The Pre-Pesach Matzah Ban

According to custom, we're not allowed to eat Matzah 30 days before Seder night. The stated rationale for the minhag is that we're to abstain from Matzah so we can eat it at the Seder with gusto. I used to think that this was Rabbinically enjoined cognitive dissonance - i.e. everyone knows that Matzah is terrible, so by telling us we can't 'spoil our appetite' we're to think that Matzah is actually decent food.

Then I got to thinking about what makes transitioning to a Hametz-Free house ("making Pesach" as I now call it) so hard. And, at least for me, it's the delicate balance of eating Hametz while the whole house has to be cleaned for Pesach - and that it would be so much easier to prepare for Pesach if I could just eat Matzah for the few days beforehand...

Then I realized with a bolt outa the blue why my Rabbinic brothers invented this minhag! If we were allowed to eat Matzah before Pesach then my wife, and doubtless every homemaker since Eishet Rashi, would have converted the whole house to Pesadik a week ago! Why not? It's almost logical in a humra sense - two weeks of Pesach instead of one.

This minhag allows me to eat my pop-tarts today. Thank you unnamed rabbis!

Pic from here.

Just in Time for Purim!

From Kashrut.com Alerts: The following Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc. products are newly certified as kosher: Junior Mints, Blow Pops, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Sugar Daddy and Sugar Babies. These products must bear the OU symbol to be kosher and new packaging bearing the "OU" symbol will be distributed nationwide beginning in the next few months. Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Fruit Rolls, Frooties and are kosher DAIRY even without the OU-D symbol. Dots are Kosher Pareve even without the OU symbol.

h.t. my local Orthodox Rabbi.

Food Normalities

Note: this was a draft that was accidently published too early. It's a note to myself (in bad grammer): "why is salad = lettuce"

It's part of a larger investigation in the sociology of knowledge, focusing on food. In this case, the simple question, why did lettuce become the absolute basis for the thing we call "salad."

Pic from here.

Random Picture of the Day: Ginger Ale

I took this pic (click to enlarge) in my local CVS with my phone back in March but the sign is still there, I believe.

Anyway, I appreciate a company that understands it's place in the universe. Here Canada Dry is showing that they know they're imbibed only by sick people (or, on airplanes). It's a truism and they have the guts to say, "we don't taste good except when mixed with gin or when you are ready to yorq."

Shakshuka

The theme of the recent issue of the New Yorker is 'food' - a topic I know little about, being a penny-pinching, congenitally hypertensive shomer-kashrut consumer. This eliminates many food options that most of the world lusts over (pigs, alcohol, fat, sugar, shelled-seafood). But I truly love food (see my anguished posts about fasting to see the transposition of this obsession).

Anyhoo, Anthony Lane (one of my favorite NYer writers) deals with the versatility of eggs for those hungry people who can't cook but who need a quick meal (Improvisations: Eggs"). An example of egg necessity, described by Lane:

"... oeufs en meurette, a recipe where eggs are poached with onion, carrot, mushrooms, bacon and a half bottle of red wine. It is a classic ad-libber’s meal, in that, even when it goes right it looks like something that has gone terribly wrong."

I know the truth of which he speaks not from this random disquieting French recipe but from my encounters with Shakshuka (pictured above).

I confronted Shakshuka often during my years in yeshiva in Israel. Do let the appearance fool you - it was often as disgusting as it looked. As far as I could tell, the de-factor recipe was fried eggs with tomatoes. Sounds fine, no? Yet, as Lane says, "when it goes right it looks like something that has gone terribly wrong."

In my first year in yeshiva, when this was often on the dinner menu, it seemed to come direct from the cruel soul of the kitchen-capo, a youthful Sabra named "Shachar." His name literally means "dawn" - which should be pleasant, even pretty - but the combined phonemes just sounded like a spat curse. Much as shakshuka looked like it.

See here for a recipe (it's also where the picture is from).

Yet Another Reason to Avoid Gefilte Fish

I put gefilte fish in the same culinary category as organ meat, bone marrow, borscht, and schmaltz: Old World Poverty Desperation Eats (OWPDE, pronounced "barf"). All o' them were on the alta-bubbie's table because the old country - besides having 100% Frumkeit and miracle-making mystics - was dirt poor. Our collective Ashkenazic grandparents lived in third-world countries and were below the poverty line.

Gefilte Fish, case in point, was not invented because (as I think some NCSY clown told me) people couldn't take fish bones out on Shabbat, so a food was invented that ground up the fish, bones and all. This is fish-poo. You absolutely can take bones out of your fish on Shabbat; as a general rule of thumb, something that if you didn't do it would kill you, is always allowed. Put another way, the Old Country Rabbis may have been starving to the point of eating animal skin and bone interiors, but they also made it OK not to die by choking/tearing holes in your esophagus. Naturally, that means that they're not as frum as our food-stamp-grubbing frummies of today. So be it.

Gefilte Fish was created because by grinding up a fish, bones and all, and adding equal proportions of week-old challah, you were able to have one fish feed 5 people. Give a man an intact fish, and he can eat only 40%, give a man a ground up fish, and he eats 95% of it (maybe even the eyeballs? was that part of the recipe? yet another reason to skirt the gefilte).

Anyway, a recent story from UK Jewish Chronicle gives yet another reason to avoid the gefilte: sometimes a normal batch will glow in the dark.

Then again, I can actually see that as a plus.

[h/t VIN, pic from the orig. story]

Passover Coke

I am not the only one - by far - who is obsessed with true-sugar Passover Coke. NPR is on the case; so is USA Today; so is about 1000 other blogs and websites (e.g.).

My favorite Passover Coke story comes from my second year in college. My freshman year dorm had 4 guys and for sophomore year we added a fifth and were able to occupy one of the 2 "quints" in Mathey College. We lost out on Blair Arch (I was told that an elaborate and well-planned conspiracy managed to land it, year after year, to some beer-soaked frat), and we settled into Hamilton Hall.

Two of the original four were not Jewish and were well acquainted with the other two's Hebrew ways. The newest roommate was less so (he was a devout Catholic, an officer in the campus Aquinas Society, he's the one who told me that an Opus Dei dude considered his church "Bloody Protestant" compared to the 'Dei). In any case, this roommate - an Electrical Engineer - came into the room 'round this time of year and started waxing enthusiastic that the "P-Coke" was finally in the stores. When asked what he meant, he explained that if you looked at the can-o'-coke's lid, there was a "P" stamped on it. And it was his unadulterated opinion - he had no idea that it was a Passover thing - that it was the finest Coke you can buy.

He's right.

The Best Restaurant in Boston

Is the Brandeis kosher cafeteria. I found this out a few months ago when, to celebrate something or another, I took the nuclear family to Reuben's for dinner. The total bill ranged around 50-60 bucks and we still went home hungry. The kids, both under 5, have chaotic appetites: they don't know what they want to eat when we need to order the food, they change their minds midway in the meal, and they don't eat much even after it's served.

The Brandeis kosher kitchen is an all-you-can-eat buffet that costs, for dinner, $13 a person. And, out of generosity, they don't even charge my kids! On dairy nights the kids get to eat a lot of small dishes, whatever they want, allowing them to change their minds in the middle, and there's no cost for their mutated minds. The food is good, cheap, and plentiful.

We now have a minhag of going every Tuesday night (which works for my class schedule as well; it counts as my ride home).

The biggest problem: I can longer actually eat 'all I can eat.' When I was 18-22, 'all you can eat' was a challenge, now my appetite has shrunk, my waist is a danger zone, and I feel guilty if I don't get my 13 bucks worth of food. However, since a simple sandwich at any of the local Boston restaurants costs as much as the buffet at Brandeis, my guilt is largely assuaged.

Crank Juice

Ah, sweet caffeine. This morning, in an attempt to vary my wakefulness options, I purchased an Caribou Coffee Espresso Iced Coffee Plus from the campus store. As far as I can tell, the company is owned by Coca-cola, so I am ideologically on the same page. What I would like, though, from all my consumable caffeinated friends, is for there to be a clear statement on the label of just how much joy-juice there is per ounce/gallon.

I mean, does this itty can - which costs more than a 20 oz. brew - have the same level of caffeine or not? If I want to be as cranked as a Harley, I need to know these things.

Humidifer Season

So it's humidifier season and there's a sensation I want to describe. In general, we run the humidifier at night so, when walking into the room in the morning, the room's atmosphere is halfway to jungle. But at the beginning of the season we were advised to clean the filter and water tank with a water-vinegar mixture. We did, so far so good.

As such, when I entered the room this morning it was like entering into a walk-in pickle.

Pic of the giant dancing pickle, from here If the gif doesn't move in this blogpost, it behooves you to go to that link to see the dancing giant pickle in all his or her glory. Backpost from 2009-11-23.

Kosher Alert: Lady Liberty Cheez Balls

From the OU:

September 11, 2007
Lady Liberty Cheez Balls
Company: M-C McLane International- The Woodlands, TX
Issue: This product, reportedly sold in Hong Kong, bears an unauthorized OU symbol and is being withdrawn from the marketplace. Consumers spotting this product are requested to contact the Orthodox Union at 212-613-8241 or via email at kashalerts@ou.org.

This is a travesty! They should be considered kosher just by the name alone.

New Pringles

OK, I realize this is meaningless, but recently I performed a taste test of three of the new, kosher, 'reduced fat' pringle flavors: (1) Sweet Mesquite Barbecue, (2) Tomato Mozzarella, (3) Savory Cheddar (the last two are OU-D).

(1) Sweet Mesquite Barbecue - this title is marketspeak for just plain ol' Barbecue. The 'sweet mesquite' may explain why barbecue potato chips of all prices, sizes and sophistication taste the same and taste nothing like actual barbecue. Why not call them Orange flavor? That's the color they all sport and the taste is much more similar to the round fruit than to grilled meat.

That said, a low-fat pringle BBQ chip isn't a bad thing to have around. Good with hot-dogs.

(2) Tomato Mozzarella - These are nasty. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to eat a chip that tastes - strongly - like a sweet tomato. I'm getting a taste-headache just thinking about it. This has been a popular taste option outside the US (I remember eating tomato chips in England back in 1981) and that's probably why Pringles wanted to introduce them into the US: doubtless because there's a massive stockpile of 'tomato flavor' somewhere in Mexico that Procter & Gamble bought sight-unseen and now they need to unload it on unsuspecting fat people.

(3) Savory Cheddar - another marketing title. The first few chips didn't taste any different from a regular pringle but I realize now that was because of 'package settling' or somesuch. This is the best of the new flavors because each chip is (or should be) sprinkled with the orange "cheeze" substance they put on The Doodles. It's still not as good as eating an actual doodle, but ya take what you can get in my snacking world.

The Gallery of Regrettable Food

If you have a strong stomach, and like trenchant mockery, enjoy this: LILEKS (James) Gallery of Regrettable Food

My favorite? Knudsen's Very Best

Warning: do not read if you are currently eating things.

Fried Coke

This is one blessing about keeping kosher - I am not confronted with the food at State Fairs where they are able to deep fry anything and everything - including liquids, at least according to this AFP story: Fried Coke a big hit at US state fairs

Fried coke?! Oh baby.

2009 Update: Pic from here.

Coke Zero vs. Diet Coke

What is the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke? Naturally, for a serious question like this, I went to the Wiki:

Coke Zero is "a low-calorie variation of Coca-Cola Classic sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium (also known as Ace-K)."

"Diet Coke does not utilize a modified form of the Coca-Cola recipe but is instead an entirely different formula. The controversial New Coke, introduced in 1985, used a version of the Diet Coke recipe that contained sugar and had a slightly different balance of ingredients."

So the difference is rather simple; Diet Coke is New Coke with nutrasweet and Coke Zero is Coke Classic with nutrasweet.

Note, neither match up to the real thing, which in the Styx's opinion, is the greatest soft drink in the universe. But, that just may be my logo talking.

McShwarma

My whole life has just come together in 25 seconds. McDonalds in Israel is now making a "McShwarma" sandwich and their commercial is a parody of the "quarter-pounder" scene from "Pulp Fiction."

• See the commercial.
• Download the commercial.

2009 Update: Now with embedded video!

Zinger Analysis

After a thorough study of the four zingers in my house: Red, Lemon, Orange-Mango, and Tangerine-Orange, and seeing the further flavors at the research library, (namely: Cranberry Apple, Raspberry, and Wild Berry)

I have come to the following conclusion to the question: "What makes a Zinger a Zinger?"

Hibiscus, rosehips, roasted chicory root (Lemon)
Hibiscus, rosehips (T-O)
Hibiscus, roasted chicory root (C-A)
Hibiscus, rosehips (Red)
Hibiscus; rosehips; roasted chicory root (W-B)
Hibiscus, rosehips, roasted chicory root (Raspberry)
Hibiscus, rosehips, roasted chicory root (Mango)

That is all.

Salsa Alert: Another One Bites the Dust

For those fans of Chi-chi's salsa, they are no longer to be certified with the OU.

Has Anyone Tried This?

Scott Adams, who does not issue me specific demands but I do listen to what he says, has invented a meat substitute, Dilberito: Protein Chef. It is Kosher (the O-K) and may be a very good thing. If anyone has tried some, let me know. Thanks.

The Cider is Back

If anyone wants to drink the bestest instant drink in the world. Alpine Spiced Cider lives again at Yourgrocer.