I love baking bread, but it took me a while to learn the skill. You’ve got to get the dough just right, not too hard and not too watery. Kneading requires quite a bit of elbow grease, unless you have a good food processor that can handle bread dough. Rising time also takes a while.
That’s why I love lahuh – a Yemeni flatbread recipe with very little room for error. There is no kneading involved and it rises very quickly.
The key to making lahuh is frying it in a cool skillet. Otherwise it will get stuck. I usually work with 2 skillets, dipping the bottom of the skillet into a sink full of cold water to cool it between each lahuh. To grease the skillet, use a paper towel or a brush with just a bit of oil.
Here is the authentic recipe from my mother-in-law.
Lahuh – Easy Yemeni Bread
1 kg (2.2 lb) flour – whole wheat works great
8 + 1 cups warm water
2 tbsp dry active yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
Mix flour, yeast, salt, sugar and 8 cups of water. Let rise until doubles in volume. The batter should be buttermilk consistency. If too think, stir in one more cup of water (don’t worry if it a bit too watery). Let rise again.
Lightly grease a COOL skillet and pour in a ladle of batter. Fry until the top is dry and remove to a tray. Cool the skillet and repeat.
Last month, The International Rabbinic Fellowship, the most liberal of Orthodox rabbinic associations in the US, voted against accepting female members, effectively withholding its recognition for Sara Hurwitz’s rabbinic status. The issue has sparked a lively debate among several Facebook friends about women’s abilities to serve in positions of religious leadership.
Despite having spent my teen years at Rabbi Avi Weiss’s shul, with its gender-equal sanctuary and women’s prayer group, and being educated at such strongholds of progressive women’s education as Frisch, Drisha, and Midreshet Lindenbaum, I still think that the Orthodox female clergy discourse is a classic case of misplaced energies. If the goal of ordaining female rabbis is to show the world that whatever men can do, women can do better, than this is the way to go. However, I am skeptical that ordination for women will introduce more meaning into widespread Jewish observance or bring women into the beit midrash en mass. If anything, Jewish herstory of the last 100 years since the establishment of the first Bais Yaakov in 1917 has demonstrated that working with the establishment, not against it, is by far the most effective path to empowering women.
This becomes especially clear when contemplating the Orthodox community in Israel. Without any fighting and with little fanfare, Israeli women are making huge strides towards extensive Torah learning and religious leadership roles. During the half century since its establishment, Michlala has trained tens of thousands of highly educated women that went on to revitalize religious education. In recent years, Rabbi Brovender found ways to work with the Rabbinate to introduce toanot rabbaniyot (religious court advisors) into batei din, while Rabbanit Henkin’s yoatzot halachaprogram bestows rabbinic consultancy functions on women with minimal opposition.
A demonstrative standing reception for Sara Hurwitz at last year’s JOFA convention is self-understood at any Torah lesson delivered by a female scholar in Israel. It is precisely this lack of feminist agenda that has advanced women’s standing within the Orthodox community with full support of the rabbinic establishment. From Dana Tirosh’s annual Binyan Shalem conferences, attracting some 5,000 women, to Yemima Mizrachi’s standing-room-only lectures, to Rebbetzin Wertzberger’s 70,000-member-strong Mishmeret Hashalom network, life-long learning and meaningful observance by women are a natural part of any Orthodox community here.
During my senior year in high school, an NCSY director told me that most graduates of traditionally-oriented seminaries are more dedicated to life-long Torah learning than their counterparts at seemingly enlightened women’s “yeshivot.” At the time, I found that hard to believe. Today, almost 15 years after studying at both types of schools, I can attest to the veracity of the statement. Unlike, various Modern Orthodox “scholar circles,” right-wing seminaries do not produce handfuls of high-profile prodigies. They train thousands of erudite women living the Torah values and passing them on to the future generation. Many of these women go on to attain leadership positions, not because they are interested in leadership per se, but because they want to make a difference in what they identify as areas of communal need.
Yeshivat Maharat’s program with its four rabbinic hopefuls might succeed in overcoming the obstacles to ordaining narrowly accepted Orthodox female clergywomen. Yet, I doubt its influence will ever match the possibilities created by women’s initiatives leshem shamayim within the seemingly constrictive confines of rabbinic approval.
Soups are a winter lunchtime staple at our house. Unfortunately, my kids lose their enthusiasm for just about any soup on day 2, so I have to figure out what to do with leftover soup. A fast Google search produced many results on how to make soup out of leftovers (that’s a no-brainer), but pitifully few ideas of ways to use leftover soup.
Here are some things that I do to give leftover soup new appearances:
1. Mash some of the vegetables with a stick blender and add new seasoning. It will look like a different soup.
2. Remove the vegetables, mash, mix with flour and eggs and fry as croquettes. Stuff into a pita with humus and tahini for a falafel alternative.
3. Remove the vegetables and use in a stir-fry. Freeze the broth to use in a sauce.
4. Use the solids for a casserole. (HT to @mominisrael)
Here’s an ad-hoc recipe for a 15-minute meal out of leftover vegetable soup:
Tuna Couscous Sauce
leftover vegetable soup
1-2 cans tomato sauce
water
2 cans tuna
1/2 tbsp paprika
1 tsp salt
Simmer together for 15 minutes and serve over couscous.
In Israel, the holiday of Tu Beshvat is associated with tree planting and dried fruit. The tradition of eating dried fruit is rooted in the years of exile, where fresh fruit was generally unavailable in the middle of winter. Despite the veritable cornucopia of fresh fruit available at any local grocery, most Israelis still go for the dried, sugared stuff (usually imported from Turkey or the Far East) instead of the real thing.
Here’s what I picked up for our family Tu Beshvat seder at our small village grocery store
Israeli Fruit Basket - Tu Beshvat
I did get some dried fruit as well for the kids’ Tu Beshvat craft project –
The Fruit Bouquet
All you need are some wooden skewers and a variety of colorful dried fruit (dates, figs, prunes, apricot, apples, pineapple, etc). The finished product can look something like this:
Tu Beshvat Dried Fruit Skewers
Once you get enough skewers, you can display them in a flower vase for as long as you can keep your family from devouring them.
All parents want to raise successful kids. While the vision of success may change from parent to parent, the underlying desire for performance remains the same. No matter the definition of “successful,” be it intellectual achievement, financial wealth, or social acceptance, our desire is driven by the perception of kids as extensions of ourselves and reflections of our parenting.
This thought resurfaced as I was reading Amy Chua’s account of her Chinese parenting style in the Wall Street Journal tonight. The Yale Law School professor has managed to raise two daughters on a strict diet of discipline, homework, and social isolation.
“A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do: attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play… watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, not play the piano or violin.”
Chua praises the Chinese way of insisting on “tenacious practice” as the means for achieving the desired results, which then brings the child praise and love. As an example, in order to force her 7-year-old daughter to practice a difficult music piece, Chau
“hauled Lulu’s [the child’s] dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t have “The Little White Donkey” perfect by the next day. … I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic…. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn’t let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling…Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.”
I am not writing about Chua’s story because of its merits. Some Chinese bloggers were quick to point that this roadmap to success has resulted in record depression and suicide rates among young Asian women. Still, while “the end justifies the means” approach is abhorrent to most Western parents, it is only an extreme example of the conditional love with which most people raise their children. In many a house and almost every classroom behavioral modification has become the tool of choice for shaping children to fit into the desired mold. Kids earn praise and encouragement for good grades and polite behavior. This conditions children to think that their intrinsic value and goodness are dependent on some type of achievement or obedience.
For me, trying to raise my kids with unconditional love is an ongoing challenge. For starters, I’ve stopped treating toys and sweets as prizes for good behavior. How would you feel if your husband were to promise you a bouquet of flowers if you don’t scorch the food for the next week? That would be completely different from receiving the same bouquet just because “I love you,” wouldn’t it? I think the kids feel the same way. When a mom gives a child a piece of chocolate for getting an A on the test, she is manipulating him into getting good grades. The child is made feel that to be worthy of love he has to deliver. On the other hand, the same chocolate given will be taken as a sign of affection when it is presented as such.
And then there is the discipline side. Chua claims that Western parents’ obsession with self-esteem prevents them from setting boundaries. To that I would add that democracy has made too many inroads into our education, putting parents and children on equal footing. While children should be allowed to make age-appropriate choices, parents have the responsibility to use their broader experience and knowledge and act as guides.
This is the flip side of conditional love. It is not an all or nothing game. Strict behavioral limits do not spell lack of love; they enable the child to flourish in a safe environment. It is the way discipline is handled that often sends the wrong message. Personally, whenever I deliver a measure of tough love, I try to show affection right afterwards to let the child know that the misdeed does not change the underlying love for her. This takes a lot of awareness and practice (and a good night’s sleep), but it becomes easier when I shift the focus from my expectations for the child to her need for limits.
The main difficulty in parenting is finding the extremely delicate balance between tough and love. Our kids’ individuality requires different measures of each for raising emotionally and socially well-adjusted adults. Ultimately, this is true parenting success.
Recently, I came across a recipe for an Apple Crisp in one of Jerusalem’s advertising publications. The idea for a sweet fruity dessert was great, but the recipe was too sweet and oily for our taste. The apple filling, while nice, was just a tad too boring, so here is my take on this warm winter dessert.
The recipe below comes with over a dozen filling suggestions, so you can serve this every weekend for the entire winter and never repeat yourself twice. It takes less than 10 minutes to put together and the results are delicious.
My favorite combinations are date-nut, apple-passion fruit, and orange-coconut. We’ve had an unexpectedly bountiful passion fruit harvest this winter from just a single plant, and I’ve been looking for creative ways to serve this fruit to my family. The crisp recipe was just the thing.
So what’s your favorite fruit combination in a baked dessert?
A couple of weeks ago, I finished a series of speech therapy treatments. Despite teaching and speaking in public for years, I felt very insecure about my communication abilities. Being asked to repeat myself several times in ordinary conversations didn’t do much for my self-esteem. That was why I decided to embark on a course of treatment usually reserved for children.
My fabulous therapist taught me breathing technique, articulation exercises, and speaking tricks that helped me improve what I thought to be a permanent obstacle. Then this morning, Yedidya Meir in his daily radio show offered a beautiful insight from the Maharal on the weekly parsha that goes to the heart of living with limitations.
The Maharal asks what should be an obvious question. G-d miraculously enabled Moshe to reach the ultimate stage of perfection, making him the greatest prophet in human history. Yet, Moshe retained the single impairment, which ostensibly would preclude Moshe from serving as a prophet and leader.
Maharal answers that Moshe’s difficulty in speech was divinely ordained to prove the veracity of the Torah. While a charismatic orator has the ability to lead a crowd astray by words of falsehood, an inept speaker usually has difficulty gaining support even for a true message. Still, despite Moshe’s poor speaking abilities, he was able to pass down the Torah to the Jewish people and serve as their leader for 40 years.
By virtue of being human, each person faces a limitation or disability of some sort, whether physical, intellectual, or emotional. Often, it takes keen perception and courage to identify and accept one’s own limitations. In our subjectivity, we either tend to dismiss them or castigate ourselves for being imperfect.
Maharal teaches us that people’s seemingly annoying shortcomings are precisely tailored tools for each person’s life mission. Sometimes, these shortcomings foster realizations and create opportunities for personal development. In other cases, they steer a person onto a specific course, which he wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.
A person can choose to lament his limitations or fight against them. It is also possible to accept them and live life to the fullest. Accepting limitations does not mean falling into despair. Often it is possible to overcome a limitation with treatment or character development. Viewing this as an opportunity for growth rather than an enemy to be fought makes the experience more productive and less threatening. At other times, a limitation is permanent, yet a lot can be done to lead a full and fulfilling life.
Recently, a friend shared a conversation she had had years ago with her learning-disabled child surrounded by super-achieving siblings. Back from a parent-teacher conference, she found her daughter waiting anxiously to find out what the teachers had said. “The teacher said that you are one and only and thank G-d for that,” the mother told her. Seeing the question in the child’s eyes she went on to explain that G-d is not a locksmith and he doesn’t duplicate keys. On the contrary, each person is created as a unique piece in the world’s rich tapestry.
Today, that child is a grown woman, a college graduate, and a teacher. She has repeatedly told her mother that it was this understanding of each person’s unique place that enabled her to survive the difficult school years and deal with the disability.
May G-d give each person the strength to overcome that which he can, the courage to accept that which he cannot, and the wisdom to distinguish between the two.
I got this in the email, so I don’t have whom to credit for this priceless joke. I am sure all the busy moms and dads out there will relate to this.
An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of. He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep.
sleeping dog
An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out..
The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour. This continued off and on for several weeks.
Curious I pinned a note to his collar: ‘I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap.’
The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar: ‘He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3. He’s trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?’
The homemade pickles served at my grandfather’s house are part and parcel of warm childhood memories for me. I’ve never tasted anything like that ever since, so when my mom called the other day telling me she had pickled cucumbers and tomatoes based on her recollection of grandmother’s recipe, my first instinct was to grab a pencil and jot down the recipe.
Turns out making pickles is a snap. It took me all of twenty minutes to pickle two jars of mixed tomatoes and cucumbers (my jars were too narrow for tomatoes alone). The kids got involved by washing the vegetables and picking leaves from the cherry tree in our yard.
Now, the first thing they do upon entering the kitchen in the morning is to check out the color of the cucumbers in the canning jars. Are they still fresh-green or pickle-green? They will have to wait a week to taste the flavor. Making pickles turned out to be a great exercise in delaying gratification.
Hannah over at the Cooking Manager posted a great video on how to cut a pomegranate. It came right in time. Although we had a bunch of pomegranates sitting around in our fruit bowl, I was too intimidated by the looming mess to actually cut them. As always, Hannah saved the day with her video.
Lest you think pomegranates are there for eating only, think again. When presented with a bowl of pomegranate seeds after arriving from school, my 8-year-old had this bright idea:
Pomegranate art - a fun afternooon project
With the long winter afternoons just around the corner, pomegranate art could be a fun afternoon activity for your kids.
Last month, The International Rabbinic Fellowship, the most liberal of Orthodox rabbinic associations in the US, 
