Mazal tov: Bat mitzvah edition

Warning: The following post exceeds the recommended daily allowance for vain attempts at making up for one’s prolonged absence with an overwhelming amount of photos. Proceed at your own risk.

As some of you know, we recently celebrated a Shiputzim daughter’s bat mitzvah.

First, she had a small party in school with her friends, and then we had a separate party just for the immediate family.

Here are the threatened promised photos. (As always, feel free to click on the pictures for a better view.)

The bat mitzvah girl chose spring colors for the decorations:

Note the bat-mitzvah-themed confetti sprinkled in the middle of each table:

The rolls were made by one of the bat mitzvah girl’s grandmothers (aka “She Who Made the Incredible Bundle-of-Wheat Challah for Shavuot”):

As you can see by the screen in the above picture, the program included the requisite video presentation (i.e. a matzeget, for the Hebraically-oriented among you), expertly prepared by our favorite filmmaker.

The main course consisted of brisket, schnitzel, mushroom rice, carrot bread, and several salads: (Thank you to each of the salad makers!)

Dessert included a yummy assortment of homemade treats, such as trifle (made by the bat mitzvah girl’s other grandmother):

Chocolate cake (courtesy of guest blogger Malke) and French coffee cake (which is neither French nor made with coffee – discuss amongst yourselves - recipe to follow, b”n, in a future post):

Cookie “pizza” (credit: one of the bat mitzvah girl’s aunts):

Cinnamon swirl cookies and black and white cookies:

Chocolate chocolate chip bars and chocolate chip sticks:

”No-name” bars (with white glaze instead of colored sprinkles) and more black and white cookies:

Except where otherwise specified, all the desserts were made by the talented Shiputzim bakers (known here on the blog as the tza’ir bakers) – including the bat mitzvah girl herself.

Mazal tov to the beautiful bat mitzvah girl, who did an amazing job with her dvar Torah!

We love you!!!!

Fashion Friday: Unintended consequences edition

Greek soldier: {reading from a scroll} His Royal Highness King Antiochus has decreed that you may not observe Shabbat; you must wear ugly shirts emblazoned with a logo; and you may not perform a brit milah.

Assembled people: {shocked} What do you mean we have to wear ugly shirts with logos?!

(From a comedic scene used to great effect by many Israeli kids in their recent Chanukah plays)

Ask any teacher or principal across the country about the newly-mandated school uniform shirts, and they’ll inevitably start gushing about what a wonderful development it is.

You’ll no doubt hear how the shirts engender school spirit and how the staff spends less time dealing with inappropriately and/or immodestly dressed students.

And in spite of the requisite grumbling (see: the aforementioned skit), most students don’t really seem to mind the uniforms that much either.

After all, the shirts generally come in a wide range of colors – giving the students some room to express their individuality.

Yet, nevertheless, school uniforms aren’t immune from the Law of Unintended Consequences.

You see, no one could’ve predicted that the modern version of uniforms waste precious time every morning.

Here’s why: (Note that these issues mainly apply to girls’ schools.)

• 1) Sartorial considerations: Since the skirts and shirts weren’t purchased together (because the uniforms don’t include skirts), the shirts don’t necessarily match every skirt in a girl’s closet. Which frequently translates into a last-minute frantic scramble to find the single skirt which matches that oddly-hued light green top…
• 2) Political and social considerations: If you’re an elementary school girl, choosing which colored shirt to wear on a given day involves numerous factors. For instance, do you want to wear the same color as your older sister? Yes? But is she willing to match you? And what about your BFF? You arranged with her that you’re both going to wear your beloved pink shirts tomorrow, but – horrors! - it turns out that your pink shirt is still in the laundry. And so on…

In other words, as the Hebraically-oriented among you would say, “zeh loh pashut…” (Literally, it’s not simple – i.e. it’s a real problem…)

Not too long ago, a mother of a teen told me that she wishes her daughter’s ulpanah had a uniform.

“It would save her so much time in the morning,” the mother said wistfully.

I had to laugh…

!צום קל ומועיל ושבת שלום ומבורך

Freshly Baked Goods Friday: Nameless edition

What do you do when you’ve changed a recipe so much that the original name no longer makes sense?

Well, naturally, if you’re the Shiputzim family, you hold a contest to come up with an appropriate alternate appellation. (Try saying that five times fast…)

For instance, when I took the almonds out of a recipe called Almond Chocolate Cookie Bars and replaced them with colored sprinkles, we all submitted our favorite suggestions and then took a vote.

The winner?

No-Name Bars.

Generic yet to the point, the name tends to elicit a few raised eyebrows from our guests, but, hey, it works for us…

No-Name Bars

Loosely adapted from the “Hershey’s Homemade” (1991) cookbook

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup oil (i.e. 200 grams margarine במקור)
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 package chocolate chips
• Colored sprinkles (or very coarsely chopped nuts)

Directions

Beat oil and sugars. Add egg and vanilla. Mix in flour. Press batter into greased or baking-paper-lined 9x13 pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool for five minutes.

Pour chocolate chips over crust. As the chocolate melts, use a spatula to spread over the entire crust. Decorate with sprinkles. Cut into bars while still warm, and then leave them to cool (and the chocolate to harden) in the pan.

!שבת שלום ומבורך

Not quite back to blogging

Hello, Our Shiputzim fans!

I have lots to write about, but for now, I’ll have to suffice with two brief blogbits:

1) B”H, the bar mitzvah was wonderful, and we all had a great time. MAG did an incredible job (BA”H) with his laining and also with the siyum he made on Masechet Taanit. (Not that I’m biased or anything…) Also, thank you to everyone who helped in so many different ways.

2) If you’ve been wondering (i.e. you’ve been in metach) about apple green, please check out the napkins in the following picture from the melave malka:

Kol hakavod to Ilana Davita who correctly guessed that the color would resemble a Granny Smith apple. Well done!

I’ll leave you to decide whether or not this color is the green equivalent of Nechama Leibowitz’s “Iyunim B’Sefer Breishit”.

Hopefully, more bar mitzvah posts to come…

Color me confused

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim fans!

A number of readers have asked me why I haven’t blogged about the IY”H upcoming bar mitzvah.

Of course, there was this post about the hanachat tefillin, but that doesn’t discuss any of the bar mitzvah preparations – which, as you can imagine, have been occupying a great deal of our time here in TRLEOOB (the real life equivalent of our blog).

And so, on that note, here’s a short bar mitzvah-related vignette for your reading pleasure:

I was picking out napkins, and according to the list, one of the available colors is “ירוק תפוח” - “apple green”.

Curious, I asked the vendor if he knew what that meant.

He didn’t have any samples, and so, instead, he looked around the room for something that would match that description. Apparently, “apple green” is not as common as one might have thought, because he couldn’t seem to find anything that would fit the bill.

However, ever resourceful, he pointed to a blue-covered book - Nechama Leibowitz’s “Iyunim B’Sefer Breishit”, to be precise – and said, “Well, it’s just like that color over there… only in green!”

That certainly clears that up, doesn’t it?