Latkes, latkes, la la la

The calendar has turned to December, and with that comes latkes. Latkes in Yiddish, levivot in Hebrew or potato pancakes in English, latkes are the traditional Ashkenazi or Eastern European food served at Chanukah in many countries outside of Israel (Israeli's eat sufganiot, a type of jelly donut). We Jews do ourselves in at this time of year eating foods made with oil. It is most masochistic, and at the same time magnificently delectable.

Latkes are incredible, if executed correctly. At their best, they are fried to a magnificent golden brown; they are lacy and crunchy on the outside and 'meaty' on the inside. Latkes are a versatile food as well. They can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and any type of snack in between. For the dairy meal, they can be topped with sour cream; for a meat meal, apple sauce is usually in order. I don't know why, but some people top them with sugar. To me, this is a bastardization of what I know to be traditional, but we live in a pluralistic society, so, hey, who am I to argue. Latkes can be 'kicked up a notch' as well. In times other than Chanukah, I have seen them served as an appetizer at parties, with a dollop of flavoured cream cheese and thin slice of lox on top. It is almost impossible to not sing the praises of what could never be considered a lowly potato pancake.

One of the things I like most about latkes is, they sit in your stomach for about eight days, coincidentally corresponding with the number of days as the holiday of Chanukah itself (this, by the way in case you don't know it, is the true meaning of the Miracle of the Oil). As well as the latkes themselves remaining, so too does the smell of the oil they were cooked in. The smell gets into your pores and into your walls. It's disgusting and beautiful at the same time. It's magnificent.

I've been making latkes for decades. In the beginning, I would make them by scratch, especially with my kiddies both at home at during the 22 years I spent teaching kindergarten, but one year I got lazy, and from there, birthed my ultimate latke recipe. It is the fusion of old school (pardon the pun) and new...and here it is.

First, you will need a box of latke mix (your choice). Prepare the mix according to the box. Next, you are going to add to the mixture your favourite latke recipe from scratch. Mine is the Easy Potato Pancakes recipe from the great Norene Gilletz' yellow bible, The Pleasures of Your Processor (pg. 166). They are, to quote Mel Brooks as the 2000 Year Old Man, 'simple, yet elokvent'. However I do make one change to her recipe....with deepest respect to my facebook friend, Norene.....I grate the potatoes (and onions) by hand. It makes all the difference in the world. For a few reasons.

For some reason, when you grate potatoes by hand, the texture is slightly different, and I like that. People scoff at me all the time when I tell them that I hand grate. They say that I'm crazy and that the processor does the same, if not better job. But they don't understand. It's not just about the end result. It's about...ok...another unintended pun....the process.

It's about tradition. Granted, in my life, I've broken traditions. I've created new ones, too. But I have memories of my grandmother grating potatoes. And I have years of wonderful memories making latkes with my children. Ann Landers once advised that if you want to have meaningful conversations with your children, get them to do the dishes with you. I think the same goes for latke making. I've watched many tiny fingers attempt to grate (haven't lost a finger yet!). I've helped little hands crack eggs (I have decided that little pieces of cracked eggshell in your latkes are a good source of calcium), and held my hands over smaller ones to stir the mixture. The process is as satisfying as the end result.

So I continue to grate my potatoes by hand...and cry while I grate the onions, too. It's all about tradition.....and the oil that lasted for eight days...in my hair, my skin, and happily, in my tummy. May my kitchen produce latkes for many years to come!

Tandacookie by any other name

At the dawn of the internet, as I created my first email account, I had to think up a name for myself. Now, in those days, we didn't have to think too hard. It was an usual thing to get a message saying, 'username taken', so anything was possible. I didn't give a minute's thought before deciding upon my moniker, Tandacookie.

Over the years, all sorts of people have asked me about it. The lady at Air Canada bookings cared to hear the explanation. Clerks at stores who ask for my email address so that they can send me junk mail wanna know. Who is Tanda Cookie?

The answer is...nobody. Tanda Cookie doesn't exist. I'm not Tanda anything. Tandacookie is really T and a Cookie...T being short for tea, making my name 'tea and a cookie'. I was simply too lazy to write tea-and-a-cookie every time I wanted to enter an email address. Okay you say, so why 'tea and a cookie'?

My pat answer to explain to anyone who asks that in university, everyone knew that they could always come to my dorm room for tea and a cookie (I was always well stocked). Once the name stuck, friends would ask if I ever invited people up for tea and maybe a cookie. That euphemism stuck, too, by the way. The other day as I realized that Tandacookie is writing about food, I wondered if there could be a deeper reason why I chose the name. I think there is and I believe I've figured it out.

Unlike today's busy world where too many families eat on different schedules, my family sat down and broke bread together every night at precisely 6:00 p.m. My father would sit at the head of the table, and go around asking me and my siblings what we had done at school that day. From there, lively conversation abounded between my parents and my grandmother, who lived with us. Dinner was always simple but tasty. And then came dessert.

My mother and grandmother shared the baking duties, so we were never short on dessert. I think those two women shared some religious belief that one must have three dessert options every night. And we did. There was always some type of fruit pie along with my grandmother's strudel and one of two types of cookies.... chocolate chip cookies, or my grandmother's sugar cookies....everything homemade. And of course, there was tea. That's right; tea and a cookie every night. No wonder I've decided to write about food!

So why do I call myself Tandacookie? The more I think about it, the more I realize that for me, tea and a cookie means that full, happy, sleepy feeling after a great meal. It means comfort and deep satisfaction. Tea and a cookie describes what is most important to me...my family.

Tandcookie means home.

Taste testing, testing, one, two, three

So it's been a while since my last posting. As some of you may know, my life has taken a dramatic and fantastic turn since I signed off  in April. I have a new portfolio at work, which is exciting. I've taken the plunge and have re-married. Extremely exciting. I have moved homes. Exhausting but very exciting. All of these are life altering events, to be sure. But in the midst of it all, my dirty, secret passion has been rekindled....I've fallen deeply, madly in love with the Food Channel.

It began quite innocently. When new hubby and I renovated the house, we opened up an existing kitchen wall so that the kitchen and family room would essentially become a 'great' room. By doing this, we felt we could entertain guests better. The open concept ensured that conversations could carry on and flow between rooms. Continuing with the idea of the two rooms becoming one, we placed the TV in the family room over the fireplace so that we could easily watch our shows from the kitchen if desired.

Now as you may already know from older postings, other than Seinfeld reruns, I'm not much of a TV watcher, so I paid no never mind as to where the TV would hang, or which angle would be best to gain the ideal view from the kitchen. It was virtually meaningless to me...until that fateful day. That day back in September when I was cooking multi meals for the then upcoming High Holy Days and decided I wanted to have a little company. I flicked on the TV and instinctively clicked to Channel 52,  the beloved Food Channel. Glory, Glory Halleluyah! I was home.

Immediately, I felt a rush of adrenaline hit me. Here were 'my' chefs, doing their thing so expertly, so exquisitely, and without much mess. I welcomed each of them in, one magnificent half hour after another. Together, we created that first batch of meals. It was completely and utterly satisfying. And even though we were creating different dishes, we were in it as a team. And even better, they did it there, in TV land, where they couldn't bump into me or get their mess mixed in with mine. It was a beautiful thing. It was a turn on. It was the start of a beautiful and meaningful relationship.

I'm not a foodie. I don't profess to be one. I don't even aspire to be one. I'm not the best cook in the world.... I'm not so bad, either, so I've been told. But I've realized lately that I'm very happy being in the kitchen, and I don't think it's simply because of the Food Channel. I'm not sure how regularly I'll be writing this blog, but I seem to think that for this next little while, my thoughts will eminate from what's cooking on my stove or in my oven.

So pull up a chair. I welcome you into my kitchen, my sanctum sanctorum, my place of frenzy, my place of peace. Make yourself at home.

It's recess

Dear Readers,
I have always had great respect for writers, but lately my admiration has grown exponentially. In the last little while, I realized that I was beginning to either run out of ideas or repeating the themes I had previously written. I don't know how columnists and writers continue to come up with brilliant pieces week after week (some day after day), but I confess, I am not of their ilk.

Since I don't care to bore, I'm going to take a recess to explore different blog writing possibilities. I hope to write again, and will post a message when I do.

In the meantime, if you have suggestions, please send them to me.

I have to thank those of you who read my musings regularly. It never dawned on me that people would actually read what I wrote. It's an awesome feeling!

Until the bell rings,
Barbara A.

Flex-ing my muscles

I'm going to tell you this upfront: this posting has nothing to do with school. This has to do with....facial cleanser.

I admit it; a few years ago, I began listening to those TV experts when they said that the very soap that was good enough for every generation since the beginning of time is in fact ruining my skin. None of my friends used soap (YUCH), so I joined the bandwagon and succumbed to the lure of advertisement. I can now say that I have become a Dove girl. I use Dove soap because it's 1/4 cleansing cream (or at least, that's what they tell me). I use Dove shampoo and conditioner, and sometimes their moisturizer (is this too much information?). I also use Dove's foaming facial cleanser. Why? No particular reason. I just do....but perhaps not for too much longer. Warning: this is a sad story.

A few days ago, I made a trip to the pharmacy to buy some facial cleanser. It was going to be a quick trip-go in, buy one thing and leave. I innocently, and dare I say cavalierly made my way to the appropriate shelf to grab my prize. I looked quickly.  It wasn't there. I looked again.Yep, I decided, I better make that eye appointment when I get home. I looked again, this time a bit harder. And then again. Nothing. No Dove foaming facial cleanser. I must have made a mistake, I decided. It must be here. I'm just not looking hard enough.

Thirty nervous seconds later,  I began to scour the shelves. No luck. Like a crack addict I began pacing up and down the aisles wondering if I had missed something. Was I all of a sudden in the wrong aisle? Perhaps facial cleansers have now been stocked next to baby wipes. Well, why not? The store could have a very good reason for doing that. It's not my business to ask! I went over and checked. No, not there either. All of a sudden, panic began to set in as visions of Elaine Benes searching for the Today sponge to no avail danced in my head.

Two more stores and still, no sign of the elusive cleanser. To be fair, I had an idea as to where I could get it, but that's not the point. The fact was that what I wanted was not going to be readily available anymore, and that was completely disheartening. A very unsettling feeling set in as I began to get flashbacks from the catastrophic Flex shampoo incident of the 1980's.

Let me explain. Flex was my shampoo of choice in my teens. Little did I know then, but I later found out that a friend of mine actually associated the scent of Flex with me. Flex was my teenage signature scent. I happily used gallons of it until....oh, this is difficult for me....until it disappeared. It was devastating. I was lost without my shampoo. After all, who was I without it?

Now here's a little secret that I haven't told a soul. Years and years later, I accidentally came across a hotel shampoo sample of Flex. I stuck it in my drawer and clung to it for the longest time. One day I decided to take a whiff. Wouldn't you know it, it didn't smell anything like the familiar perfume of Flex. Someone tried to pull a fast one. And don't go telling me this happened because the darned thing was sitting for years!

So off I go to start investigating new, more readily available facial cleansers. I don't have time for this. I have other things to do. Yes, I know...change is the only thing that is constant in the world. BAHHH!!! First Flex, and now Dove foaming facial cleanser. Life isn't fair.

Everything Old is New Again---Except Me

For the past number of months, I've converted from listening to the Easy Listening radio station to the Jazz one. Must say, it's been a pleasant change. I'm a sucker for those old love songs, and I love the way different artists play with the notes. I'm good with the music where I can follow the melody, but I must admit to and apologize for not understanding atonal music at all. To me, it all sounds like a traffic jam. When instrumentals go far off the basic melody line, I get lost and a bit frustrated. Luckily, the bulk of the music played on the station is more or less at my level for music appreciation, and many of the artists played are local, which is really neat.

Both Jazz and the Blues hit me in a few spots. For one, the old 'standards' are beautifully written, and frankly, in contrast to Rock, I can follow the lyrics. For another, the music takes me back to my childhood piano that sat in our living room, where my dad used to play and sing the evening away to the very songs I'm listening to today. It's familiar and sentimental, let alone stunning to listen to.

One of the days when #3 was home for Reading Week, we were in the car together, driving to visit my mother who lives about an hour away. We were listening to the jazz station (he loves the music as well) when an atonal piece was being played. Neither of us had the patience to listen, so he decided to flip to the Classic Rock station. The music was fabulous, perfect for a long drive; Queen, the Stones, even Little Stevie Wonder. But along with the 'classic' stuff,  there was also new music played. But here's the strange thing about the new music--a lot of it was simply music from the '70's and '80's revisited. So, between listening to the remaking of Jazz standards on one station as well as listening to the reworking of classics in Rock, I started to wonder if there was anything new under the sun.

In Education, teachers who have been around as long as I have know that ideas are cyclical. We go to Professional Development days and hear about new methods of teaching children effectively. These experts have programmes with slick names and glossy brochures. The old timers like me listen to the presentations and then turn to each other and ask, Isn't this the exact same thing as...? And it is.

When I was a little girl in elementary school, we had Reading Groups. They had cute little names like the Duckies, the Kitties and the Puppies. The teacher would call up each group separately in a round robin fashion. The Duckies would read while the Kitties and Puppies did their work. When the Duckies finished, they would do work and the next group would come up and so forth. Each group had a different reader, or minimally, were working on different stories. Of course, even though every group had seemingly innocuous names, we kids all instinctively knew that the groups were levelled. We could tell by who was in each group. We knew the academic pecking order, even in Grade One. We simply played into the teacher's little fantasy of thinking she was pulling one over on all of us. We didn't want to make her feel bad.

Today, that little trick has a fancy name. It's called differentiation. It works exactly the same as it did 45 or 50 years ago. Okay, maybe all those years ago, it was only done in Reading, and today we do it in every subject, but the concept is the same. The assignment is geared to the child's level of capability. Old concept, different name. Nothing new under the sun.

Okay, yes, you're right. There are plenty of new things in this world. The computer on which I'm writing this drivel, for one. But when all is said and done, most new things are there to enable one to do the old things in a slightly different way. The old is still there, and it's not too bad.

Our world is moving very quickly. Life is stressful. We need some familiarity to remind us that although the world is changing, it's not changing as much and as quickly as we think. So what do we do? We dust off old standards and sing or play them differently, but not so different so as not to recognize them. We take the Rock music we were raised with and hip hop it a bit. We retool ideas that we once shelved, clean them up and call them new. For the young'n's, the music, the standards, the ideas...they ARE new. For the oldtimers, they are reminders that we have never been off the mark.

Old, reliable. New and improved. They are one and the same.
And I find that reassuring!

Hats off to you!

I've never been a 'material girl'. I don't have a particular attachment to too many 'things'. I could list on one hand some mementos of certain events or times in my life that would be on the list of those things-I-would-grab-if-I-had-to-leave-my-house-in-a-hurry. None of them are worth a lot of money, they simply are objects attached to very fond memories. There is, however, one item that doesn't fit on that list. It's one of those 'things' that I deem vital for my survival. It's not my potato peeler, which I must admit I love dearly. It's not even my crank by hand musher that produces great egg and tuna salad, as well as making avocado the perfect consistency for making guacamole. No, this the object that rises above them all. It is, of course, my yard duty hat.

When I bought my Elmer Fudd hat a number of years ago, everyone laughed at me. I was an oddity on the playground. Here I was with what is essentially a deer hunting hat (ironically, made of deer skin) while everyone else had their toques. My colleagues teased....until I invited them to try it on. Let's just say that the laughing stopped. My hat is warm and cozy and keeps the wind from attacking me.

But my hat does even more than that. My hat buffers the noise of all the little children playing on the yard. When I'm wearing my beloved hat, all of the yells and whoops and chants of the kids sound like one big mush, kind of like my avocado after it has been mushed by my other beloved inanimate object. It's fabulous! Or is it?

Today, the Jewish world celebrates the festival of Purim. One of our duties is to read the Megillah, the Scroll of Esther. Every time the villain Haman's name is mentioned, we are to make a lot of noise, so as to drown his name out. Over and over again through the reading, there is this blast of noise. Strangely, after a few times, the sound becomes tolerable. I start to get used to it. The kids who have waited an entire year for the chance to make a lot of noise become less and less excited, to the point of boredom. It all begins to sound like white noise.

I became accustomed to the white noise of chatting children when I taught kindergarten. There is a constant buzz in a kindergarten class, more so than in the grades. Over time I learned to tune out a lot of things. In many ways, tuning out was a blessing. Sometimes back then, knowing that I could tune out bothered me. It bothers me now, too.

We all 'tune out' many times during the day. We daydream. We focus on a TV show, or the newspaper, or the crossword or whatever we're tinkering with while someone else is talking and don't hear them. Sometimes for our own sanity we have to tune out, but we can only imagine what we're missing when we're not tuning in.

We all know the phrase, Don't go into the light! I think we have to start reminding ourselves not to go into the white noise. The trick is to pay attention, and swim through the white noise in order to listen to the voices that need to be heard. It isn't easy, but something tells me that it's worth the exercise.

Today I will drown out the sound of Haman. Tomorrow, I will try to break the white noise sound barrier!