Lesson Learned: One at a Time

I treated myself to a birthday gift.
Now, that’s not so out-of-character. What better way to make certain that one receives what one wants??
What is really shocking is what I purchased for myself.

Happy birthday to me!

That’s right. A cookbook.
I bought myself a new cookbook.

Admittedly, it is the first time that I ever received a cookbook as a gift outside of our engagement and wedding. Of course, it’s also the only time that I received a cookbook as a gift that I knew I’d use. Right away. In fact, I tried a tomato crisp that very day as part of my birthday dinner.

Ah-ha — I was reminded that I recently received a no-occasion gift from Mom-&-DadGiraffe that would fall into the general category of ‘cooking.’ Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking is about baking and not cooking. I know so little about such things that I don’t even know if one can correctly refer to a book about baking as a cookbook. One day, please God, I’ll have enough skill confidence to attempt the delicacies in it.

Over last Shabbat, I poured over the pages in order to determine what I wanted to try in the upcoming week. A new dish on Tuesday. One on Thursday. But it was Shabbos dinner that captured my fancy.

• challah
• Za’atar Chicken with prunes, dried apricots, and Spanish olives
• Tzimmes Puffs
• Citrus-Hazelnut Green Beans
• Basmati Rice (white and brown, combined)
• Zebra cookies

A few things to note:

Before we moved to the middle of a corn field, we lived in an area with a considerable Arab (Muslim, Christian, AND Jewish) population and a sizable Israeli population. Za’atar is widely available. Here? Not so much. The za’atar I did {{finally}} locate turned out to be a very anemic version. [And it went directly down the drain upon receipt of a care package from the Ima.]

Tzimmes. We were not a tzimmes family when I was a kid. Or kugel. Sure, they made their seasonally-appropriate, cameo appearances, but were not regulars on the Shabbos rotation. Also, I don’t like sweet unless it’s a dessert. Or during breakfast. Otherwise, I’ve never been a fan of sweet potatoes, candied yams, etc.

And did I mention that for about two months when I was a kid, we had a dog named Tzimmes? A blog post for another time…

Just as I was about to start the green beans, I had what turned out to be a perfectly-timed change-of-heart. And replaced the fancy-shmancy green beans with simple, rather unoriginal, canned French-cut green beans. And it was a very, very smart move.

Because PC and I were the only ones who enjoyed my culinary efforts.

The kids were unimpressed. The chicken looked weird. The tzimmes tasted weird. The basmati rice wasn’t sticky enough.

Later that night, Beernut did the math for me:

For Shabbos, Mom, you can only make one new thing. We look forward to Shabbat dinner all week. And it needs to be stuff we like or else it’s ruined. So three old things and one new thing would be good.