Some like it hot

Nearly every year, the Jewish New Year spread in newspapers and national magazines is more of the same. The photos show steaming bowls of matzo ball soup, juicy slices of brisket, pans of tzimmes glazed with fruity syrup.


My question is also always the same: Where do these people live? The Arctic Circle?

They obviously don’t live in the South where early September, when Rosh Hashana begins this year, is as sticky and hot as July and August. After sitting in a crowded synagogue and walking half a mile in the heat to either your lunch destination or, in non-Orthodox areas, to your car, heavy food is the last thing you want.

It reminds me of going to the Atlanta Merchandise Mart with my parents to buy for the fall season at our clothing store. As the salesman would haul out wool slacks and sweaters for the back-to-school crowd, my mother would repeat her mantra, “Dark cottons. Dark cottons.”

(Strangely enough, these were the same manufacturers who, for Easter, would create sleeveless slips of dresses. That would send Mom in an often fruitless search for “little” cotton sweaters because, inevitably , a cold snap occurred just in time for the holiday. I can’t even imagine what storeowners in the Northeast and Midwest did. Sell matching pastel down jackets?}

As warm as Atlanta will be for this year’s holiday, it will not hold a melting candle to the Rosh Hashanas of my childhood. Then, we trudged through the streets of Savannah, our dark cotton sleeves rolled up as high as they would go, hoping to get to synagogue before our clothes were soaked through with perspiration.

The downtown synagogue we attended when I was very young was hot and stuffy. The thick, dusty velvet draperies didn’t help. Of course, it could have been worse for me. My father was wearing a wool suit and a tallis (a prayer shawl) over his shoulders.

The “new building,” which opened when I was slightly older but now is close to 50 years old, was like a meat locker every time we walked in on Rosh Hashana. The custodians had cranked the air conditioning up, the temperatures down, for the sweltering men. For someone in a slightly-damp cotton dress, it was …. Well, let’s just say a bowl of steaming matzo ball soup would have been very welcome.

I understood no Hebrew and knew little about what was going on in the synagogue. The services seemed interminable, and I would constantly cast my eyes over to the men’s section where, eventually, my father would give me a nod. We’d meet in the foyer and then cross the street to a restaurant underneath a giant globe.

By that point, I was a very hungry little girl. We’d have a sandwich and a Coke then, reluctantly for both of us, return to the service. I don’t know if ducking out of the synagogue service would be considered good parenting these days, but it is one of my favorite memories of my father.

I now pass the Big Globe, still standing, on the way from the expressway to the cemetery where my parents are buried. Seeing it recalls my joy at being with my father and out of a situation that was so uncomfortable for me.

Because we were “country Jews” and from out-of-town, my mother’s family didn’t cook elaborate Rosh Hashana meals. Instead, we ate in empty restaurants at 2 or 3 in the afternoon when we finally got out of synagogue and rounded everyone up.

Sometimes It’s hard to know what memories are real and what are just imagination, but, to me, we always seemed to be dining in a dark below-ground room, even though it was mid afternoon outside. Everyone seemed to have filet mignon without the bacon and lots of yeast rolls.

Because, during the year, we were unable to go to synagogue as often as my mother would have liked, we tried to make up for it by attending every service during the High Holidays. We were in the sanctuary early and often.

It must have been kind of religion by osmosis because, somehow, I opted to return to traditional Judaism in my early 30s.

The service that once seemed to go on forever is now, in some ways, like listening to my favorite greatest hits album. All of the prayers and songs touch me deeply and uplift me spiritually. To go home and share a meal with your closest friends just adds to the religious experience.

The first few years I celebrated the Jewish New Year with my own home-cooked meal, I filled the table with the heavy, rib-sticking favorites. Everyone was as stuffed and overheated as cabbage rolls by the time they went to Tashlich. I’m sure it was all they could do to not throw themselves in the cool stream with the symbolic bread crumbs.

I’ve gained some wisdom in my later years and now mix it up a bit. The first day of Rosh Hashana, when we have friends who are more like family, I serve a menu of both hot and cold foods.

This year, we’ll start with gefilte fish with spicy tomato sauce (cold) and then follow it with matzo ball soup (very hot.) The entrees are honey-balsamic chicken (served warm) and homemade corned beef (served cold in slices with mustard.) The only heated side dishes will be sweet potato/cranberry casserole and green beans. Homemade pickles, a red cabbage-apple coleslaw and a green salad will also be served. For dessert, we’ll have honey cake, fruit and sorbet.

If the holiday had fallen on Shabbat, when the rules of warming food are even more strict and everyone seems to have their own minhag (tradition), I probably would have prepared a brisket in the crockpot and served everything else cold, including gazpacho as the soup.

Because of our home’s proximity to the synagogue, three houses away, I probably can get away with serving more warm food than others who live farther away. The combination of weather and location also means that I might get a few drop-ins on their way from their lunches. In this heat, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the non-dairy sorbet and icy fruit.

I love to cook traditionally fall dishes but, this year, will have to save them for either the nighttime meals of Sukkot at the end of September or even to haul to my sister’s house in upstate South Carolina for Thanksgiving.

Of course, growing up in the lower reaches of Georgia, the weather at Thanksgiving was often warm. One of my mother’s elusive dreams was that one cold Thanksgiving where she could light a fire and serve spiced apple cider. I honestly don’t think it ever happened.

It would be like getting to wear a woolen suit to services on Rosh Hashana and actually craving the bowl of hot soup. That might be the case for some people, but not down here where some like it hot and some, like me, just put up with the heat because I don’t want to get out of the kitchen.