"Smells so good” said my better half as she got home after a long day at work. “I see you got back to use the present we bought you”. When we moved to the USA we couldn’t find any bread that we loved in our area, so one of the first presents my wife and kids bought me was a bread machine. “I’d like bread with garlic” said my older son “dad, I want bread with sunflower seeds” the young one add, “maybe you can make a rosemary dried tomato bread?” my better half asked.
“Mom, tell him, he isn’t giving me a piece of the cake!” my younger brother would wine. “At least eat lunch first” mom would say as she was looking at us kids eating one piece after another. When mom would bake a chocolate cake for shabbat, it would usually not survive Friday. “I got only two pieces and everybody got four already” my sister complained. “Leave at least some cake for your father” mom would say as she took what was left of the cake.
"Mom bought those cookies that we love!” my younger brother howled at me as I entered home back from school. “How do you know?” I asked “it’s not passover yet” “I saw mom take them out of the shopping bag” he answered. My taste buds responded immediately and demanded immediate satisfaction. “Where is mom?” I asked, trying to avoid drooling.
Purim in one of my favorites holidays. It wasn’t always like this. One of my most memorable childhood traumas is connected to Purim. It wasn’t the costumes, I actually loved to dress up, and I loved the costumes parade. The Purim gragger was one of my favorite toys, and not just on Purim. What scared me was a conversation mom had with our neighbor.
"Would you like some cake?” asked the waitress, “we have excellent cakes” she added. We looked at each other, trying to decide if to take a cake at all, and if so which one. Cafes weren’t places we went to often. Usually we would gather in the public park, close to the neighborhood kiosk.
"Can you please make these cookies for me?” my better half asked me with a soft look, the one she saves for the times she wants something. “Which cookies?” I answer with an innocent look, continuing the game.
In my childhood there were two kinds of bread. White bread and dark bread. For shabbat there was chala, a round sweet chala and regular chala. When my parents wanted to treat us we got rolls. Not that there was a bigger variety, again there were two kinds, a long roll and a round one. As I have already confessed,