This Was Us – at Thanksgiving

Until somewhere in the late 1980s, my Thanksgiving rituals had been as steadfast as anything in this life can be. I don’t exactly know when my mother decided our family would host the extended family celebration. But one of my earliest memories is of hiding under the kitchen table from the hordes of kinfolk gathering in the dining room for Thanksgiving. Maybe I was 3, and it was 1957. Is that when the tradition began? My older sisters probably can tell me.

All I can remember is that my mother, Goldie Mooney, told me that she wanted to have the whole family for the holiday in her new house – the sprawling ranch where I grew up was built in 1952 – and made sure the large dining room and the stretched living room would accommodate everyone. By the time I was old enough to remember, the event seemed to be well-established.

When it came to preparations for the massive midday feast for 30 to 50 people, everything started around Labor Day, maybe earlier. My mother would begin baking cake layers, wrapping them in multiple layers of aluminum foil and then pasting on a piece of masking tape with a description in her neat handwriting. What did she bake? I have a copy of a note she wrote – it’s on a sheet from a notepad with the name of some building supply business in Savannah. I’m guessing it was from the 1960s.

Under the “need to bake” category, she wrote in cursive with big loops:

Spice Cake

Chocolate

Bourbon Nut

German Chocolate

New Pound Cake (not sure what that was; her old pound cake was fabulous enough.)

Coconut

Cheeesecake

 

And under the already baked category, she had:

Praline,

Honey, Nut, and what looks like Orange Rum.

 

Finally, there is the "Want to Bake" category: The first word is hard to read but looks like lekach, the Yiddish word for honey cake -- maybe a different one than she already baked?

Also, new rum cake, something pumpkin, and mince meat.

It surely wasn't a mincemeat pie, however, because my mother absolutely couldn't fathom the concept of pies. "Why put in all that effort for something that would feed 8 or 12, if you were lucky,” she would declare whenever the topic of pies came up.

Her cakes, covered in sea foam icing, were always made 1.5 times the recipe with Swans Down cake flour, so that, when they were all on display on the buffet, it looked like a skyline of fluffy towers in pastel pinks, yellows, mint greens, and the white coconut for contrast. Sitting below them were the so-called “naked” cakes without icing – the melt-in-your-mouth pound cakes, nut cakes, honey cakes, and the like. The centerpieces always were her legendary cheesecakes dripping with blueberry or strawberry toppings. (She usually made a plain one – my favorite – just for me, and I often would have a slice for supper that night.) In the last years, she made Thanksgiving, the cheesecakes became more exotic; one favorite was her baklava cheesecake.

With all those cakes, Mama probably could have served dessert to a small battalion. Yet, by the Monday after Thanksgiving, there was rarely a crumb of cake left, unless she made a fruitcake. Why did she make fruitcake, which nobody really likes that much? Probably because she was born in Claxton, GA, the home of Claxton Fruitcake, which is touted as “the world's most famous old-fashioned holiday fruitcake.” That’s where my immigrant grandparents lived for a while before settling in Vidalia, and I think fruitcake was in Mama’s blood, so she usually made one. Hers was better than most, but still had weird neon-colored fruit in it. After enough protests, she made bourbon nut cake instead, with emphasis on the bourbon, which was preferred. (I once had the horrifying experience of a friend's dog getting a bit drunk from eating that cake, which I had brought as a house gift. More on that story in another entry.)

It might be hard to imagine, but baking the cake layers and putting them in the freezer was just the first step. By mid-November, it was time to make the multiple gallons of Scramble. That was a Chex-mix-like snack made from several types of cereal, pretzels, and roasted nuts. The seasonings vary in recipes, but something about Mama’s generous combination of Lawry’s seasoned salt, Worcester sauce, garlic salt, and sometimes hot sauce created snack food magic. She would fill up several giant Tupperware-like containers with tightly sealed lids, and the Scramble would stay crispy until the big day. It was the same story: Usually, there were only a few sad-looking spiced Cheerios left in the bottom of the container by the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Next, our beloved housekeeper Earlene would start making the casseroles. Earlene was an amazing cook and the best multitasker I ever met. When I was a young adult, home to help with Thanksgiving in the 1980s, she already had a lot on her plate. By the early 1990s, she would become the first Black woman in Georgia to chair a county school board and later would play a pivotal role in bringing a vocational-technical school to the county. I would watch in amazement how she could chop onions or grind chicken livers while carrying on a coherent phone conversation about funding for a new middle school program. And this is when you had to stretch the telephone cord to keep talking!

(An aside: In another time and place, she wouldn’t have had to work as a cook or housekeeper. I wish she could have reached her full potential, and I know my parents felt the same way.  But I  also am so grateful to have her as such a major influence in my life and the lives of our family members.)

My mother, who owned a clothing store with my father, Morton Mooney, was also very active in the community and had a very full dance card. Much of her work for Thanksgiving was done on Sundays or late on weeknights. The only way she could make it all come together was by preparing a lot of items ahead of time.

According to a list I found in a homemade cookbook Mama gave me, the make-aheads in 1966 were squash casserole, asparagus casserole, and sweet-and-sour meatballs, as one of the appetizers. Some years there also was some type of beef cocktail franks with pineapple,  Those dishes stacked neatly in the freezer in tinted Corning Ware were in addition to the sides that were made later -- the two types of dressing, the roast potatoes, the string beans, the candied sweet potatoes, peas and mushrooms, my mother’s famous tossed salad with lemon dressing, the pickled peaches, the apple rings. And let us not forget the Jello molds -- Della Robia, grape, apple, and, the only one I would eat, cranberry with celery.  

Obviously,  some people might see this, to use the Yiddish word, as a potchke. But, while there was a lot of work involved, it was the centerpiece of my mother’s year. She loved everything about it – the planning, the shopping, the cooking, and, especially, having the extended family together and everyone enjoying themselves. And she was very, very good at it.

I was a witness to all this as a child and was always home for Thanksgiving week when I was in college and in graduate school. But I so enjoyed the Thanksgiving preparations and celebration that I continued to take vacations from work for that week well into my 30s, as long as my mother was preparing at the house in Jesup. It was a lot to put together Thanksgiving every year for 30-50 people, especially at the level Mama set for herself, and I was glad to help. Some of those years, one of my sisters was living in town, which made it that much more special, but in others, it was just the three of us as Thanksgiving week began. Honestly, just spending hours a day with Mama and Earlene was reward enough for me. The bonus was that, not only did I get to enjoy the delicious cooking smells and taste everything, but I also learned to cook from two master chefs.

At any age, I was usually already there on the Sunday of Thanksgiving week. That was when my mother’s first cousin, Sylvia, traditionally came over to polish the silver. Mama had an ornate set with place settings for 16 or more – including every specialty utensil imaginable, -- and it was an all-day job. As I child, that usually meant I got an entire day to play with my cousin Holly, Sylvia's daughter. When I got older, I often was in the kitchen, where Sylvia had all the silver spread out on the table, and I got to listen to the conversation. The two of them, my mother and her cousin, still giggled like schoolgirls and, several times during the day, Sylvia, who could be as funny as any stand-up comedian, would talk about how, the next year, she was going to make a sugared fruit decoration for the table. I don’t recall if it ever happened, but it was one of those predictable conversations I so appreciated then.

(An aside: Among the many pieces to each place setting of the baroque set are the petite oyster forks, even though Mama never served oysters. When my mother gave me her silver in the early 1990s, my rabbi helped me kasher it (make it kosher), and I began to use the oyster forks for gefilte fish. As my parents used to say, “You make do.”)

The first task after breakfast on Monday of Thanksgiving Week was going to the grocery store with my mother. I was well-practiced, having done it many, many times before, but the outing required at least two shopping carts and my relative youth to lift the two gigantic turkeys my mother had ordered for our Thanksgiving -- and the slightly smaller one for Earlene’s family event Thanksgiving night -- into one of the carts. By the time we were done and in the checkout line, the carts were overflowing.

 It wasn’t too bad when we had taken my father’s van to the shop; the back of the vehicle might have been completely full of paper sacks of groceries, but at least they fit. The bigger challenge was getting everything into a sedan. By the time all the food was loaded into the trunk and backseat, I was pouring sweat in the typically warm November day in southeast Georgia. Yet, I still would have to hold six cartons of eggs and several other breakables on my lap as my mother drove home carefully, fearful that any sudden move would precipitate a disaster and the need for another grocery store run.

Then, we would get down to the real work – making my mother’s signature white bread dressing in addition to the popular cornbread version. That, plus preparing the fresh sides and thawing the frozen ones, took all day and then some. (For food safety reasons, we usually added the eggs right before we baked everything on Thanksgiving Day.) One of my most vivid memories is watching Earlene boil the turkey necks and the giblets to make the stuffing. That delectable yet gamey fragrance always officially announced the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday to me.

We also had to wait until closer to the big day to cook and grind the chicken livers for chopped liver, prep the mammoth turkeys as well as the beef roast we always had for relatives who didn’t eat poultry, and put together some of the other dishes that didn’t keep well.

Later, those evenings, when we wouldn’t be in Earlene’s way, Mama and I would spread the cake layers out on the Formica countertop of the island that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room. She would make her famous sea foam frosting, a type of 7-minute cooked icing. Even as an adult, I delighted in choosing the colors for each cake; my favorites were pink and mint green, being a child of the midcentury.

With great precision, my mother would spread frosting between the layers with her venerable giant rubber spatula and stack them with the focus of a brick mason. Next, she would frost the outside. I don’t know how she did it, but no crumbs dared to embed themselves in her icing. Usually, there was coconut cake, and I would throw the flakes onto the sides until enough was sticking, while she began to place each cake in its own covered cakesaver. My favorite was the one with the wooden acorn on top.

(Another aside, it was quite difficult to find containers tall enough for her three-layer cakes with icing. I’m guessing she had to buy the ones made for wedding cakes. However she got them, they looked amazingly impressive displayed in the dining room. The smaller containers were reserved for the pound cakes and the like.)

Once the cakes were assembled, Mama turned to creating her signature Jello molds. For some people, I might as well have said we served dinosaur eggs. But, in the 1940s and 50s, when my mother started cooking, shimmering gelatin with fruit was the centerpiece of a festive meal, according to all the women’s magazines. Frankly, I was glad to see the demise of the trend, having an aversion to jiggly foods, but I also admit I don’t understand the attraction. Then, again, I didn’t live through the Great Depression or the food rationing in World War II, and probably couldn’t fathom the joy of serving dishes full of sugar and exotic fruit.

For us, the biggest challenge wasn’t getting the ingredients but finding fruit to fit in the indentations in my mother’s copper Della Robia mold. Starting as a small child, I got to eat the rejects, so I can tell you there was a lot of trial and error. I can’t remember all of the fruit that went into it, although I have a recollection that pineapple rings, canned pear halves, and cherries were among them. Making sure everything fit in its proper spot but not so tightly that it wouldn’t unmold was like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. The toughest, by far, was getting a banana with just the right curve to slip into its indentation.  After all that, it was always a pain to get it out of the mold intact, even though Mama had carefully greased the pan with Wesson oil. (Okay. I admit it. There was nothing artisanal about Jellow molds.)

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was so busy, I can’t really remember what happened. I know one or both of my sisters often were there, which helped all the preparations go faster. Sometimes, if we were really behind, Earlene would bring a friend or relative to help her, cleaning up while she cooked. Somehow, despite the chaos, it all got done every year.

When we awoke Thanksgiving morning to a full house of family and the aroma of turkey in the oven, there was much more work to do, including prepping the last-minute sides and salads. (I could make my mother’s signature iceberg lettuce salad in my sleep, from rubbing the mammoth wooden bowl, which I now have, with garlic to slicing the tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers just the way my mother liked it. The lemon juice I squeezed always found every spot where I had nicked my fingers in the prepping process.)

My sister Susan, who often would have arrived with her family late the night before, having left Spartanburg when her store closed, had an artistic flair and would be put to work decorating everything from the appetizer table to the chopped liver. It was amazing how festive she could make food with a couple of slivers of peppers and some tomato chunks. Give her a bunch of parsley, and the sky was the limit.

The middle sister, Linda, was usually in charge of setting the table, a mammoth task that took the organizational ability of an industrial engineer. Starting in the dining room, we had the formal wooden table and chairs with the Wedgewood china and the freshly-polished sterling silver flatware. By the time you got to the foot of the table, more than halfway into the living room, it sometimes was everyday melamine dishes with unmatched flatware on a rickety card table with the chairs we borrowed from the fire department. I don’t think anyone ever noticed once the food was on the table.

With whatever boyfriend or friend I had brought – or my very entertaining first husband Lloyd – I often was relegated to the far end of the table to make certain all the guests felt welcomed by the host family, even if they were sitting so distant from the head of the table. Much fun was had by all in our version of Siberia.

The tables and chairs were their own special test for any guy my sisters and I brought home for Thanksgiving or any visiting male relatives or friends. My father would recruit all available able-bodied men to help him pick up the tables and chairs at the fire station early the morning of Thanksgiving. I’m guessing that usually meant at least 30 chairs and probably four or five tables – and these weren’t the flimsy plastic items you can buy cheap at Walmart or Target. They were heavy metal and wood.

My brothers-in-law were veterans at the task and took it in stride. But, the 10 years he was around, Lloyd also endeared himself to my father by being a hard worker and having a good sense of humor, even when he was carrying six heavy chairs at a time.

Daddy also served as the social director during Thanksgiving week, even though he also had to work in the store. He ferried out-of-town guests to remote parts of the county to watch cane syrup being made from sugar cane, to see the shrimp boats in the remote fishing villages 40 miles to the east of us, or to any other Wayne County versions of tourist attractions.

And there were always new guests for Thanksgiving, which was served early afternoon, after the parade, but before most of the football games got started. While many of the attendees stayed the same, each year brought a new cast for the supporting roles. Someone was always accompanied by their future spouse – or sometimes someone who didn’t make the cut. You knew it was really serious when the future in-laws came. Over the years, I brought many guests – from boyfriends, to my first husband, to friends of every stripe. So did my sisters and everyone else.

(One year, I invited a friend and her boyfriend, the son of a venerable Democratic congressman, which sparked a myriad of reactions and debate from my uncles and great-uncles across the political spectrum.)

In reality, the best Thanksgivings were the ones where everyone, or almost everyone, came – the relatives from Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Florida, and points beyond. Of course, we were thrilled to have my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived an hour away, but the pleasure of being with family you don’t see that often took it to another level. It didn’t matter if the decision to attend was last-minute – how many times did my father joke, “Well, we’ll just put some more water in the soup,” as if there was any chance we didn’t have enough food – or if the guest was a stranger known only to the person who brought him or her. They all became family soon enough.

The memory that pulls at my heart the most was when everything was ready, and we were anticipating the arrival of the guests. We’d hear the crunch of the tires on the fallen leaves, and Mama would look at the living room window and announce, “They’re here,” her face flushed from excitement and the last-minute kitchen preparations. She would run outside to greet the newcomers, my father close behind. It didn’t matter if she had seen the people a day ago or a decade ago; she was thrilled to have them at her house. It also was of no concern if her hair was askew and she had flour on her cheek; it wasn’t about her, she didn’t care about being “just so,” as she would put it.  None of that mattered if you got to spend time with family and friends who are like family.

Just as the guest list changed slightly from year to year, so did the food. And I’m not just talking about how I started making stuffed mushrooms when I was in college, or how Mama almost always tried out a new cake recipe she had discovered. As my sister, several of my cousins, and eventually I started keeping kosher, the Thanksgiving meal transformed. At that point, at least one of the turkeys was kosher, cooked in a new pan in an oven that had been self-cleaned. The milk and cream in the side dishes were often replaced by non-dairy coffee creamer, in respect of the prohibition of mixing meat and milk at the same meal. Some of the dishes that couldn’t be made “fit,” the translation of kosher, were simply dropped from the lineup. How those dishes, including pickled shrimp, ever came to be served in the first place is a topic for a different blog entry.

My mother still baked an array of cakes, but made sure everyone knew which ones were pareve (neither dairy nor meat) and which ones included dairy products. There truly was something for everyone.

As memorable as the food was, the stories were also unforgettable. My favorite is the time that Mama became fascinated by an apple side dish that included the liquor applejack. Many years later, when I had a vacation home in Hendersonville, NC, which is a major area for apple-growing, I learned that applejack was considered the first native spirit of the United States. In recent years, with the comeback of artisan alcoholic beverages, it has become possible to find high-end versions of them. That was not the case back in the 1960s, however.

My mother had her heart set on making that dish, and applejack wasn’t available in the small town where we lived. So, one day when I was off from school, my father and I went to Savannah in search of some. I was maybe 10 or 11 and got a lot of education that day about the underbelly of society. At the time, applejack, which is 40% alcohol, was the kind of cheap liquor sold in iffy neighborhoods on racks that also featured Mad Dog 20/20, Thunderbird, or Wild Irish Rose. We hadn't realized that.

We started at a fancy liquor store and were referred to one on the other side of the tracks. When we walked in, my father looked stricken. Here he was holding the hand of a little girl in an establishment filled with some very questionable characters. I’d never seen him move so fast, as he found a bottle of applejack, grabbed it, paid for it in cash, got us into the car, and drove away as quickly as possible. He urged me not to tell Mama what we had seen, and I didn’t until I was an adult.

I’m not sure what happened when she made the stewed apples. Maybe she was unaware of the alcohol content, used too much liquor, or enough of it didn’t boil off. But let’s just say that there were a lot of very relaxed people at that Thanksgiving, and not a speck of apples left.

Those days produce a kaleidoscope of recollections for me: The kids’ table which often resembled feeding time at the zoo; my Bubbe holding court next to the head of the table, exclaiming about the deliciousness of every dish she tried; Uncle Irv, the husband of my father’s sister Bea, singing operatically; my nieces and nephew running and playing in the expansive back yard; Uncle Ben, my mother’s brother, joking that there wasn’t enough food and he would have to find a McDonalds on the way home; Uncle Dane and the other men trying to stay awake for the football games when the tryptophan kicked in; we kids helpingt Earlene clean up as quickly as possible, so she could get her turkey from the oven at our house and go home for her own Thanksgiving celebration.

One of my very favorite memories was about what traditionally occurred in the late afternoon. After most of the relatives had headed home or settled in at our house, and the borrowed tables and chairs had been returned to the fire department, my parents’ local friends would drop in for cake and coffee.  There would be a steady stream of people oohing and aahing over the sideboard of cakes. Most didn’t have a big hunk of one type but took slivers of several. We would all sit at the table and visit. As one group left, another would quickly fill the chairs. Being in south Georgia, most people followed the schedule we did of having Thanksgiving midday; it wasn’t like we attended the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and couldn’t put the turkey in until we got home.

Needless to say, by the time everyone headed out, the family wasn't in the mood for much dinner. I might have had a turkey sandwich sometime in the late afternoon, but usually, just before bed, I savored my cheesecake slice. (The very thought of eating that much sugar and fat before bed gives me heartburn now.)

It was important to get to bed because the next day was a busy one at Mooney’s Department Store. The phrase Black Friday didn’t start being used for retail sales until the 1980s, but the day after Thanksgiving always was the official kick-off of the Christmas shopping season. The next month was critical to my parents’ livelihood.

I was still awake when most of the house guests headed for bed, always having had similar sleep habits to my mother. (I still follow her schedule of going to bed about 11:30 or 12 and getting up about 8.) So, when she showered and put on her nightgown and bathrobe, she often would sit with me in the living room to debrief on the Thanksgiving Day events. Usually, it was lots of laughter as we remembered the events of the day, although she often was too hard on herself about every gelatin mold or other dish that didn’t come out just right. On a few occasions, there were some tears. Maybe someone had a little too much to drink and said something they shouldn’t have. Possibly, someone had discovered they had a health issue and had shared it with the family. Or, maybe there was bad blood between one relative and another.

Mama had very little tolerance for discord. No one really described it this way back then, but she was an empath. If there was any pain or sorrow or hard feelings around her, she felt it deeply. (Luckily for her, my father had an amazing ability to speak straight and get people to make up when they had a disagreement.)

When we finished talking, and she hugged me before heading to bed, I would get a whiff of her Jean Nate powder. I listened to her footsteps as she walked down the hall and could hear my father snoring when she opened the door to their bedroom. Sometimes I would sit for a few more minutes, wondering what it would be like when all of this was gone, what the future would bring.

By the last decade of the 20^th century, hosting Thanksgiving had gotten too much for my parents. My father’s Parkinson’s disease made him increasingly uncomfortable in crowds. My mother had some health issues, too. My immediate family started primarily celebrating it at my sisters’ houses. I hosted in 1992 in my house on Virginia Avenue in Atlanta to introduce everyone to my fiancé, Marc.

By 1996, my parents and both of my sisters and their husbands were living in Spartanburg, SC, while Marc and I were in Atlanta. My father died in 1997, and my mother five years later, in 2022.

In 2008, I left my corporate job and started a home-based medical writing and editing business, which wasn’t fabulous timing with the Great Recession. After a few years, I actually became more successful on my own than I had been in corporate America; however, Marc’s financial advising business was going well. We thought it would be fun to try and resurrect the big family Thanksgivings. Marc always hated that he had missed the extravaganzas at the house in Jesup.

We started small, but the crowd coming to Dunwoody had grown to nearly 50 people by 2013, when our Aunt Doris celebrated her 90^th birthday Thanksgiving weekend. Some of the guests were my first cousins thrice removed, and my great-nieces and nephews were playing with third cousins. Eventually, as my generation aged, fewer and fewer of the family wanted to make the trip to Atlanta, and the effort eventually petered out. Even if that hadn’t happened, the COVID-19 pandemic certainly would have put an end to it in 2020.

There isn’t much ritual to my Thanksgiving these days. I’m fortunate to have had multiple invitations this year from friends, but I did what I’ve done the past few years: I had the turkey meal at a close friend’s house at night after having brunch that morning at the home of my cousins.

During brunch, we talked a lot about the past Thanksgivings. My first cousins and I reminisced about the good old days when Thanksgiving was in Jesup, and the sideboard appeared to almost collapse from the weight of my mother’s incredible cakes. Their daughter, now middle-aged, told her new husband about the favorite Thanksgivings she remembers – the ones Marc and I hosted at our house in Dunwoody. She said it was sad that no one in her generation was able to take up the banner and continue the bit Thanksgiving tradition.

Thrilled that she had such good memories of the events at my house, I smiled and explained that it wasn’t so easy to do that. Hosting that many people was expensive and it required a large house and a willing partner, I told her. Plus, her parents chimed in, people are spread out now and have so many competing activities. I agreed. Times change.

That Friday night, the Sabbath, I had a special dinner – turkey from a half breast I had roasted, gravy, a sweet potato, green beans, and cranberry sauce. The tryptophan in the turkey made me drowsy, and my dog Lily and I went to bed early. It had been chilly all day, and it was no time at all before I fell asleep under the warm covers. My dreams were disjointed, as they often are when you sleep too heavily and then awaken. All I can remember is that I dreamed about my mother’s cakes – pink, green, yellow, and white – standing tall, their icing as fluffy as sea foam.  

“Don’t worry, Mama,” I said in a whisper as I drifted back to sleep. “They were perfect. It was all perfect.”

 

The Dog Days of Summer: Something Is Rotten in Finland

With the scorching days and frequent afternoon thunderstorms, everything in my Brookhaven yard is growing like kudzu, which thankfully I don’t have. The lantana is overtaking the mailbox and the tops of the begonias, which began as tiny clumps of red, are skimming the windows. Still thriving are the beautiful pots planted by my goddaughter Ella in a variety of yellow flowers and greenery as my birthday gift in May.

Apparently, the same is occurring with vegetables. Some delightful friends invited me to lunch and sent me home with a bag of their excess cucumbers. This morning I added tomatoes, onions, garlic peppers and other ingredients to my blender and made a large jug of gazpacho in preparation for the hot week ahead. I tested it for seasoning and was especially delighted by the taste of the fresh cucumbers.

For all of the downsides, the upside of the Dog Days of summer is the profusion of fresh vegetables that lasts in the South well into college football tailgate season.

Among my favorite childhood summer memories is walking outside onto my family’s carport in the mornings and seeing boxes of freshly picked fruit and vegetables dropped off by friends who were sharing their gardens’ abundance. There were tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, okra, peppers of every color, corn green beans, field peas and, if we were lucky, watermelon, cantaloupe and other melons.

Some mornings, galvanized tubs filled with fish – still alive and swimming in water – would be sitting on the driveway. Late summer was considered a good time to drain ponds to remediate them. Our benefactors were careful to give us only fish with scales and fins, which identified them as kosher. Catfish didn’t qualify, so they either kept those for themselves or gifted them elsewhere. (Knowledge of what Christians consider the Old Testament was extensive and widespread where I grew up, so it was no surprise that our friends understood some of the laws of kashrut.)

(I’m sure the amazing generosity wasn’t at all affected by the knowledge that my mother would soon reciprocate by dropping off one of her famous homemade cakes, maybe a mile-high chocolate layer cake with fluffy white icing or a cheesecake dripping with fresh blueberry topping.)

All of that fresh food meant an incredible dinner that day because we all knew that everything spoiled quickly during the Dog Days, despite refrigeration. (We had our big meal at midday, which we called dinner, and a light supper, at least partly because of the heat.)

It was a different time, My recollection is that school started closer to Labor Day than it does now and that the second half of summer vacation August had its own rhythm.

Just the other day, my childhood best friend Joyce and I were talking about the Dog Days of Summer. Specifically, we were recalling in one of our regular telephone calls how, when the weather heated up to torrid in our small southeast Georgia town, our main activity nearly every morning was swimming at the pool at the Cracker Williams Recreation Center on the “other side of town.”

The “other side of town” is in quotes because it wasn’t so much of a direction as a place. It required the major and risky activity of “crossing the railroad tracks,” which split our hometown of Jesup in two. That potentially treacherous crossing was something we weren’t allowed to do until we were probably 10 or older. Before that, we could only go if a parent drove us, or we could persuade one of our older siblings – most often my sister Linda – to accompany us because she was meeting her own buddies to swim.

We would go as early in the morning as we could and swim for hours, put our clothes on over our soaking wet bathing suits and get a Tom’s Full Dinner candy bar from the vending machine. Then, reeking of chlorine, we would try to get home – by foot or bicycle – before all of our clothing dried. Otherwise, we would have to contend with the sweltering temperatures that began shooting up by 11 a.m.

I swear I could smell the midday meal as soon as we crossed Third Street next to our house. Potty, our much more than housekeeper, would have made both fried and baked fish if we had some. Otherwise, she would serve fried and broiled chicken or meatloaf or country-fried steak or stew beef, all with three or four or even more vegetables, a plate of sliced tomatoes and usually rice and gravy, mashed potatoes or another starch. (If the meal was non-meat, such as fish, macaroni and cheese and a pan of biscuits usually were on the table with banana pudding for dessert.)

After a feast such as that, I was happy to find a cool spot in the back of the air-conditioned house and read all afternoon, which I was able to do sometimes, at least until it stormed and the AC had to be shut off. Other times, especially when I was older, my parents wanted me to come to help them at their clothing store. Trust me, unless you had to, going outside was to be avoided at all costs. The average temperatures rose well into the 90s and humidity built up until the daily late afternoon or early evening thunderstorm occurred.

Until I was 13, our store was located in an old building that wasn’t air-conditioned but instead had gigantic ceiling fans which did little to moderate the heat. They also stirred up dust from the dirt road on the back side of the L-shaped building, which faced the railroad track and always reeked of soft tar in the summer. (The front was on the main street.) Because of that, at the end of the day, I would help the store clerks cover the tables and racks of clothing with massive protective dropcloths before the fans were turned off. In the morning, the dropcloths had to be removed, shaken outside to remove the dirt and put away until the end of the day.

And it wasn’t just the heat keeping us inside in July and August. We youngsters were constantly admonished about the dangers of the Dog Days – snakes were more likely to bite, dogs could turn rabid in a flash and, of course, heat stroke was always a danger. In addition, it was considered the gospel that any cuts or burns would never heal during that time of year.

This wasn’t some local custom found only in the piney woods of south Georgia, however. The understanding of Dog Days is a worldwide phenomenon with venerable roots. A period of several weeks in the heat of summer is considered sinister in many cultures across the world.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac points out that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans believed that when Sirius, the dog star, rose in mid-to-late summer, it played a role in the extreme weather of the season. (An interesting tidbit from that article is that name “Sirius” comes from the ancient Greek seírios, meaning “scorching.”)

Based on those sources, the Dog Days technically run from around July 3 to August 11, although others just say they happen in mid-to-late summer.

For the Ancients, the ascent of Sirius suggested that drought, disease, or discomfort were more likely. Virgil, the Roman poet, wrote in the Aeneid that “fiery Sirius, bringer of drought and plague to frail mortals, rises and saddens the sky with sinister light.”

As it turns out, they weren’t the only denizens of the ancient world who had concerns about unfavorable outcomes at the height of summer. So many events occurred from the 17^th of Tammuz to the ninth day of Av, that the sad commemoration of Tisha B’av became part of the Jewish calendar. The events primarily remembered are the destruction of the first Temple in 538 BCE and the second Temple around 70 CE. But many other events occurred on the ninth of Av which is a fast day, including the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492. To current times, the three weeks before are considered unfavorable for many activities, with the final nine days having even more restrictions, including against eating meat, drinking wine and getting a haircut -- something I follow.

Guess what time of year Tisha B’av occurs? In 2023, the three weeks began on July 6 (see the dates for Dog Days above) and ended on July 27. Clearly, whatever it is called, historical sources found something menacing about a 3-5 week period at the apex of summer.

Here’s the kicker: At least some of what we believed about the Dog Days has turned out to be true.

A study came out just last month on the topic of snake bites. The research was done in Georgia, and Emory University researchers reported that every degree Celsius of daily temperature increase corresponds with about a 6% increase in snake bites.

A 2009 Finnish study reported, meanwhile, that the risk of deep surgery wound infection during Dog Days is two times higher than at other times.

In Finnish folklore, the time from June 23 to August 23 has been called "rotten month" (another name for Dog Days), and the Finns also have the superstition that wound healing is delayed due to infections. (It turns out that its neighbor, Sweden, has “rötmånad,” translated as “rotting month” from around the 22^nd of July until 30 days later. )

For me, the three weeks, nine days and Tisha B’av are difficult times where everything seems to go wrong. As soon as the period is over, however, life seems lighter and easier, even though the weather remains brutally hot. A few weeks later, however, the month of Elul follows Av and the atmosphere changes again. The tradition is that the King is in the field beginning on the first day of Elul until the Jewish New Year a month later. The Almighty is closer during that time, and it is an especially favorable opportunity for spiritual growth. Perhaps that is why the miasmic period is weeks shorter in Jewish tradition than others – the calendars are different and the preparation for the New Year intercedes.

I don’t remember feeling any kind of pall on existence in the summers when I was young, but I was going swimming, eating candy bars and having fabulous lunches – so why would I have complained?  I do remember feeling as if everything seemed to slow down at the end of the summer and not pick back up until the anticipation of going back to school began.

As with so much in life, the seasons of the year have peaks and valleys. Even though the new year begins in January on the Western calendar, midsummer often is considered a downtime followed by the anticipation of some type of new beginning as summer ends and fall begins. 

Top of Form

 

I still enjoy delicious fresh fruit and vegetables in summer  – although usually not as fresh or good as what I remember from childhood. In the extremely hot weather in late August, sometimes all I can bear to eat for dinner is a cold soup like gazpacho. My version is based on some classic recipes but offers some options to make it easier.

Easy Gazpacho

2 pounds ripe red tomatoes cut into chunks (I prefer to peel them) or one large can (28oz) of whole tomatoes.

2 medium or three small fresh cucumbers, peeled and seeded or a large English cucumber peeled. Either way, cut them into chunks.

1 small Vidalia onion cut into eighths

1/2 large bell pepper, any color, cut into chunks

1/8 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 garlic cloves, peeled

1 cup tomato juice, V-8 juice or spicy V-8 juice if you like it bolder

Dash of cayenne pepper

1 tsp of celery salt

½ tsp of cumin

salt & pepper sauce to taste

Process on liquify in a powerful blender until it is a thick soup. Fix seasoning to your liking and chill for several hours or overnight. You can serve with a dollop of sour cream and croutons. You also can add chunks of avocado. If I want it to be more of a meal, I’ll also top it with pieces of kosher fake crab (made from fish). (Obviously, if you don’t keep kosher, you can use real crab or shrimp.)

Honey and Bee Stings: Facing the Good and Bad at Rosh Hashana

I think this is a meeting of the Workman's Circle Credit Union. My grandmother, Fannie Smith, is fifth from the left on the second row from bottom. My grandfather< Max Smith, is second from the left on the top row.

It’s hard to believe, but a month from now I’m going to be elbows-deep in preparing for Rosh Hashana.

Since it starts on a Friday night, I’ll probably bake my challahs on that Wednesday night or Thursday and make chicken soup the next night. I’m making tzimmes for the first time in decades and will make that a few days ahead for the flavors to mix. (My version of the stew-like dish will be made with stew beef, lemon slices, sweet potatoes, carrots and dates because I am not a fan of prunes, which are traditional.)

Another decision I’ve already made is what to do about dessert. My mother made the most amazing honey cake, which is traditionally served during the High Holidays, but none of us has been able to really replicate it. Her handwriting can be difficult to read in places, and it is not clear at one point whether you are supposed to “heat” or “beat” one mixture that goes into it. I periodically make a stab at it, and the cake turns out okay – sometimes even good – but it is not hers, which is disappointing.

(She always got extremely fresh honey from our friends who owned York Bee Company locally, and I’ve often wondered if that was the secret ingredient that made her cakes so special.)

The problem with honey cake other than the one made by my mother is that, while it is delicious when fresh and moist, it can dry out very quickly. One solution is to keep the cake wrapped and in a tin can or Tupperware but, even then, it doesn’t always maintain its freshness. My solution this year is to make honey cake in mini Bundt pans, keep it in the freezer and only take out exactly what I need for each meal.

When I checked the mailbox today, the silicone muffin pans in the shape of mini-Bundt cakes had arrived in technicolor pink and aqua. Why the Bundt cake you might ask? I think it makes a pretty cake, but a lot of my attraction is nostalgia and my somewhat nerdy obsession with little-known history.

According to Wikipedia, the shape is inspired by a traditional European cake known as Gugelhupf, but, nowadays, Bundt cakes can be any type. “The style of mold in North America was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s after cookware manufacturer Nordic Ware trademarked the name 'Bundt' and began producing Bundt pans from cast aluminum. Publicity from Pillsbury saw the cakes gain widespread popularity,” according to the explanation.

One possible etymology is from the word “bund,” which is found in Jewish-American cookbooks from around the start of the 20th century. The alternative spelling "bundte" also appeared in a recipe as early as 1901, according to Wikipedia.

And therein lies the nostalgia. “Bund” is often translated in Yiddish as “union.” It also was part of the name of a secular socialist Jewish party during the Russian Revolution, which urged Jews not to leave Eastern Europe – which was ignored by many. When immigrants like my four grandparents came to the United States to escape anti-Semitism and pogroms in that part of the world, they created groups to help them survive and build new lives. Among those were credit unions (aktsiyes in Yiddish)  and free loan societies.

The popular name for the groups was “bunds.” For get-togethers, the ladies in those groups brought cakes. In the old country, they had used kugelhopfs, a tall pan with a hole in the center that allowed the heat to penetrate the cake’s middle and ensure that the dough cooked evenly, and continued that tradition in America. The cakes they made and the pans they used became known as “bundt.”  

For those of us in southeast Georgia, the Workmen’s Circle Credit Union in Savannah – one of those credit unions -- enabled hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish entrepreneurs to start and maintain small businesses throughout the area. (See the photo above of a meeting of the group, probably in the 1950s.)

I never realized quite how it worked until I was a young adult, maybe in my late 20s,  and needed a new car. My father knew of a good deal at a local dealership in my hometown, Jesup,  and suggested that I contact the Workman’s Circle Credit Union for financing. I called them and told them who I was and what I needed. Two days later, in the mail,  I had a check from them and the paperwork to fill out for the loan, which I returned properly. It might seem like a step or two was missing in the loan approval process, but they had worked with my family for years and knew we were good for it.

{By the way, the car I got was one of the notorious X cars – a Pontiac Phoenix. After front-wheel drive cars became more common in the U.S., mainly because of foreign cars, General Motors decided to create X-bodies, the first American-developed front-wheel drive cars introduced for the high-volume, mainstream market. They were filled with design defects, and the vast majority of the time since then, I’ve owned Japanese cars, primarily Toyota/Lexus products.}

So, I love the idea of small honey bundt cakes, how they look, how evenly they cook and how simple they will be to serve. But that isn’t the only traditional food I’ll offer.

Symbolic foods for Rosh Hashana include leeks, pomegranate, gourds (including squashes), dates, black-eyed peas, apples & honey, beets, carrots and fish heads.

I’ll start the meal with the traditional round challah, making both plain and raisin egg bread. We’ll also have apples and honey (as well as a pomegranate as the “new fruit” for the season.)

Then I’ll have baked gefilte fish in a spicy tomato sauce. (I recognize that’s not the same as a fish head, but that’s the best the delicate sensibilities of my guests will allow.)

The first course will be followed by matzo ball soup, which has leeks as an ingredient. The tzimmes will include carrots, as well as dates. I’m also serving a roast turkey breast as a main dish for my dozen or so guests on the first night (the eve) of Rosh Hashana.

The side dishes include black-eyed peas, pickled beets and a squash/zucchini salad with corn and crushed smoky almonds, a recipe I found in a recent Southern Living issue. Here is the link: https://www.southernliving.com/corn-and-squash-salad-7556364

(I plan to briefly blanch the squashes and corn before making the salad, but I’m sure the original recipe is great also.)

Those nicely incorporate several of the symbolic foods, called simanin, signs and indicators in Hebrew. The blessings for the foods include prayers for a favorable year ahead.

Filling out the sides are couscous and broccoli kugel for balance. Dessert will be the mini honey cakes and fruit. (Because I’m serving meat, nothing in the meal will include dairy products.)

As I prepare the food, I’ll think about past holidays. One that often comes to mind is the Rosh Hashana meal with the blind cantor, probably around 1992 or 1993. My cousins came for lunch on the first day at my World War I-era house in the old Atlanta neighborhood of Virginia Highland. The four kids were running in and out of the house, and one of them must have let in a wasp.

Joining us for the meal was a man hired to chant the services at the synagogue my husband and I attended less than a mile away.  He was staying with us over the holiday at the request of the synagogue and was notable for three reasons -- he disliked dogs although we had two labs; he smoked which we despised in our house, and he had very limited ability to see. For years, we have referred to him as “the blind cantor.”

The blessing over the wine was being recited when my first cousin Barbara was stung by the wasp. Unlike me, she wasn’t allergic, although the sting was painful, but she insisted she was fine. The blind cantor would hear none of it. He jumped up to get his cigarettes and pulled tobacco out of one of them.

He then tried to apply the tobacco to my cousin’s arm. She wasn’t happy about that and tried to pull away. In the tussle, the cantor knocked over the carafe of red wine, despite my husband’s efforts to throw himself across the table and catch it. It flooded my best tablecloth, which had been embroidered by the grandmother of my cousins and me. Chaos ensued. Dogs were barking, children were yelling, wine was dripping onto the rug on the floor, etc.

I don’t know what the blind cantor was thinking. Had he forgotten he couldn’t see her arm, let alone apply tobacco to a tiny dot? And shouldn’t he have asked her permission?

Somehow, we were able to mop up the wine, put on a new tablecloth and serve the meal. Barbara, Babs to us, felt better after I gave her a Benadryl, and we ended up having a lovely day.

It might have seemed like a disaster at the time, but now I laugh every time I think about it. This year, the chuckles are mixed with a few tears because my cousin Barbara died of cancer a few months ago. My husband, who later had some mental health issues, died in December 2022, less than two months after we divorced. Last year was the first Rosh Hashana I had spent without him since 1991.

But, life goes on. Some of the same cousins who were there that day will be with me this year. At the table will be two of my godchildren, my first cousins’ grandson and two foreign exchange students who weren’t even born yet in 1991. We’ll make new memories that hopefully won’t involve wasp stings and spilled red wine.

I’m wishing all of us a sweet New Year, as symbolized by the honey cakes, but also am emphasizing the importance of remembering how we got where we are, as symbolized by the Bundt cake shapes.

As the greeting goes this time of year, “May all of you be written down and inscribed for a good year.”

I keep kosher but am not a vegetarian of any kind. My guests have a range of eating issues, however. Here’s how I make vegan field peas (usually black-eyed) either dried, fresh or frozen.

If I’m using dried, I always soak them covered in water overnight and then drain and rinse them before using. Fresh or frozen go into the pot as is.

Spray the insert of your Instant Pot or other type of pressure cooker with oil. Briefly saute half a chopped small jalapeno (seeds and membrane removed if you don’t want it to be too hot) and a half cup of chopped onions in some neutral oil – canola, grapeseed, etc.

Add field peas. Season with a dash of Liquid Smoke, two teaspoons of smoked paprika, chicken soup powder or two crushed bullion squares. Add a cup of water or just enough to cover the peas, according to how much liquid you want. (If you prefer, skip the bullion and just cook in chicken broth). Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes, allowing the device to naturally release for 15 minutes.

Adjust seasoning to your preference. You can serve them warm or turn them into a salad by mixing them with chopped celery, chopped red pepper, chopped green onions and chopped parsley or cilantro for an easy salad with a dressing made with a quarter cup of Italian dressing with a teaspoon or two of Dijon mustard stirred in. Refrigerate the salad for a few hours or overnight and serve at room temperature.

Heap of Living, Heap of Matzo Balls – Ingredients for a Home

One of my favorite rooms in my childhood home was the cypress-paneled den. It was a small space, with a huge wall of bookshelves and built-in storage on one side and display shelves and more storage on the other. It was tucked into a shady corner of the house and the thick rattan shades didn’t make it any lighter. But it was a cozy place to curl up in the winter or on a rainy day.

I was entranced by the souvenirs, gifts and knick-knacks that crowded closer and closer together on the glass display shelves over the years – a mechanical bear toy that drank Coca-Cola, a plate depicting the Follies Bergere, jewel-toned ashtrays and intricate barware. More than that, being an avid reader from a young age, I spent many an afternoon literally climbing the bookshelves in search of something new and interesting to devour.

One day, when I was about 10, I came across a poetry anthology and read the first verse of this poem, entitled “Home”:

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home, 

A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam 

Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind, 

An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind. 

It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be, 

How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury; 

It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king, 

Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything. 

What caught my eye originally was that the poem was written in dialect and was difficult to make out. I had no way of knowing at the time that the author, Edgar Albert Guest, was born in England and moved to the United States as a child, penning the poem in 1916 when he was 35. (The dialect appeared to be from Michigan, where Guest grew up, and, when I lived there briefly as a young adult, I was surprised to sometimes hear the same vernacular as the poem.)

For a 10-year-old who had always lived in the same house, the poem was puzzling, and not just because of the language. I read it many times over my childhood, sometimes even reciting it aloud. In my heavy south Georgia accent at the time, I’m sure it was completely unintelligible.

My conclusion was that the poet was saying you had to live somewhere a long time to make it your home, which made sense to my 10-year-old self.

More than 50 years later, I have a slightly different interpretation. It isn’t just how many years you spend in a house but also what you do there and with whom.

That concept is especially poignant for me because, as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, approaches, my husband Marc and I are beginning the process of making a home out of a new house – or, at least, a new-to-us house.

We lived in our previous brick Georgian-style house for nearly 20 years. When we moved there at the beginning of 1998, the house had rotting carpet, peach vertical mini-blinds, a treacherous wooden deck and a plethora of bizarre molding and other carpentry added by the do-it-yourselfer former owner. By the time we left it, in July, the house had undergone a complete renovation.

While we began work on that house before we transported a single piece of furniture, we later had some unexpected help with the demolition. Just a few months after we fully moved in, the house was hit by a tornado. Thanks to our dogs at the time, Jack and Hanni, who cried out when the careening barometric pressure hurt their ears, I awakened to recognize the severity of the storm, turned on a radio and heard the tornado warning for Dunwoody. After cajoling Marc to join us in the basement, we safely road out the storm, which created an impressive hole in the side of our house over our bed. The damage estimate was more than $60,000.

We knew we were going to need a new roof but certainly didn’t expect to get it that way. I’ll never forget the screeching noise as the tornado literally pulled the nails out of the shingles.

All in all, we fared better than some of our neighbors, and our house had been repaired by Rosh Hashana, where we entertained guests for lunch the first day. By my estimation, that was the first of more than 100 times we had a full table for holiday meals at the house on Tillingham Court and that doesn’t count the number of times – greater or equal -- we had friends over for lunch or dinner to celebrate Shabbat.

That’s a lot of brisket, chicken and challah.

Many happy times – often religion-oriented – occurred at the old house. We hosted bar- and bat-mitzvah brunches for our wonderful godchildren, the annual Jewish Festival brunch, sometimes feeding nearly 100 friends, and the baby-naming party for our great-niece Goldie. Several times, we were on the “Sukkah Hop” circuit, and the makeshift structure we built for that festival was overflowing with delirious neighborhood children filling up on sweets.

As happens in life, the house also was the setting for more somber occasions, which also part of my memories. Marc and I sat shiva for both of our mothers at that house, and, many of those evenings, our neighbor Isaac Goodfriend, a world-renowned cantor of blessed memory, led the services. The very walls of the house were transformed by his hauntingly beautiful voice.

In recent years, we had the honor of hosting our extended family for Thanksgiving; one year, when our Aunt Doris turned 90, we transformed our garage into a dining area to seat more than 50 relatives for the meal on an usually cold November day. We also had countless birthday parties – including my 50^th and 60^th – as well as wedding showers and just general celebratory events.

Now, I truly understand what “a heap of living” means.

My mother-in-law used to say that aging isn’t for sissies, and I understand every day how correct she was. Marc and I came to realize we needed to live in a house different from the sprawling “five-four-and-a-door” with the upstairs master suite and the huge backyard.

We had the house on the market about three years ago, but, for various reasons, that never worked out. What to do next was a constant topic of discussion for Marc and me.

That’s why it seemed bashert when, shortly before our 25^th wedding anniversary, I received a call from a lovely young woman who attends our synagogue. We had met her a few times at meals at friends’ houses, but I was puzzled as to why she was calling.

She explained that she, her husband and three children were looking to buy a house and had heard we might be interested in selling even though our house wasn’t on the market. We chatted for a few minutes and agreed that they could see the house when we returned from our anniversary trip the next week.

I updated our longtime realtor and then Marc and I headed out to Ponte Vedra beach for a few days. The day we were returning to Atlanta, we noticed a new house had been listed and wondered if we should see it.

We did see it – on May 3, our anniversary – and decided almost immediately to make an offer on the house we ended up buying. The family decided they wanted to purchase our house, so we now live not much more than a mile from our previous location but in a house with a very different configuration and location that works better for us.

The sale of the old house and purchase of the new house might have seemed bashert, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Perhaps the worst moment came when the fully-loaded moving truck was headed to the new house, and the contractor working here told me he thought the air conditioning might be off. It was, and we ended up moving in 95-degree heat without air-conditioning. (The upshot is that we now have a new HVAC system downstairs.)

Watching the movers lug heavy furniture, sweat pouring off of all of us, the happy times at the old house – and the possibility of good times in the new ones – seemed very far away indeed. Now, with everything put away and a functioning air-conditioning, the future seems more positive and the past has a more satisfying golden glow.

The strange part is that neither Marc nor I were particularly sad about leaving our old house. Life has seasons just like the natural world. Being in the autumn of our lives and with Rosh Hashanah approaching, we are ready for a new phase.

Our new house is somewhat smaller and has a master bedroom on the main floor, instead of upstairs. Our yard is much smaller than the one where our young cousins played football at the Thanksgivings hosted at our previous house and is maintained by the homeowners association.

While the dining room is a bit tight, we discovered a few weeks after moving in that our new house entertains quite well. My sisters, all of our first cousins and our aunt were here for brunch. We have a group photo taken in front of a stand of trees and pictures of Goldie and her brother Avraham at the fountain which is the primary backyard feature.

This weekend, I’m beginning preparations for the holiday meals. I’ve kept the menus from years back, and it is interesting how much – and little – they’ve changed over the years.  Without question, the food was much more kid-friendly when the under-12 set took up one side of our dining room table.

Over the years, I’ve happily offered gluten-free food, vegetarian options and every other accommodation imaginable. This year, one of our dear friends, who has had a Rosh Hashanah meal with us every year for more than 20 years is – thankfully – recovering from throat cancer. I’ll make sure there is extra chicken soup broth and plenty of applesauce made from the fruit grown near our mountain house in Hendersonville, NC.

On Shemini Atzeret, which occurs near the end of the eight-days of Sukkot, we’re serving fish as the main course because, as with many of our friends of a certain age, our aging digestive systems can handle only so much fatty red meat. In our younger days, that holiday was often when I broke out the meat-stuffed cabbage and homemade corned beef.

No doubt it will be disconcerting to do major cooking in a kitchen that is not yet completely familiar to me. Only my readers older than 50 will really understand this, but, even though I put everything away, that is no guarantee I’ll remember where everything is. On the other hand, the pantry we had installed is much better organized than the last one, which might make up some of the time I spend searching for appliances and pots and pans.

What already feels like home is that I’ll be cooking under total Brittany supervision, as hope springs eternal from Betsy and Rusty that I’ll drop something. And, as always, Marc will be available – and good-natured  – to run to the grocery store or farmer’s market at the last minute when I discover I’m missing an ingredient.

It might be a strange conclusion in a blog that is supposed to be about food, but what we put on the table doesn’t matter nearly as much as who is sitting around it and the spiritual longing that brings them together.

As the poem says, it’s about a “heap of living” that makes a house a home. Of course, a heap of matzo balls never hurt anything either.

Happy New Year.