Making Cheese

Making non-cultured cheese, like cottage or cream cheese, is a separation process. Upon learning that, I decided to experiment with my chef friend.

Cottage/Farmer's cheese
2 liters milk (~half gallon)
1/4 cup white vinegar
salt to taste
Put milk in pan and heat to about 190 F. Dump in the vinegar and immediately separate the curdled milk fat off the top. Strain the remaining chunks from the liquid. The liquid is whey, great to make protein shakes from or add to cereal etc. The chunks are the farmer's cheese. Add salt to taste before eating.

Cream Cheese
8 cups full-fat yogurt
1 tsp salt
Pull sock over a large jar and put in the yogurt. Add in the salt and stir. Let the water drain overnight into the jar. The cream cheese will be in the sock, the whey in the jar.

Finding My Father

בס"ד

Sipping a cup of lightly sweetened, heavily milked coffee, I put together the final plans for my father's trip. Bus scheduals, Shabbat candle lighting times, googlemaps directions, and much more, my packet is finally complete leaving me only five minutes to grab my bag and go. The sun shine is just the icing on the cake as I lock up and head out. My bag was filled last night with things to do on the bus and food to greet my father with. Also, knowing that it is a mitzvah to escort and feed one's parents, I feel extra good about the day. Only a short bus ride to Akko, and then direct train to the airport. Seems simple enough. The train staion is totally new to me, as I wasn't aware of this fast way to travel from the airport to Tzfat. I walk in, order my ticket, and am immediatley turned down. "There is no train today from Akko to Ben Gurion Airport" All that planning and I didn't even check the schedual today! The advice is to take a bus from Haifa. After arriving in the city of Israel which to my best guess was having a mass exodus, I stood in the line for the bus which numbered about three bus-fulls of people. The riot began when another bus-full group of people cut the entire line by circumventing to the outside, on the left. Of course, the national mentality kicked in, and as the bus arrived so did the screaming, "No one let those on the left come in - push them out of the way and get on the bus! No one on the left will get into the bus!" and similar banter was screamed and we were all packed like sardines from the pushing. Once on the bus, I felt like I could relax and enjoy the view. It was getting late, but at least I was on my way to the airport. The view turned out to be quite amazing, as we traveled to just about every city I have ever heard of in the south of Israel, outside of Eilat. This joy ride sparked my panic, as I realized we were still so far from the airport and the sun was going down. Still an hour away, I was already two hours late. Finally reaching the terminal, I search for my father to no avail. Who would wait for 3 hours without communication? I mean, I gave him my cell number, he isnt answering his, so maybe he just tried to email me. After frantically calling my local friend, Shoshana, we worked through having the wrong number, missing each other in Haifa on the way up, and taking individual taxis to Tzfat, a 2 hour drive from there. But in the end, I found my father.

Shabbos - Simply Tzfat

בס"ד . Scientist by degree and social scientist by hobby, I find myself scrutinizing things most people don't ever think about. (For example, does the lid on the pam spray pop when you put in on as air goes in or out?) Despite this keen attention to detail, or rather because of it, I usually lose the big picture.... . Late again for Shabbos on the other end of town, I put on my fast pace as I walk with Yenti to Me'or Chayim, the Breslover's neighborhood in the south of Tzfat. Almost out of breath, we walk in together to our host family's house, at least ten minutes before candle lighting time (the official beginning of Shabbos when all forbidden forms of labor cease). Like anytime in a new place, things flash into my awareness: a parrot. Double layer tichel (haircovering). Walls blank of a picture of the Rebbe. . Not paying attention, I light candles and head to a nap - my favorite way to usher in the Jewish day of rest. In the back end of the house comes more flashes: silk kapota (long black jacket) with a floral print. Man with long payos (side locks, typically curled a hair style worn by many Hasidic Jews). Ok, now things are getting weird. . The beginning of my social science "habit" was ignited in a sociology class. Forced into seeing in society what always had lay hidden, I feel like I learnt more about myself my my black, poor, inter-city professor. Who knew there could be negative effects on someone's psyche from walking into the drug store and finding only "flesh" colored bandaids, none of which looked anywhere near his chocolate skin. But moreso, as I would learn later on in a comparative literature class, who knew the effects on an individual all those things we don't notice. . Being in a world of Lubavitch for about four years now, I feel pretty comfortable in the community. But it is all those little things that crept in which make me blind to what the community really is. Blind, that is, until I see what the community is not. Every flash of dissonance I experienced brought me one step closer to discovering that I wasn't at the house of a Lubavitcher. But it also brought me one step closer to seeing my blind spots. . (I was, interestingly enough, at the house of a talented musician, the frontman of a band Simply Tzfat.)

Purim - Just be Happy

It is a cold night, and the Jews in a small villiage in Eastern Europe are gathered around a festive table. The glass and earthenware on the table are something special, not worn from daily use. As the rich Jewish nobleman is about to address his guests, the doors open with a bang. The queen's messengers have just come to warn of a terrible decree: a neighboring country is preparing for war. Requesting for something to be done, she desperately turns to those who may have some sort of spiritual power. In response this man orders the servers to bring all the alchohol to the table. They drink until it is finished, singing and dancing in great joy. Anyone who has ever heard a Jewish folk story before already knows the ending, the day was saved, yadda yadda. I don't mean to downplay the success, as I find it no less than miraculous for such a thing to happen. But really, drinking and dancing did that? My gut reaction is yes, yes it did. I have noticed nothing short of miracles in my life as soon as I was able to open my eyes to the good that was around me. But I guess for me being happy has always meant snuggling with a good book or getting dirty in the forest. This purim there was definently not any books or forests in my forecast, so I made due with what was available. I walked along pave streets, site-seeing the little kiddos in costumes. Fairly disillusioned about this aspect, I kind of have to keep from snarling. I dislike when Jewish holidays are downgraded to American popular culture in the same way I used to dislike American popular culture. But it is still fun to see an entire country celebrate together a holiday not even on the calendar in America. Visiting my chesed family while giving out Shalach Manos (Gifts of Food to friends, one of the special mitzvos of the day), I realized that this day had less to do with finding my happiness than sprouting it in others.

Movie Shoot

בס"ד

Sometimes I wonder about my priorities. When we have the chance to spend an amazing Shabbos all together, I opt out. But when a religious video is being produced, and they need about 35 seminary girls to be background characters in a scene, I don't think twice.

Waiting in line for costume, hair and makeup, about 35 girls sit, thinking only about how cool it is to be in a movie. On my buket list as well, I am just one of the statistics. Of course, my typical want-for-everything attitude leads me to, when chosing my own costume, the most outrageous thing I could find. It was a little overboard, I admit. Rethinking my choice when we are standing around, after 12 am (arrive there 10 hours earlier), waiting to be seated in our scene, the director mumbles something to me. "What did she say? I can't sit here... why?" It was announced that, because of my costume, I will sit at the head, only one seat away, and directly across, from the speaking characters. Based on this outcome, I think I may never learn...

Hamentaschen

בס"ד

Preparing for a Jewish holiday always seems to involve food. With Purim coming up, I just couldn't let the holiday slip by without some homemade hamentaschen, filled triangle cookies unique to the early spring holiday. They turned out pretty good, and very healthy. Maybe even too healthy.

Hamentaschen

Ingrediants

1 kilo (spelt) flour

4 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

(demura) sugar to taste, less than 2/3 cup

(olive) oil to taste, less than 1/2 cup

orange juice

filling

5 apples

sugar to taste, less than 1/4 cup (optional)

cinnamon

nutmeg

Mix all batter ingrediants. Use whateve type or flour/sugar/oil you want, but my choices are in parenthesis above. Add orange juice to desired wetness. Normally this cookie dough is flaky, but with such little sugar and oil it will most likely be sticky. Mine was a little stickier than bread dough. Because of this I had to roll it out with a lot of whole wheat flour, as I used my entire kilo of flour for the dough.

In a pot, put peeled, cored, and dices apples in a pan with water and other ingrediants. Bring to a boil and then simmer until apple peices are soft and mushy. Time depends on the size of apples put in.

Once the filling is cooled down to room temp and the dough has chilled in refrigerator, roll dough to 1/6"-1/4" sheet. Cut out circles with the top of a large cup, at least 3" in diameter. Put a dollop of filling in each circle and pinch the edges to make a traingle. Bake until golden brown. Makes enough cookies to send for Shalach Manos, the gifts of food to friends, a mitzvah special to the day of Purim, to enjoy for breakfast, and to have some guests over and serve them :)

Variation: Put jam or chocolate chips in center. Make sure to spread chocolate when hot in center, so it doesn't re-harden in the same shape!

Lackluster 2

True life happens between incident and response, I once heard. Decidedly not wanting to have a bad day, I just think that I can have true life here.

Yes, the day was filled with screaming. Yes, at almost every given opportunity people were standing on chairs. Yes, they dressed me up in a scientist outfit and made me go on stage explaining a math equation I made up. And yes, I smiled.