ‘blah’ about this bar mitzva, feeling alone and lonely, and now I’m in such a different headspace. I’m so warmly appreciative about every one of our guests coming from outside of Karmiel to spend Shabbos with us, and look forward to seeing many more people at the reception.
For the meal following the reception, despite out efforts to keep things small, our count has gone from 50 to 70 (this happens very easily since for a Shabbos meal you’re inviting entire families rather than couples – we had to really limit this since it could get huge so quickly) , so dh had to go out today to buy more groceries. It’s still pretty small though, relatively.
Thankfully, our plans seem to be moving along nicely even though I don’t feel like I’m especially busy – I mentally predicted I’d be running at top speed to get everything done in time these last couple of days. I know that tomorrow there will probably be a good number of little details that fall below my radar that may not get done until it’s too late to do anything about them, and I’ve mentally told myself it’s okay. Better to be a pleasant and calm person than to stress about having every single detail exactly as I want, if it looks like those details aren’t happening as I would like. It’s so easy to lose sight of why you’re doing all of this, and get tense and irritable with those you love the most – I don’t want that to be me.
I’ve hardly written anything about our bar mitzva preparations, and it’s just a week away now!
Here are our basic plans: we’ll be having a meal on Friday night for family and any guests who are coming from out of town. That will be around 25 people, so not a major crowd. Then Shabbos (Sabbath) morning, ds12 will be called to read the Torah at a local synagogue, and we’ll be having a kiddush/ dessert reception for everyone. (I can’t even guess at numbers for this.)
Following that, we’ll be having a meal for family, ds12’s classmates, and close friends – this will be around 50 – 60 people. Then later on, we’ll have the third meal for our family and out of town guests, so again, about 25 people.
Since we’re doing all the cooking and baking ourselves, as well as setup, etc, this has been a busy week and next week will be even busier! Here’s what we did this week:
Dh took ds to Haifa to buy a suit (they bought a hat over a month ago on a trip to Bnei Brak, along with his tefillin).
Dh designed the invitations and printed them out, and they were given to classmates this week. (Everyone else will get an email invite or verbal notice.)
Yesterday I bought almost all of the paper goods for the meals and reception.
Dd15 and dd17 did almost all of the baking for the kiddush/reception. It doesn’t seem like so much to me, but we were told that fifteen cakes is usually enough.
This includes (all pans are equal to 2 9 x 13 pan unless otherwise noted): 2 dark chocolate cakes, 2 carrot cakes, 2 chocolate chip crumb cakes (loaf pans), 4 lemon pound cakes (loaf pans), 1 marble cake, 1 raspberry bars, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, coconut snowballs, chocolate dipped shortbread cookies, and fudge crinkles. In the works tonight are: checkboard cake, 3 lay orange cake with buttercream frosting and topped with homemade orange marmalade, lemon bars, and maybe shortcake if someone will go out to buy some more round pans at the store tonight!
I would like to have a couple of fancy frosted cakes in addition to the platters to dress up the tables, but the logisitics are a little challenging. We only have a fridge sized freezer, but thankfully a neighbor has offered us her fridge sized freezer, so tomorrow I’m hoping to take all of the baked goods over since I’m maxed out for space at this point – and I haven’t even started cooking any food for the three meals!
The fancy cakes have to carefully stored and take a good bit of space, or have to be assembled a short time before they are served. Since we’ll have about three hours on Friday afternoon to get all of the food for the entire weekend to the hall, pick up electric hotplates to use to heat the food on Shabbos, set up all the tables, heat the food, accompany our guests to the homes of their hosts – and we don’t have a car! – it’s going to be a busy three hours. On Shabbos morning we have to be at shul by 8:30 am in order to hear the reading of the Torah by ds12, then will go straight there to set up the kiddush, followed by immediate cleanup and then setup for the meal. I’m not seeing where the extra time to put together a three layer cake is going to happen, and it would be such a shame to put the time into making it now, and having it get smushed in the freezer.
Dd17 enjoys baking really nice looking cakes, and just about every day we have a conversation in which she suggests making something beautiful and time consuming, and I veto it and remind her the point is to keep it simple so we don’t get stressed out. I was trying to explain the logistics to a couple of the kids tonight, so they could see the big picture that I’m looking at of everything that has to be done, to understand why I keep rejecting certain suggestions – but I think that they won’t really understand what I’m talking about until we’re in the middle of giving baths to the littles, haircut to ds, ironing everyone’s clothes, getting our house clean, in addition to everything else, that they’ll start to realize what I was talking about. I also love when things look super nice, and if I had a better set up that would allow me to prepare and store things in advance, I would do more along these lines.
I’d like to serve some kind of kugel, vegetable platters and dips in addition to the desserts, but particularly the dips will complicate the cleanup, and whatever I end up adding will be because I found lots of extra time and energy that I hadn’t budgeted for something else! Not so likely, but not impossible, either. 🙂
Then there’s the three Shabbos meals, for which everything will be cooked towards the end of the week, so that it will be fresh. It’s nice that we rented a place that we can use for not just the kiddush, but will be able to have all of meals in one place. This wasn’t part of the original plan, but we decided on this a couple of weeks ago. It will really help us keep things simple since I won’t have to juggle between hosting and serving in our home for two meals, and then in another place for the main bar mitzva meal.
Also, we’re not going to have more than three guests staying in our home for the weekend, and they’re all people we’re comfortable with and can be relaxed around. There aren’t many people coming from outside of Karmiel, but we are deeply grateful to everyone of them for being willing to make the effort to share our celebration with us.
As far as our budget, I might be wildly unrealistic about this because I haven’t bought the food for the weekend meals yet, but I’m hoping to keep the food expenses within our usual monthly food budget of 2000 shekels or close to it (this obviously means being super frugal with our usual expenditures). So far just about all of the baking supplies have been purchased and it’s looking optimistic. I’ll keep track of all of my receipts so I can give you an accurate idea later on of how much our self-catered bar mitzva was. 🙂
Last night I commented to dh that: 1) I really miss homeschooling (nothing like sending your kids to underscore how great homeschooling is!); 2) I missed ds5’s exuberant energy. He’s seemingly adjusting well to everything, except this boy who used to be happy and excited about everything now is constantly whining, complaining, and crying – I realized yesterday that he hardly ever smiles from deep inside anymore.
This morning the whining started when a sibling gave him a spoonful of sugar in his second bowl of oatmeal, and it wasn’t a big enough spoonful. You would have thought something terrible had happened, the way he began crying and yelling. I asked him to speak pleasantly, and he really seemed unable to.
I explained to him that we don’t go to school when we are sick because it could make people sick, and it’s not fair to the people around us to go to school when we are miserable; it makes people feel good when we smile and bad when we are unhappy. So it became a ‘gan Mommy’ morning (‘Mommy playgroup’ – what staying home with me was termed for the sake of ds2.5 so he would feel like he was doing what everyone else going to school was).
He was upset about not getting to go to school, but within a half hour, he was smiling. Really smiling. I could almost see him unwind and inwardly relax. It was so nice to see. I told him at 10 am we’d take a walk and go to the park, but when we got there, the officials told us they changed the hours for the winter and wouldn’t be open until 3 pm.
I’ve recently noticed that it seems to be prime foraging season here – in the US it was after the winter – and lately I’ve had a hankering to get outside and just harvest something! My motivation for this morning’s outing was that yesterday I noticed some rosehips when I was out with the kids, and wanted to check if there were more so I could prepare a big batch at once. So it didn’t make much of a difference to me where we went, and when ds5 suggested another park, off we went.
We detoured somewhat, scanning the rosebushes that lined the streets. On the way, I showed him what mallow looks like – I don’t usually pick any wild edibles around here that grow on the ground because there are lots of dogs. But it had just rained and we were in an area that didn’t seem to be a dog spot, so we picked some.
Then we entered a big gorgeous park that has a playground but is mostly a huge beautiful natural area, and while the boys were running around I kept my eyes open for rosehips, but instead noticed that some of the olive trees had some ripe olives still remaining. So when they finished running, I suggested we find an olive tree to pick from. But ds5 said, “I don’t want to pick olives, I want to pick carob!” He noticed right then that we were passing a carob tree, so I hoisted him on my shoulder and he picked a few nice long pods. The three of us snacked on them as we went along, and then found some more mallow off the beaten trail.
As we followed the mallow trail, we happened upon a low growing olive tree with a huge rock underneath it. This was perfect since ds5 could reach the olives by climbing on this big rock. Ds2 also wanted to pick, but it didn’t last long since it meant me holding him up high while simultaneously pulling the olive branch down low towards us. I gave him the olives I picked to put in the bag (he was much slower than we were, so this wasn’t really suitable), then switched his job to holding the bag of olives open, but that wasn’t a great job for him either. But I let him keep that job since he felt useful and ds5 and I filled our pockets as we picked, and periodically emptied them into the bag. We ended up with 1 – 2 quarts of fresh olives.
It was a gorgeous day, the sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining, and it just felt so marvelous to be out doing this. I felt so happy I almost cried – I didn’t realize how much I missed the feeling of being out in nature. And it felt so right to be with my littles, giving them opportunities for self-directed outdoor experiences, so unlike the kindergarten environment where everything is structured and adult-led. I watched ds5 and ds2 find a huge ant hill, try to feed the ants olives, mash some olives with a rock and show me about the dye that resulted, all while soaking in vitamin D from the sun. You can’t manufacture real experiences like this, and there’s something about these kind of things that is good for kids (and adults!) at a deep, soul level.
On the way out of the park, we found an abundance of rosehips concentrated on a few bushes – all the other bushes we found were still in bloom. Ds2 planted himself right next to one and got busy picking, and when I told him it was time to go a few minutes later, he looked at me seriously and said, “I’m not done yet”, and got back to industriously picking the rosehips and putting them in the sandwich bag we had with us. He was so focused and felt so accomplished! I let him pick a while longer, but then we really did have to leave.
On the way home we found a small lemon tree – they weren’t so big and I have lemons at home, but they were happy to be able to pick three of them. We got home with all of our treasures, tired after being out all morning but only one of us ready for a nap (me!).
I don’t honestly find foraging to be about frugality for me. We’re way too big a family and the amounts I can pick are so small that they’re not generally consequential, and the time investment – if looked at it strictly from an economic point of view – doesn’t usually justify the expenditure. But from an experiential and empowerment perspective, it’s definitely worthwhile. I like that my kids can identify plants and food that grow around them, and have a chance to be in touch with the physical world in a real way.
Do you ever harvest food growing in the wild? What kind of things grow locally to you? What do you like about foraging? Do you share my feeling that it’s empowering on a personal level?
I learned about these videos several years ago, and enjoyed watching several of them on You Tube at the time with some of my children. The videos are hosted by a lovely elderly woman, Clara, who shares recipes and demonstrated preparation of foods they made during the Depression. She also shares anecdotes and stories about her life. There are 28 videos, and are each very short and have a warm, wholesome feel to them.
I believe she made the first one when she was 89. I was reminded of these tonight since Clara, now 96, recently released what she said will be the last video in the series because she’s ‘getting old’. I enjoyed these so much and am sharing a link to them since I think a lot of you will enjoy this as well.
On the note of the Great Depression, a couple of years ago I read a book recounting memories of this time that I really enjoyed. You can learn a lot about frugal living, self-sufficiency, and just plain out making do by reading about what life was like during the Depression. The book is, Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. It’s not a gloomy and difficult read, which you might associate with the Depression, but has a realistic but optimistic air about it. (I was able to find it at the library.)
Five jars of cooled (white) fat, jar on right with melted fat still hot
Some things are so easy you feel almost foolish posting instructions on how to do it, and how to render beef fat (or chicken fat) is one of those things!
But since Chanukah began just last night and it’s traditional to fry foods in oil during this eight day festival, I’m going to go ahead and share an option for frying that our family enjoys year round!
Firstly, you’ll need to get hold of a good bit of beef fat. This is also called suet. There are different qualities of fat; if you have a choice, you want a big chunk of white fat rather than a blob of little pieces. But either way, you’ll prepare it the same way. We got a nice slab from the ribs, which is good quality fat.
If you want to make life more involved for yourself, then go ahead and dice the fat up. Or put it in a food processor, or chop it. I’ve seen all those things recommended. But you know me, ‘why make more work than necessary?’ is my motto, so I just put the entire big chunk in a pot.
Put the burner on low, and let the fat slowly melt over the course of time – it might take up to a few hours, depending how much fat you have. When it’s liquid, it’s called rendered – pour the fat through a strainer into a glass jar or container. If you are going to refrigerate the fat and don’t care if there are tiny pieces of meat that end up in it, don’t bother straining it. The beef particles will sink to the bottom of the jar. I use this up so quickly that it doesn’t matter to me if it’s clarified (strained) or not.
If you have a big chunk, you might find that you can pour off most of the melted fat, but there’s still a chunk left. Go ahead, pour off what’s melted, and keep melting the remainder – that’s what I did above, which is why one jar in my picture was in the hot melted stage while the others had already cooled off.
When the fat is liquid, it will be a lovely golden brown, but when it hardens, it turns a pure white. You can see that in my picture above. (You can also see the little food particles at the bottom of the jar of melted fat on the right, if you look closely. )
You might be left with some tasty cracklings at the end of this – if you are, save them and use them to season another dish – it’s delicious!
Now, how do you preserve your rendered fat? Assuming you’ve strained it, you should be able to keep this at room temperature for quite a while. What I’ve liked doing in the past is rendering a large batch of fat at a time, pouring the hot strained fat into glass canning jars, and then immediately closing each jar with a new canning lid and ring. It will seal as it cools, and will stay shelf stable for many, many months.
For those of you wondering why in the world I’d want to use something as artery clogging as beef fat, it’s because it’s not saturated fat that causes heart problems, but processed vegetable oils (yes, like the widely touted canola and soy oils). They’ve done analyses of the stuff they’ve scraped out of arteries and it’s not saturated fat. There’s lots of fascinating research about this and if you’re interested in reading some articles, here are some to start you off:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/ (This is an excellent site and is filled with high quality information, but you’ll find a little bit of off-color language from time to time – just a warning for those who would be bothered.)
The benefits in terms of cooking with beef fat are that it has a high smoking point, which makes it good for frying and baking. Flavor-wise, I prefer to use coconut oil or palm shortening for baking, but find the beef fat adds a nice flavor to most other things.
Has anyone noticed that I haven’t mentioned the holiday season even the tiniest bit? I haven’t been purposely ignoring it as much as not really thinking much about it.
Usually, I’m pretty aware of the holidays coming up – I use the advance time to stockpile gifts for all of our family members that they’ll appreciate at prices that my wallet appreciates! Sometimes this has been buying things at thrift stores or yard sales, sometimes it’s meant making gifts. But whatever I did, I needed to think ahead to be ready. (Here’s a post I wrote about my approach to holiday shopping.)
Though we’ve always made a very conscious effort to keep things simple in the gift giving arena, when you have so many children buying and making gifts for one another, things begin to take on a life of their own and it gets harder and harder to keep it simple! (You can read about preparations for past Chanukahs – do a search for ‘chanukah’ or ‘chanuka’ in the search bar – as well as one of our favorite gifts of the last night of Chanukah that has become a family memory to be treasured!) And of course we were living close to grandparents who were eager to come by with the goodies they had for the kids. And even though the gifts we purchased weren’t expensive and were often things we would have bought them in any case, but saved them until Chanukah to give, there were still gifts, and it was hard for a certain degree of focus to not be on presents.
I think we did a good job of straddling gift giving and finding meaning in the holiday, but now we’ve decided that we’d like to use our recent move as an opportunity to reset our family expectations and focus more on what the celebration of this holiday is about. So we’ve agreed to totally cut out the presents.
Tonight was the first night of Chanukah, and it was lovely! Though everyone in the past had their own unique menorahs, we only brought my husband’s menorah with us (yep, the luggage limit thing again!). We bought inexpensive tin menorahs for everyone; ds4 brought one home from gan (preschool) today, and he lit for the first time with us all.
The first night of Chanukah in our home
After candlelighting in front of the window that overlooks our street, we sang together and my husband and all of the kids danced (I don’t know why, but somehow I usually prefer to sit and watch them!). After that, ds12 prepared latkes (potato pancakes) for dinner, while dh played Chanukah tunes on his guitar and dd15 played her flute – they started working on a Chanukah song that they can play together. I was really glad we brought the guitar along!
Last night dd11 and I attended her school performance, which consisted on several dances and songs by the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls, followed by a one woman act, a play about the Inquisition. Wow, was she talented! I enjoyed it very much, and periodically whispered explanations in dd’s ear about what was going on. I heard today that many of the Israeli girls for whom language wasn’t a barrier didn’t understand the concept of the Inquisition and the forced conversion of the Jews to Christianity, never having been exposed to that time in history, and weren’t able to follow the play.
That evening was the beginning of the active Chanukah season! As I said, today ds4 came home with a menorah, a box of candles, and a dreidel from school, and tomorrow all of the kids (except maybe ds12, not so sure about his school) will be having Chanukah parties on their last day before vacation begins!
Thursday morning ds12 will be putting on tefillin for the first time and we’re sending homemade doughnuts and other baked goodies to the minyan (prayer service) that he’ll be attending. Mid day we’ll be attending a bat mitva, and I hope that around 5 pm, ds18 will be coming home for Shabbos (after being gone for a couple of months) and bringing a friend. A couple of hours after he gets home, we’ll be attending a local hachnasas Sefer Torah (dedication of a new Torah scroll) that will be attended by one of the leading Torah sages of this generation.
Then on Friday, friends will be coming from the Jerusalem area with their family to spend a few days with us, and that evening and the next day we’ll be joined for meals by a young family of four visiting from Germany. Then sometime on Sunday a blog reader visiting Karmiel will stop by with her family and we’ll get to meet in person. So we’ll have a nice full house to enjoy Chanukah with!
It’s really nice to see how the chief rabbi of the city has worked to ensure that there will be Chanukah events suitable for the religious public here. We’ll be missing the puppet show on Thursday afternoon in order to attend the bat mitzva of a friend’s daughter, but on Sunday there will be an all day Chanukah event at a local park, and that evening is a special performance for women that I’m looking forward to attending with the older girls. (Unfortunately, they didn’t go with us last night.) There’s also an event for men the following evening. I’m sure we’ll hear about more things that are planned as the week goes on.
It already feels like a wonderful holiday, and it’s only the first night!
What is your position on gift giving during the holiday season? What are things you’ve done to keep the focus on things that are more meaningful, such as family time or spiritual traditions?
Have you ever had an abundance of eggs, or seen a great deal on eggs and wished you could stock up, but didn’t because you thought they’d go bad before you could use them? I have! Here’s an alternative that can be helpful.
Crack your eggs, slightly beat them, (edited to add – and sprinkle a tiny bit of salt in), and pour them into ice cube trays. (Pay attention to how many you use so you can do the math on how many eggs are in each cube.) Once they’re frozen, pour them into a zip lock bag. Put them in the freezer until you need them. When you’re ready to use them, defrost the amount of cubes you need in your fridge, and use them in whatever recipes you want to make. And here’s where the math comes in: one cube equals – xxx eggs.
Do you have any other practical and easy ways to store eggs long term (except for keeping them in the fridge!)? Have you ever used this strategy or something similar for eggs?
