Freshly Baked Goods Friday: Lemon Cake Edition

It was one of those rare confluences of events.

B”H, we had plenty of lemons on our tree; we were in the mood for something more substantial than lemonade; and the Studentit had some time on her hands in between studying for finals.

<brief cultural observation>
Back in the Old Country – or at least back in the part of the Old Country centered around Midtown Manhattan’s 34th and Lexington – four weeks typically separated the fall and spring semesters: a week to study (aka “reading week” בלעז); an intense examination week, which often involved two finals per day; and then two blissful weeks of vacation.

Meanwhile, here in Israel, intersession (i.e. chofshah bein hasemesterim, for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you) also lasts four weeks, but the difference is that finals are spread out over the entire month. In other words, although one never really gets to enjoy an actual vacation, one is spared the stress and pressure of having all the exams in a single week.

But I digress…
</observation>

All this is to say that to the delight of the denizens of TRLEOOB*, the aforementioned convergence had a delicious result:

Lemon Cake

Adapted from “Kosher by Design”

Ingredients

• 1½  cups sugar
• 2½ cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder (i.e. one envelope for my Israeli readers)
• ¾ cup mango juice (orange juice works too)
• ¾ cup canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs

Glaze

• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• 2 TBSP lemon juice

Directions

Mix sugar, flour, and baking powder. Add juice, oil, and vanilla. Beat in eggs and mix well.

Pour batter into oiled and floured bundt pan. (We used a tube pan without a removable bottom.) Bake at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until done.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top of the hot cake, and immediately pour the glaze all over the cake and especially into the holes.

Let cool in pan before serving.

!בתאבון ושבת שלום ומבורך

______________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Registering displeasure

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for long, drawn-out tales of, er, woe and suffering. Proceed at your own risk.

I have many fond memories of my college years.

But registering for courses is certainly not one of them.

It all started with my first semester at Stern. Incoming students signed up for courses after all the upper classmen, and due to the vagaries of the alphabet, I was one of the last students in the entire school to register.

Which meant that by the time my turn came around, the pickings were fairly slim.

I still shudder when I recall running up and down the stairs between the registrar’s office and the computer room, where a large monitor displayed all the closed courses. (“What do you mean EVERY section of freshman composition is closed?! How can I be closed out of freshman comp?!! I’m a freshman!!”)

Desperate, I had no choice but to ignore my mother’s cardinal rule.

The key to a successful college career, she had declared, was to push off taking the dreaded speech class (a general requirement for all Stern students) until one’s senior year, in hope that the academic powers-that-be would somehow be inspired to change the requirements and allow one to graduate without it.

(The fact that speech was still a requirement nearly two decades after my mother had graduated Stern should have been my first clue that the strategy was doomed to fail. But I digress…)

But since there wasn’t too much else left to take that first semester, I was forced to sign up for speech.

(Postscript: The silver lining was that during our senior year, when all my friends were groaning their way through speech, I had the smug self-satisfaction of knowing that I no longer had to deal with that misery. But once again I digress…)

But B”H, in the intervening years -  during which time I graduated college; YZG and I got married; we made aliyah; I started a blog; I neglected that blog; and so on – I was gradually able to come to terms with my, ahem, ordeal.

You see, I was secure in the comforting belief that technological advances would ensure that the Shiputzim kids would be spared the same registration trauma.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when the Studentit called home in the middle of the day.

Registration for the spring semester had just opened, and she was having trouble registering. Could I please help her, she wondered.

Suffice it to say that although the Studentit attends an internationally-acclaimed institution of higher learning, which boasts some of the country’s finest engineering and computing minds, she and I spent the next two hours glued to our respective computer screens, as the supposedly sophisticated online registration system crashed ignobly right before our very eyes.

It seems the French may be on to something with their whole “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” thing (i.e. אֵין כָּל חָדָש תַחַת הַשָמֶש – for the Biblically-oriented amongst you).

[raises glass]

Well, here’s hoping that the registration system improves by the time  the Shiputzim grandchildren (BA”H) are ready for it…

A study in contrasts

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for stereotypes and generalizations. Proceed at your own risk.

As anyone who knows us in real life is aware, YZG and I are proud out-of-towners.

<background for my non-American readers> New Yorkers tend to refer to anyone living anywhere else in the US as “out-of-towners,” a label which those of us from outside the New York metropolitan area have co-opted as a badge of honor. </background>

The thing is that most people mistakenly believe that YZG’s out-of-town credentials surpass my own. (Yes, of course it’s a competition. Because whether it’s Facebook friends or bumping into people we know, just about everything here in TRLEOOB* is a competition…)

After all, YZG grew up in a much smaller Jewish community than I did, and, in fact, most New Yorkers (don’t say I didn’t warn you about those stereotypes…) would be hard-pressed to locate it on a map.

However, the truth is that when it comes to, er, out-of-townness, YZG is the equivalent of the nouveau riche - while I am an upstanding member of the landed gentry…

I mean, consider the evidence:

1) My parents, my siblings, and I are all native out-of-towners. In contrast, my in-laws are from New York, and YZG was born in Yerushalayim. Which is really special and all (even if it does mean that I can never be First Lady), but even the most dedicated New Yorker wouldn’t dare call Yerushalayim “out of town”…

2) For YZG, visiting his grandparents a”h entailed a trip to –you guessed it - New York. For me, visiting my grandparents a”h entailed a trip to a different out-of-town community…

3) YZG spent his summers in bungalow colonies and sleepaway camp. However, I’ve never even visited a bungalow colony; my camp experience was limited to working as a day camp counselor; and we spent our summers going on month-long, cross-country road trips.

And most of all:

4) YZG grew up enjoying classic New York delicacies, like chocolate bells and black and white cookies. But me? Not so much. In fact, the first time I ever heard about these desserts was when I went off to college in - okay, fine, you got me - New York…

Mini Black and White Cookies

Loosely adapted from “Spice and Spirit” (aka “the purple cookbook”) and prepared this past summer by the talented Shiputzim kids. (All together now: “Kol hakavod, tza’ir bakers!”)

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup oil (the kids used canola)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour

White Frosting

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ¼ tsp vanilla
• 2 TBSP hot water
• 1 TBSP oil (the kids used canola)
• A drop or two of lemon juice

Chocolate Frosting

• ½ tsp vanilla
• 4 TBSP cocoa
• 4 TBSP oil (the kids used canola)
• 4 TBSP hot water (or more)
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

Beat oil and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs. Add flour.

Form into balls (the kids chose to make relatively small ones), and place on a baking-paper-lined cookie sheet. Leave room for spreading. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes (or less, if you’re making mini cookies), and let cool.

Meanwhile, combine the white frosting ingredients in one bowl and the chocolate frosting ingredients in a second bowl.

When cookies have cooled, flip them over. Frost the flat side – one half with the white frosting and one half with the chocolate frosting.

!בתאבון

________________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Counteracting the meraglim

The Second Beit HaMikdash was famously destroyed due to sinat chinam (baseless hatred). Yet, Tisha B’Av’s designation as a day of mourning predates either Mikdash.

As we read in Parshat Shlach, the meraglim (spies)slandered Eretz Yisrael, and in response, the nation cried all night. The Gemara (BT Taanit 29a) teaches:

“Rabbah said in the name of R’ Yochanan, ‘That day was the day before Tisha B’Av. HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to them: “You wept a gratuitous weeping, and I will establish for you a weeping for the generations.”’”

And so, as an antidote to the meraglim, I’d like to present – with your permission – one of the myriad things I love about our beautiful Land: namely, the fact that this is a Jewish country.

Several examples:

1) The Jewish calendar

In Israel, the calendar revolves around the Jewish festivals, and “the holiday season” refers to Tishrei - not December. Also, even secular Israelis wish each other a “Shabbat Shalom” and/or a “Chag Samei’ach”.

2) Corporate culture

As some of you know, the CTO is spending his summer working at a high-tech firm.

Although I was a few years older than he is now when I was first introduced to corporate America, I experienced a bit of a culture shock. By the end of the first day, I realized that I wasn’t in Kansas Stern College anymore.

In contrast, there’s a daily mincha minyan in the CTO’s building. (On Shivah Assar B’Tamuz, he and his fellow congregants went next door to a different building, which has a Sefer Torah.) Also, each day, the employees are served breakfast (pastry, cheeses, and vegetables), and it’s all kosher. And when he went out to lunch with his co-workers last week, they ate at a mehadrin restaurant.

3) Shaving during the Three Weeks

Unless matters have changed drastically over the past eleven years, when the Three Weeks or Sefirah rolls around, most employees in the Diaspora have to shave.

But here in Israel, during this time of year, one sees men all over the place sporting what can charitably be described as “the scruffy look”, and yet no one thinks twice. It’s not considered to be unprofessional to observe Jewish mourning practices, and even the IDF permits religious soldiers to refrain from shaving when it is prohibited by Jewish law.

Feel free to leave your own examples in the comment section.

.יה”ר שיבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו

.אמן

Have an easy and meaningful fast.

Return to 34th and Lex

Those of you who recognize the address in the title will be surprised to learn that this post is actually subtitled: “Life on an Israeli Maternity Ward”.

Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up…

First, two caveats:

Caveat #1: My American experiences obviously pre-date our aliyah, and even my Israeli experiences aren’t very recent. (After all, BA”H, our “baby” isn’t exactly a baby anymore…) However, I can’t imagine that there have been any significant changes in the interim.

Caveat #2: This post is not about giving birth; it’s only about the postpartum period. However, I should note that the medical care I received in both countries was excellent and equally advanced.

Basically, two main issues distinguish Israeli maternity wards from their American counterparts:

1) Ambulation: In the States, the objective seems to be to let the new mother get some much needed rest. In contrast, here in Israel, the message is: You’re not sick; get out of bed. Obviously, if chas v’shalom anything is wrong, the mothers stay in bed. But, assuming that everything is fine, the mothers are encouraged to get up and walk around. For instance, as long as the mother is up to it, she goes to get her baby from the nursery (rather than waiting for the nurse to bring the baby to her). Also, in some (most?) Israeli hospitals, the new mothers go to a small private dining room to eat their meals. Only mothers who are non-ambulatory (e.g. after a C-section or within the first six hours after giving birth, etc.) receive their meals in bed.

2) Socialization: Unlike in America, Israeli maternity wards serve as postpartum support groups. Except for at night and – perhaps – during the traditional 2-4 PM rest hour, the curtains separating the beds remain open. By the time I left the hospital after each birth, I knew all kinds of personal things about my roommates. In contrast, in America, I barely knew my roommates’ names!

The net result was that when each of my “sabras” were born, I felt like I was back in Stern College (hence the title!) – with two notable differences:

• Instead of staying up late studying and comparing dating stories, my roommates and I stayed up late nursing and comparing birthing stories.
• Instead of saying things like, “Oh? Are you going to eat? Then please save me a seat in the caf.,” we said things like, “Oh? Are you going to eat? Then please save me a seat in the chadar ochel (dining room).”