Parashat Vayera

Angel Fest

When I was reviewing this week's parashah, I was taken by the number of angels who make an appearance: Avraham's guests, Lot's escorts out of S'dom, Hagar's savior, and the angel who stays Avraham's hand at the Akeidah. In their honor, we will be serving angel-hair pasta (with chicken), angel salad (a 1950's/1960's version of a "salad," made with whipped cream, pudding, and fruit), and angel-food cake for dessert. I'm still thinking through the prominence of the angels and why they are so very active in Vayera.

The meal will be served in a re-creation of Avraham's tent that takes over our dining room. the archives describe in greater detail how I drape tablecloths and throw pillows around the room to create an authentic tent-like milieu.

We are invited out for one meal this shabbat. I was asked to bring dessert so I will either make a second angel-food cake, or I will bake shofar shaped cookies that I will present in a horn-shaped basket, not hard to find as Thanksgiving nears.

Wishing you a shabbat filled with guests and good company,

Tammie Rapps

Parashat Lech Lecha

Walking Tours

Just last week my oldest child and my husband returned from Israel; it was our daughter's first time visiting. Needless to say, she loved being in Israel and loved walking the streets of Jerusalem with her father. It is because of this week's parashah that they were compelled to make this trip. In this week's Torah reading, Avram and Sarai travel to the land of Israel (aka Canaan) at God's bidding. God not only instructs our patriarch to go to Canaan, but God also tells Avram that he is to walk the length and breadth of the county--to really learn and love every corner of the land because it will be his and his children's for eternity. To commemorate Avram's trek throughout the land, I have footprint confetti that will dot the table and am using blue painter's tape to create a large map of the land of Israel on the floor under the dining room table. At each place setting, I will be placing the name of a geographic place in Israel (no cities as Avram would not have encountered those). During dinner, we will work on placing the locations in their appropriate places on the map. As a centerpiece, I have a large gift-wrapped box--wrapped in star studded gift wrap ( the way that network TV wraps boxes on soap operas: the lid separately from the bottom so the top can just be lifted off). Inside the gift box is a small map of Israel with the verse from the parashah (Bereishit 13:15) that states, "For all the land that you see I will give to you and to your seed to eternity."

For the menu, we will focus on a different part of the parashah: God's promise to Avram that his offspring will be as numerous as sand and stars. So, out come the star shaped baking pans and all the star shaped baskets and table accessories for this shabbat. (See the archives for more details.) For dessert we will once again enjoy a sandal-shaped cake resting atop cookie-crumb sand.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!

© Tamie Rapps, 2010/5771

Parashat Noach

A Menagerie of a Meal

For this year, I’ve decided to deviate from my previous Noach plans (see the archives for amazing an amazing rainbow menu), to try something a little different. Our Shabbat lunch will be a nod to the glorious variety of living creatures that Noach rounded up to fill his ark and preserve for eternity (well, sort of). Almost exactly a year ago I challenged my Facebook friends to think of foods that have an animal name in them—chicken, lamb, and fish don’t count. I got a spectacular number of responses; so much of the credit for this menu goes to them as well. I will also state at the outset that this meal works for English speakers best, although surely it will spark creative speculation for speakers of other languages. (And isn’t that whole lost in translation idea part of this week’s parashah as well?)

We will begin our meal with roasted elephant garlic to spread on challah and salmon mousse, with the emphasis on the “moose.” The course that follows will be “pigs in a blanket” and a variation on the classic “ants on a log” (we’ll use celery with chumus and olives rather than with peanut butter and raisins). The main dish will feature chicken with horse-radish aioli, porcupine meatballs, cow peas (a small legume), buck-wheat (a.k.a. kasha, but the English serves our purposes better), sautéed hen of the woods and king oyster mushrooms, and rat-atouille.

Dessert is where animal names abound, so I am still making a decision, but options include: monkey bread, bear claws, elephant ears, zebra cookies, dragon fruit, dragon eyes, gooseberries, and spiced crab apples. Of course, somewhere in dessert I will have to make pears (read as pairs).

And now for the educational component: Not only will we laugh at the plastic animal figures running through the center of the table and the animal print napkins under each place setting, but we will also infuse the meal with a bit more content. From a language perspective, we will try to name all the animals mentioned in the foods in Hebrew as well as in English. Then we will challenge the kids to decide how many of these animals would have been on Noach’s ark; in other words, are they pure animals or not pure animals? Would Noach have gathered seven of them or only two?

Have a wildly amazing Shabbat!

© Tamie Rapps, 2010/5771

Addendum: Gator-ade and pareve soy ice cream--Turtle Trails.