Thursday, October 31, 2013

Parashat Toldot, 5774/2013 edition

Basics here.

[Sunday, November 3, 2013:  See update at end of post.]

In B’reshit/Genesis, chapter 25, verse 21Yitzchak/Isaac, unlike either his father Avraham or his son Yaakov/Jacob, shows empathy for his barren wife and prays on her behalf.
כא  וַיֶּעְתַּר יִצְחָק לַיהוָה לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ, כִּי עֲקָרָה הִוא; וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ יְהוָה, וַתַּהַר רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ.
21 And Isaac entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD let Himself be entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

And in chapter 27,  Rivkah/Rebecca thanks him for his kindness by almost literally pulling the wool over his eyes?!  
טו  וַתִּקַּח רִבְקָה אֶת-בִּגְדֵי עֵשָׂו בְּנָהּ הַגָּדֹל, הַחֲמֻדֹת, אֲשֶׁר אִתָּהּ, בַּבָּיִת; וַתַּלְבֵּשׁ אֶת-יַעֲקֹב, בְּנָהּ הַקָּטָן.
15 And Rebekah took the choicest garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son.
טז  וְאֵת, עֹרֹת גְּדָיֵי הָעִזִּים, הִלְבִּישָׁה, עַל-יָדָיו--וְעַל, חֶלְקַת צַוָּארָיו.
16 And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck.

כג  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה לָהּ, שְׁנֵי גֹיִים בְּבִטְנֵךְ, וּשְׁנֵי לְאֻמִּים, מִמֵּעַיִךְ יִפָּרֵדוּ; וּלְאֹם מִלְאֹם יֶאֱמָץ, וְרַב יַעֲבֹד צָעִיר.
23 And the LORD said unto her: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

  • Here are my thoughts from last year, with links to my thoughts from previous years.  
Update, Sunday, November 3, 2013:
  • My favorite among the divrei Torah that I read this, er, last week
In Praise of Isaac: The Bible’s Paragon of Marital Empathy (by Rabbi Shai Held)

"Abraham prays on
Avimelech’s behalf, and we are told that as a result, “God healed Avimelech and his wife and
his slave girls, so that they bore children” (emphasis mine) (20:17). Abraham’s prayers, it seems,
can heal, and enable barren women to give birth. And yet, astoundingly, he has apparently
never chosen to intervene for Sarah. Couldn’t he have—shouldn’t he have—prayed for Sarah
rather than (or at least before) consenting to take Hagar into his bed? "

Monday, October 28, 2013

The education of a gluten-free newbie

I did an Internet search to see whether maltodextrin contained gluten, and boy, did I get a surprise.  "Maltodextrin, a common food additive, is a type of sugar that’s made by breaking down starch. (Despite its name, maltodextrin does not contain malt.) Whether maltodextrin is gluten-free depends on what kind of starch it came from. In the United States, maltodextrin is usually made from rice, corn, or potato. In Europe, maltodextrin is frequently made from wheat."  But on the other hand, "Dextrin, a common additive that’s made by heating starch, can come from corn, potato, arrowroot, wheat, rice or tapioca."

So let me get this straight--the "malto" part is probably gluten-free in the U.S., but the dextrin part is a problem?!  Just how many ingredients do I have to research to determine whether something is safe for me to eat?  Looks like “Googling” ingredients is going to become my new hobby.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Chayei Sarah/Chayyei Sarah/Chayey Sarah, 5774/2013 edition, part 2

Part 1 here.

Faulty-chronology alert:
  • In B'reshit/Genesis, Chapter 24, every time the senior servant (traditionally assumed to be Eliezer haDamasi/Eliezer of Damascus, though he's never named) refers to "my master," he's talking about Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father), whereas he refers to Yitzchak (Isacc) as "my master's son"--except when Rivkah (Rebecca) asks who's approaching them in the field, and the servant answers "my master" when clearly speaking of  Yitzchak.  Why would he suddenly describe Yitzchak as his master unless Avraham had already passed away?  And why else would Avraham, after going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that an appropriate wife was found for Yitzchak, be absent from Yitzchak and Rivkah's meeting and/or wedding?
  • On the other hand, see B'reshit/Genesis, Chapter 25, verses 1-6, which depicts Avraham remarrying immediately after Yitzchak and Rivkah marry.
Faulty-logic alert:
  • According to Chapter 25, verses 1-6, Avraham impregnated Keturah six times, though he was well over 100 years old.  Come on, it's not as if he had access to Viagra.
  • Not only that, but, according to the same verses, Avraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines (how many did he have?) and sent them away, which means that he lived long enough to raise Keturah's sons to be old enough to be sent away.
  • Even if one assumes that (a) our ancestors' definition of a year was not the same as ours, meaning that Avraham was not that old, and/or (b) that Avraham didn't wait until after the death of Sarah to bring Keturah and/or other women into the childbearing picture, one still ends up with a story that makes the previously-told tale of Sarah's and Hagar's conflict irrelevant and unnecessary.  
My husband's speculation:
  • Chapter 25, verses 1-6 may come from the E source, and don't appear in the J source.  (See Documentary Hypothesis.)
  • These verses don't appear to fit anywhere in either the Yitzchak or the Yishmael (Ishmael) story.
  • These verses could easily be omitted from the Torah without changing anything before or after, raising the rather interesting question of what the "redactors" expected to accomplish by including them, especially given the confusion that they create.
  • My husband describes these verses as an "either/or" story--either these verses show how Avraham ended up being the father of multitudes, or there was a battle for succession between Sarah, on behalf of her son Yitzchak, and Hagar, on behalf of her son Yishmael.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Parashat Chayei Sarah/Chayyei Sarah, 5774/2013 edition

Basics here.

Genesis Chapter 24 בְּרֵאשִׁית


ג  וְאַשְׁבִּיעֲךָ--בַּיהוָה אֱלֹהֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם, וֵאלֹהֵי הָאָרֶץ:  אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תִקַּח אִשָּׁה, לִבְנִי, מִבְּנוֹת הַכְּנַעֲנִי, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי יוֹשֵׁב בְּקִרְבּוֹ.
3 And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell.
ד  כִּי אֶל-אַרְצִי וְאֶל-מוֹלַדְתִּי, תֵּלֵךְ; וְלָקַחְתָּ אִשָּׁה, לִבְנִי לְיִצְחָק.
4 But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son, even for Isaac.'
ה  וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, הָעֶבֶד, אוּלַי לֹא-תֹאבֶה הָאִשָּׁה, לָלֶכֶת אַחֲרַי אֶל-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת; הֶהָשֵׁב אָשִׁיב אֶת-בִּנְךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר-יָצָאתָ מִשָּׁם.
5 And the servant said unto him: 'Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land; must I needs bring thy son back unto the land from whence thou camest?'
ו  וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, אַבְרָהָם:  הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ, פֶּן-תָּשִׁיב אֶת-בְּנִי שָׁמָּה.
6 And Abraham said unto him: 'Beware thou that thou bring not my son back thither.

Regarding Yitzchak/Isaac not marrying a C’naanit, I heard a theory that it was important for Yitzchak to remain an outsider so that he wouldn’t assimilate, which is why he was supposed to (a) continue to live in a land in which he had little extended family and (b) marry a foreigner.


סו  וַיְסַפֵּר הָעֶבֶד, לְיִצְחָק, אֵת כָּל-הַדְּבָרִים, אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה.
66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
סז  וַיְבִאֶהָ יִצְחָק, הָאֹהֱלָה שָׂרָה אִמּוֹ, וַיִּקַּח אֶת-רִבְקָה וַתְּהִי-לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה, וַיֶּאֱהָבֶהָ; וַיִּנָּחֵם יִצְחָק, אַחֲרֵי אִמּוֹ.  {פ}
67 And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted for his mother. {P}

What, no fancy wedding with the chuppah (ceremony) preceded by a smorg?  J

Genesis Chapter 25 בְּרֵאשִׁית

Note that, while none of the children of Avraham and Keturah returned to participate in their father’s funeral, the much-maligned Yishmael/Ishmael did.


Some of my oldies but goodies, with highlights:

“she was married to her half-brother, Avraham, who twice asked her to lie about their marital status out of fear for his life. She was a barren woman who lived to regret giving her servant to her husband as the first surrogate mother on record (to the best of my knowledge). She was chastised by G-d for laughing when He told her husband that they’d have a child in her old age, though her husband had also laughed at a previous such prediction and gotten away with it (see Parshat Lech Lecha/ Genesis, chapter 8, verse 17). Later, when she’d had enough of Hagar’s son Yishmael/Ishmael’s mockery of her own son Yitzchak/Isaac, she had them expelled from their home. But Hagar got the last laugh—midrash (rabbinic legend/interpretation) tells us that Sarah died of a broken heart when she found out that Avraham had taken Yitzchak, her only child, to be sacrificed.”

“Interestingly, much of the story of Rachel's (Sat., Nov. 10, 2012 post-Shabbat correction--Rivkah) encounter with Avraham's servant would be, for all practical purposes, impossible in current Chareidi (fervently Orthodox) society, in which, especially for an unmarried person, speaking to just about any person of the opposite gender other than one's parent is considered scandalous behavior.”


Britain's new chief rabbi makes a gutsy move

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Land, ho!

We're keeping our landline phone, thank you very much--in the event of a power outage, it's one of the few things that keeps working.  I haven't forgotten the long lines at public telephones during the last power outage, when all the cell phones went "down."  Not going there.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Parashat Vayera, 5774/2013 edition (slightly belated)

Basics here.

New thoughts for this year:


ד יֻקַּח-נָא מְעַט-מַיִם, וְרַחֲצוּ רַגְלֵיכֶם; וְהִשָּׁעֲנוּ, תַּחַת הָעֵץ. 4 Let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and recline yourselves under the tree.


Point of information: Avraham didn't do the foot-washing—the visitors washed their own feet.


. 12 And Sarah laughed within herself, saying: 'After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?'

יג וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם: לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר, הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד--וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי. 13 And the LORD said unto Abraham: 'Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying: Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old?

יד הֲיִפָּלֵא מֵיְהוָה, דָּבָר; לַמּוֹעֵד אָשׁוּב אֵלֶיךָ, כָּעֵת חַיָּה--וּלְשָׂרָה בֵן. 14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD. At the set time I will return unto thee, when the season cometh round, and Sarah shall have a son.'

טו וַתְּכַחֵשׁ שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר לֹא צָחַקְתִּי, כִּי יָרֵאָה; וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא, כִּי צָחָקְתְּ. 15 Then Sarah denied, saying: 'I laughed not'; for she was afraid. And He said: 'Nay; but thou didst laugh.'


Ya know, the whole story about G-d lying to Avraham to protect his ego by conveniently "forgetting" to mention that Sarah had said that Avraham, too, was old could have been avoided if HaShem had only spoken directly to Sarah in the first place. Why did HaShem have to tell Avraham what Sarah had said?

A word from my husband (speaking from a non-traditional perspective): Since G-d as described in the text goes by the name Elokim when promising Avraham a son, but by the name HaShem when promising Sarah a son, it’s reasonable to assume that the promises come from two different sources among the oral traditions that were combined to form the Bible/TaNaCh.  (See Documentary Hypothesis.)

Genesis Chapter 20 בְּרֵאשִׁית   שָׂרָה אִשְׁתּוֹ. 14 And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.

Yet again, Avraham profits from having put Sarah in danger.  :(  Grumble, grumble, kvetch and mumble.

You can see last year's Vayera post, and links to (and highlights of) most of my previous Yayera posts here.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013 additions:
I can't help quoting some points from some old Vayera posts of mine, because they really express how I feel about this parashah.
" why does Sarah disappear from the text? Where is her reward for having ensured the perpetuation of Avraham's lineage by offering her handmaid as a surrogate mother? Where is her reward for having waited over a decade after the birth of her handmaid's son to have a son of her own? Where is her reward for having saved Avraham's life twice--and enriched him in the process--by allowing herself to be passed off as only his sister and not his wife? Her reward is to have G-d, with her husband's cooperation, threaten the life of her only child? My own midrash: No wonder she dies in the next parshah--if this is her reward, why live?"

Some new thoughts:

This year's thoughts:

I'm not terribly impressed with either Avinu sheh-ba-Shamayim (Our Heavenly Father) or Avraham Avinu (Abraham Our Father) as role models for  fatherhood.  Yishmael/Ishmael was expelled with no means of survival; Yitzchak/Isaac nearly had his throat slit.  Is either "father" serious about creating and preserving the lives of children? Both G-d and Avraham treat both boys as toys, born only to make a point.  Let's call a spade a spade, folks--in our day, this kind of treatment would be called child abuse, child endangerment, child abandonment, and/or attempted murder.
Nor am I impressed with either G-d's or Avraham's callous indifference to the suffering of Sarah, who seems to be present only to help Avraham acquire greater wealth and to prove that G-d can perform a miracle and enable a barren woman to become pregnant at any age--if and when G-d jolly well feels like it.


Friday, October 18, 2013

Celiac: A Guide to Mitzvah Observance

Thursday, October 17, 2013

I had an uplifting experience . . .

. . . in the lift.  Yep, the new elevator in our apartment building is now up (not to mention down) and running.  Being partial, I’m particularly happy that my husband will no longer have to schlep his wheeled book box down and back up the stairs every time he has a class to teach.  And there’ll be less “fun” for me with a backpack to haul up, too.  Good.  I was getting awfully tired (literally) of/from living in a walk-up.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Good news for gluten-free Jews--your pizza problem is solved :)

The problem with standard pizza is that there are (at least) two opinions regarding which b'rachot (blessings) to recite before and after eating it:

  1. Pizza crust is a form of bread.  Therefore, one must (a) do n'tilat yadayim (a ritual hand-washing [over already-clean hands] accompanied by a b'rachah/blessing), (b) make a motzi (recite the b'rachah praising G-d for bread), and (c) recite Birkat HaMazon/Grace After Meals.
  2. Though pizza crust is a form of bread, a single slice of pizza is considered a snack, not a meal.  Therefore, a person who eats only a single slice of pizza must say the "m'zonot" b'rachah (recited over wheat, rye, barley, spelt and oat products that are not bread), followed, after munching, by the "al ha-michya" b'rachah, which is much shorter than Birkat HaMazon.  However, if a person eats two or more slices of pizza, which is considered a meal, the "bread" b'rachot must be recited (see # 1).  That said, if a person has a smaller appetite and considers a single slice of pizza sufficient for a meal, that person should recite the "bread" b'rachot with even a single slice of pizza.

See what fun we miss by eating gluten-free pizza?  There's no debate—it's not bread!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

How do you get to Judaism? Practice, man, practice

I finally got around to following a link in the article to which I linked in my previous post, and read Mark Oppenheimer's "Tablet" article, Learning Judaism as a Native Language Requires More Than Synagogue Once a Year.  Boy, ain't that the truth!  It's taken me literally decades to master the siddur/prayerbook, prayer by prayer, psalm by psalm, biblical or rabbinic quotation by quotation.  But it's a really wonderful feeling to be able to walk into any synagogue (well, any Ashkenazi shul, at least), pick up a siddur, and davven/pray in the original Hebrew (with the occasional foray into English or quick peek at the translation).  Try it, you'll like it!  I highly recommend putting in the time to learn one's way around a prayer book and prayer service.  Granted that I'll probably never be able to keep up with the "speed-davveners," but it's nice to feel like an insider and not a foreigner to my own ritual tradition.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Teaching both values and skills is crucial to the Jewish community

Parking lot

It's getting awfully crowded in our refrigerator, and we know exactly why. Back in the good old days (meaning as recently as this past July), before I figured out that I'd become gluten-intolerant, my husband and I used to make a motzi (a blessing praising HaShem for bread) on two challah rolls at Shabbat/Sabbath and Yom Tov/Festival meals, then share one roll and put the other back in the freezer.  But these days, it's his and hers—under the challah cover, we put a challah roll for my husband and a gluten-free oat roll for me, and most of the time, neither of us finishes a whole roll. So now, we have leftover remnants of rolls piling up in the 'fridge because we don't know what we can make with them that both of us can eat and/or that won't make us fat. Sigh—it's either a waste problem or a waist problem.  :)

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Parashat Lech L’cha, 5774/2013 edition

This is a “two-fer” (two for the price of one)—I’m inserting a link here not only to give my readers quick access to the basics, but also to give *me* access to the “Compose” window.  Note that the usual problem remains--I can't correct any errors except by backspacing and deleting because the mouse is "frozen," so most mistakes will remain uncorrected until I get to a computer on which I have full access.

Here’s something new that I just spotted yesterday:

Genesis Chapter 12 בְּרֵאשִׁית

יג אִמְרִי-נָא, אֲחֹתִי אָתְּ--לְמַעַן יִיטַב-לִי בַעֲבוּרֵךְ, וְחָיְתָה נַפְשִׁי בִּגְלָלֵךְ. 13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee.'

יד וַיְהִי, כְּבוֹא אַבְרָם מִצְרָיְמָה; וַיִּרְאוּ הַמִּצְרִים אֶת-הָאִשָּׁה, כִּי-יָפָה הִוא מְאֹד. 14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

טו וַיִּרְאוּ אֹתָהּ שָׂרֵי פַרְעֹה, וַיְהַלְלוּ אֹתָהּ אֶל-פַּרְעֹה; וַתֻּקַּח הָאִשָּׁה, בֵּית פַּרְעֹה. 15 And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

טז וּלְאַבְרָם הֵיטִיב, בַּעֲבוּרָהּ; וַיְהִי-לוֹ צֹאן-וּבָקָר, וַחֲמֹרִים, וַעֲבָדִים וּשְׁפָחֹת, וַאֲתֹנֹת וּגְמַלִּים. 16 And he dealt well with Abram for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.

Genesis Chapter 14 בְּרֵאשִׁית

כא וַיֹּאמֶר מֶלֶךְ-סְדֹם, אֶל-אַבְרָם: תֶּן-לִי הַנֶּפֶשׁ, וְהָרְכֻשׁ קַח-לָךְ. 21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram: 'Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.'

כב וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָם, אֶל-מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם: הֲרִמֹתִי יָדִי אֶל-יְהוָה אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ. 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom: 'I have lifted up my hand unto the LORD, God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth,

כג אִם-מִחוּט וְעַד שְׂרוֹךְ-נַעַל, וְאִם-אֶקַּח מִכָּל-אֲשֶׁר-לָךְ; וְלֹא תֹאמַר, אֲנִי הֶעֱשַׁרְתִּי אֶת-אַבְרָם. 23 that I will not take a thread nor a shoe-latchet nor aught that is thine, lest thou shouldest say: I have made Abram rich;

כד בִּלְעָדַי, רַק אֲשֶׁר אָכְלוּ הַנְּעָרִים, וְחֵלֶק הָאֲנָשִׁים, אֲשֶׁר הָלְכוּ אִתִּי: עָנֵר אֶשְׁכֹּל וּמַמְרֵא, הֵם יִקְחוּ חֶלְקָם. {ס} 24 save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, let them take their portion.' {S}

What a hypocrite! Avraham Avinu is perfectly willing to accept gifts for, um, allowing his “sister” to be taken into a king’s harem (or whatever) and politely ignoring what’s likely to happen to her there, but won’t take any spoils from a victory in battle, which, at least, he’d earned! One could make a legitimate claim that it was really Sarah who'd earned the sheep, etc., as well as, in a fine irony, the maidservant who nearly displaced her.

Oldies:

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

A way into the Jewish community for secularists

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

I'm lucky

[Still experimenting with inserting fake link, then cancelling it immediately, just to make the "Compose" window accessible--now, to figure out how to add real links later.]

A long-time wheat-intolerant friend of ours tells me that it's a good thing I didn't become gluten-intolerant until recently, because it was much more difficult to find store-bought gluten-free products years ago.  Apparently, my timing is good:  I'm happy to report that Mary's gone crackers, Dr. Lucy has become a baker, and I'm enjoying life, buying gluten-free oat rolls that are the cat's meow.  :)


[Success!  But the usual problem remains--I can't correct any errors (unless I want to backspace and delete most of the post) because the mouse is "frozen."]

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Dueling diets

Just the other day, I read an online news story about two parents who go into the kitchen and check the ingredients being used at every celebration because they have a child with severe allergies.  Many of the commenters seemed to feel that this was invasive, and that the parents should simply bring safe food instead.

All I could do was laugh, because those commenters don't know the half of it--supposing that one's diet is dictated not only by health concerns, but also by religious ones?

What am I supposed to do, waltz into a kosher Chinese restaurant with my own wheat-free soy sauce, and bring my own gluten-free bread and cookies to every simchah (happy occasion)?  That's the fastest way to give a mashgiach a heart attack!

In all seriousness, bringing one's own food is simply not always an option for a Jew who keeps kosher.  It is absolutely not permissible to bring any food or drink into a kosher restaurant--one must content oneself with whatever's on the menu that one can eat.  As for weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations, and other s'machot/simchas/happy occasions, the best one can do is to sneak in a little something in one's pocket or purse and eat it on the sly in the men's or lady's room (WC, for some of my foreign readers).

Shabbat/Sabbath poses particular challenges for those who, like me, live in a neighborhood without an eruv, since, without an eruv, one is not permitted to carry anything outside of a building on Shabbat.  For the moment, I'm lucky--as a member of a synagogue that does not have an official caterer, I can simply bring my own kosher gluten-free oat rolls, crackers, and cookies to synagogue before Shabbat.  If we have to sell the synagogue building (which is a distinct possibility), I may be out of luck.  :(

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Post-holiday post fest, Sun., Sept. 29-Thurs., Oct. 3, 2013

Not your Ashkenazi parents' pickled herring :)

Good luck trying to get a not-too-spicy, not-too-pricey gluten-free appetizer in a Chinese or Japanese restaurant.  For lack of a better alternative, I think I'm finally going to have to acquire a taste for sushi in my old age.  J

Gluten-free blues, or there's no "COLA*" for an increase in the cost of eating :(

I'm not fond of taking pills, so I cheated and skipped my natural nutritional supplements during the recent holidays.  My luck, the minute I started taking them again, my cranky digestive system began misbehaving.  I assumed that this was a classic case of a treatment for one health problem aggravating another--one of the supplements that I'm taking for my osteoporosis has wheat germ as its first ingredient, and I'm supposed to chomp nine of them every day!  So I e-mailed my nutritionist, who advised me to lay off both that supplement and all gluten, including soy sauce (which almost always contains wheat unless it's specifically marking "gluten-free"), for 72 hours, then try just the supplement again and see how my digestive system reacts.  For the record, soy sauce is the only gluten-containing food that I've eaten in roughly the last month (other than the traces of wheat from the lasagna noodles, and--confession time--a miniscule piece of honey cake on Rosh HaShanah/Jewish New Year).

A few hours later, I waltzed into one of my favorite restaurants for a quick bite before shiur (sacred-literature class) and asked whether my favorite quick-and-healthy fleishig/b'sari/meat** dinner, a meal-in-a-bowl soup made with rice noodles, veggies, and chicken, contained soy sauce.  The answer:  Yes.  L  Knowing that a good broth can't be made in five minutes, I moved on to my next favorite fleishig meal, a main course of rice noodles, veggies, and chicken (not quite as healthy because it's stir-fried), and asked that the chef make it without soy sauce.  It was yummy, but . . .  The last time my husband and I went to the same restaurant and both ordered meal-in-a-bowl soups, we paid about $24 total for the two of us.  Last night's meal cost about $21 total for me alone.  I wasn't kidding when I said that I'm not a "cheap date" anymore.

*COLA = cost-of-living adjustment (typically paid by an employer or a government agency)
**For purposes of keeping kosher, "meat" means both red meat and poultry.

Parashat Noach, 5774/2013 edition

Basics here.


I’ve got nothin’ new, but here are some oldies but goodies by me and others.

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Food follies, gluten-free edition

Astounding ignorance
When our host passed a platter of chicken with rice, another guest warned me, "You can't eat this--it's made with whole wheat rice."  Say what?!  Here's a person roughly my age who had actually never heard of whole grain/brown rice, and had to be told that there's no wheat in it.  I'm still flabbergasted.

Wishful thinking
Another host had previously served dairy lasagna made with gluten-free noodles, but I was taking no chances.  "Is this one made with gluten-free noodles?"  "Well, it didn't say so on the package, but I'm sure they're all gluten-free."  That's like saying that something's kosher just because you want it to be, an attitude that I've encountered before.  I ended up picking out all the noodles and eating nothing but the cheese.

Gluten, standing on one foot
This explanation should be comprehensible to many of my Jewish readers:  gluten = chametz.  Yep, the very same five grains that a Jew is not permitted to eat on Pesach/Passover unless they're rabbinically certified to be free of leavening--wheat, rye, barley, spelt, and oats--are also the grains that contain gluten.  (Oats are a borderline case--in theory, they don't contain gluten, but since they're almost always processed with grains that do contain gluten, and/or using equipment that is also used to process grains that contain gluten, one cannot assume that oats are gluten-free unless they're specifically marked "gluten-free.")  All of the other grains and "starches," such as rice, corn, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, kasha/buckwheat (which is not actually wheat at all), quinoa, millet, amaranth, etc., are naturally gluten-free.

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

"Gingi,*" the red-headed kitchen, & our renovated bathroom--latest look

Presenting "Gingi" and "Bathy", almost completed.  (For previous views of "Gingi," see here, and follow the links.)

Kitchen:  new back-splash (behind sink and rest of right wall), ready for its close-up (click on the photo).

As I explained here, "We chose a mostly-white tile back-splash because we figured that, with a multicolored floor and counter-top, if we put any more colors up there, the kitchen would look like Joseph's Technicolor Dreamcoat.  :)

Longer shot of kitchen with new easy-to-open-from-the-inside-only security gate (in front of fire-escape window).


Shower power

We're floored.  :)

Let there be light--but not 'til you get a good look at the fixture.

Artist at work--here's a close-up of the "listello" (patterned decorative tiles).

Our bathroom used to be tiled only halfway up the walls.  Unfortunately, the border where the tiled part of the walls met the painted part was a dust collector--and after 29 years of having to wipe the dust off the edge of the tiles almost every darned day, I was fed up to here.  So we went for broke (just about literally) and tiled the bathroom walls all the way up to the ceiling.  In addition to eliminating the dust problem, having tiles all the way up will save some money in the future on painting.

*"Gingi" is the contemporary Israeli Hebrew word for "red-head."

Eureka, I found it!

Actually, my husband found it--the missing wire for our urn had fallen behind the microwave.  (Apparently, I'd "stored" the wire on top of the microwave, rather than doing the intelligent thing and stashing it inside the urn.)  As of this week, we'll be back to heating hot water on Friday afternoon for pre-brewed tea on Shabbat.  Yay!  The apartment very slowly returns to normal, now that the renovations are almost complete.
<< List
Jewish Bloggers
Join >>