Monthly Archives: March 2014

Chicken Three Ways: Goopy, Porny and Mine

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This week the internet went apesh*t after Gwyneth Paltrow announced that she and her husband/twin/rock star Chris Martin are separating, or rather “consciously uncoupling.”

The news made me quite sad, as those of us married folk know it ain’t no fairy tale. If the gorgeous tall blond people with all the money can’t keep it together, what chance do us common folk have? So far El Yenta Man and I always manage, but I would not judge what goes on in another couple’s marriage.

However, the way some jerks behave during their divorces certainly brings on the stones, and I say we gotta respect Gwyneth and Chris for doing their best to act like grown-ups during this process. While “conscious uncoupling” may sound like the pretentious mishegoss everyone’s always accusing her of, I agree with Jen Lemen’s view that our society can offer more options than devolving into “bitches and ogres” as a union dissolves. (Read her insightful piece at Medium.com.)

images-1Gwynnie honors her Jewish roots, and it makes sense that she would post a chicken recipe on Goop.com during this tumultuous week. Actually, she posted three, because she clearly suffers from some type of overachiever complex. (There must be some guilt there, having inherited the blond hair and the long leggies AND the cooking talent.)

Jewish mothers know that chicken is the original comfort food. There’s something just so nurturing and nourishing about a plump little bird in the pot. I also theorize that our Jewish ancestors weren’t so much hunters as thinkers, and eating more fowl than red meat evolved for us because raising chickens so much less gross than skinning and gutting a deer. (Not that I’ve had the courage to sacrifice one of my menopausal layers just yet.)

Of course, it’s chicken soup that our people are famous for. Speaking of honoring one’s Jewish roots, everyone’s favorite Naughty Jewish Boy James Deen recently posted his recipe for Ramen Matzah Ball Soup as part of his James Deen Loves Food series at Woodrocket.com.

While James is always a cute hoot, I must recommend a Hebrew school refresher—dude got the Exodus story all kinds of wrong. (If cussing and nudity in the border ads makes you nervous, check out the interview and printed recipe over at Heeb.com.)

Me, I prefer my chicken soup with classic balls. Here’s my tried-and-true recipe, guaranteed to heal heads and hearts:

Yo, Yenta!’s Chicken Matzah Ball Soup

1. Start with a whole, cooked chicken. You can bake your own (2+ hours at 375*) but we prefer to buy one of those fancy organic ones from the market, already roasted and spiced to perfection. Pick off the meat and set aside for tomorrow’s sandwiches.
2. Break apart the bones to get to the marrow. The more the carcass resembles something mauled by a wild animal, the better flavor for the soup. If getting in touch with your inner wolf seems distasteful, give thanks you didn’t actually have to kill and defeather the bird.
3. Boil the hell out of it. Toss the bones in a full pot of water with a bit of skin (the chicken’s, not yours) and let it reduce itself down to an couple of inches. Fill the pot again and repeat two or three times until the broth becomes a shimmery golden color that smells like heaven.*Shortcut: If you have minutes instead of hours, plop in some Better Than Buillon for a nice strong broth.
4. Add a chopped onion, three or four sliced carrots and five or six celery stalks. But make sure you scoop out the bones beforehand with a slotted spoon. Add salt and pepper to your liking (don’t get insane about it, though; you can always add more but you can’t take it out.) Simmer, simmer, simmer down now.
5. Here comes the schmaltz! Prepare the matzo balls by beating 4 eggs, 2 tablespoons. of chicken fat (skim it off the top of the broth), a few pinches of finely chopped parsley. Add one cup of matzo meal and a pinch of salt. Mix well and refrigerate for 20 minutes, or until you can stand it anymore.
6. The secret to fluffy matzo balls is a gentle hand. We’re not hard-packing snowballs for maximum density here. Pretend you have your bubbie’s arthritis. Drop in boiling broth, which should be roiling with vegetables. Simmer under a lid for 20 minutes.

Enjoy with friends and neighbors. If your sinuses and sadness don’t clear after the first bowl, I recommend mainlining it.

Watch “The Story of the Jews” on PBS or Your Mother Will Plotz

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In the last week, I have received numerous e-mails from BOTH of my parents expressing great concern that the Yenta family watch Simon Schama’s Story of the Jews.

pPBS3-18058099dtParts one and two of the five-part miniseries premiere tomorrow Tuesday, March 25 on PBS (check your local affiliate) and apparently if I don’t put our tushies on the couch for it, there will be hell to pay.

Well, not Hell, since Jews don’t believe in all that. (Unless, of course, they want to.) But my folks only noodge when it’s something fairly important, and I don’t like to disappoint them.

“I know it’s a weeknight, but maybe you’ll let the children watch a few minutes…” writes my mother in a style the rest of the family refers to as her Power of Suggestion tone.

Dad goes for more a direct tactic, as in “Your dead grandparents would be very happy, if in fact there is an afterlife and they could know of such things.”

Actually, I don’t need any guilt trips at all to defer my Parks & Rec Netflix viewing for this epic documentary, although some people I’m related to (*cough cough*) might consider it the T.V.-viewing equivalent of a museum full of Torah pointers.

Lushly filmed at archaeological sites, medieval synagogues, Venetian ghettoes and Palestinian neighborhoods, it promises to present Jewish history in relate-able, relevant terms as well as in the context of modern culture itself.

“What ties us together is a story, the story kept in our heads and hearts,” says Simon Schama in the preview. “We told our story to survive. We are our story.”

It’s a salient timing as we’re readying ourselves and our homes for our Passover seders on Monday, April 14, when we will tell one of the most important parts of the Jewish story over five courses, four cups of wine, several songs in Hebrew AND Yiddish and still have to do the dishes. Maybe this will bring a little clarity to the table.

If you need more intellectual coercion, check out Adam Kirsch’s lengthy but insightful review on Tablet.com. He makes the case just upon the visuals alone—even as he points out that as a religion without icons but plenty of tsuris, there aren’t that many grand edifices to revere:

“There is no Jewish Notre Dame,” Kirsch writes wryly.

He is also clear that the series does not “ignore” the Holocaust nor does it let it “dominate” this narrative, which may be a relief for those who are learning—with great respect—to define their Jewish identity as more than Hitler’s victims. Our story—and whether you’re Jew, Christian or Muslim, this is indeed your story, too—is bigger, bolder and more beautiful than that. Plus, it’s nowhere near finished yet.

So, yes, Mom and Dad, we’ll be parking it on the faux leather sofa tomorrow night under the Harry Potter throw blanket. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty excited about it.

And not just because it makes me feel less guilty about abbreviating the seder.

 

 

Naughty or Nice, Everyone Loves Some Jewish Boys

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Y’all know I just love the Nice Jewish Boys calendar. Who can argue with 12 months of mensch?

slide_341952_3532570_freeBut there are some who like their tribal dudes with a lil’ more…naked. That’s the concept behind Naughty Jewish Boys calendar, billed as “an unorthodox idea whose time has come.”

I’m about as unorthodox as it gets, so I’m full ON BOARD with “the desire to see Jewish men regarded as sexy instead of merely as a good catch cuddle-buddy.”

Playwright Duncan Pflaster (himself not Semitic in the least but a true appreciator of the sexy Jewish men, according to the New York Post) has already cast a slew of Hebrew hotties from an ad placed on Craig’s List, but I can think of a few others, not to mention my own verrrry wicked El Yenta Man.

Except we may never get to usher in Chanukah with this bare-chested bearded babe or any of the others, ’cause the Nice Jewish Guys have sent the Naughty ones a cease-and-desist letter for copyright infringement. Nice Jewish Guys calendar founder Adam Cohen charges that the naughty version confuses consumers; Pflaster says he’s just trying to break down the stereotype.

Boys, boys, boys! Can’t we all just along? Eye candy for everyone!

Got Shpiel-Kiss?

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Just when I thought Shabbot 2000’s classic Purim parody could never be topped, here comes another yeshiva a cappella group (how many are there?!) with an infectious invective of everyone’s favorite Persian villain. Warning: A.K.A. Pella’s “What Does Haman Say” may worm into your brain deeper than a bottle of tequila:

A little something to dance out your shpilkiss. Or, since Purim parodies are called “shpiels,” we can call that ants-in-your-pants spring feverish feeling that seems to be going around “shpiel-kiss.”

Mad new beats aside, Shushan Shabot still rules!

My Cleaning Lady Has A Nicer Car Than Me (and I’m OK with that)

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imagesBetween all of our hustling, El Yenta Man and I blessed to make a decent living at the moment.

We’re able to pay our bills, buy organic milk and have enough left over to take the family out for sushi once in a while. Thankfully, there are grandparents who provide extras like summer camp and piano lessons, so our kids can feel privileged while we remain solidly middle class.

Living within our means was a hard-learned lesson, and we maintain some thrifty habits to keep ourselves in the black: We have no credit card debt (made much easier by the fact that we don’t have any credit cards). We fix things ourselves. We reuse every plastic baggie until it shreds. Also, I am bargain-hunting, thrift-shopping, sale-sniffing queen (I know my bubbie would be proud!)

We don’t have a car payment because he drives his mom’s old Honda and I drive a 14-year old beige minivan bequeathed to me cheaply by my cousins who moved back to Jerusalem in 2005. (Here’s an in-depth description of The Absurdivan.)

It’s not just about the expense; it’s about the conscious consumption—as I get older, I just don’t want as much stuff, especially cheap crap made in overseas factories that exploit workers and flood the market with items no one needs. (Not that cheap disposable crap is avoidable; I just feel horribly guilty when I buy it.)

So the idea that I would have a cleaning lady seems ridiculous, right?

Most of the other Jewish mothers I know—including my own—don’t think a thing about hiring a woman—almost always of Hispanic descent—come dust their shelves and mop their floors once or twice a week.

But I have never been able to bear the following: 1.) admitting that I can’t keep my own house clean  2.) admitting I can’t pay someone ENOUGH to scrub the mold out of my shower.

I’ve never been comfortable hiring someone else to do my dirty work. When my first child was born, my mother wanted me to “hire some help.” A lovely woman named Bernadita came and cleaned our tiny apartment twice while I wrestled with the breast pump. When I found out she had a baby at home the same age as mine, I was overcome with shame and guilt. I found Bernadita another family to work for, and from then on, I handled the scrubbing myself in between freelance jobs.

Well, not myself. When I started working full-time, my husband and I split the cleaning down the middle: He did the hideous bathrooms, I did everything else, which was completely fair as far I was concerned. (Everyone has to fold and put away their own laundry.)

But in the last few years, EYM started his own business, and he’s gone a lot more. I work out of the house more than ever. The kids keep their rooms pretty tidy and can perform simple tasks like sweeping and vacuuming, but the wielding a toilet brush appears to be out of their skill set. Our bathrooms had come to resemble dripping mold caves that may or may not harbor chupacabra nests.

And the resentment grew faster than the mold: Neither EYM or I felt like it was our job to take care of it since we were both exhausted at the end of the day. We figured out that paying someone to do it for us every two weeks was the equivalent on one and half hours worth of work between us—Hello, SOLD.

But I still had a difficult time with the exploitative aspect of hiring someone who has her own family to take of and her own house to clean, complicated by the fact that she is living out a version of the American Dream that’s much different from my own.

After asking around for months, I’ve finally found Diana. She’s a single mom originally from Juarez, Mexico, and she’s very patient with me when I practice my Spanish.

She showed up the first day in a nice, newish minivan that was MUCH nicer than mine, wearing brand-name sneakers and a big smile. She’s built up her business to employ seven or eight women from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and is busy five days a week. I’ve not asked what she pays her mujeres—for all I know she’s
holding their birth certificates in some indentured servitude ring—but they always seem happy when they arrive every other Tuesday, whistling as they bring in their buckets and mops.

It’s still new, but so far I’m pretty happy with the situation. Rather than exploiting someone who can’t—because of her immigration status or lack of education—find different work, I feel like I’m supporting a woman in her business.

Plus, I can finally take a shower without wearing shoes.