Parashat Vayeshev

Happy Thanksgiving!

Because of extenuating circumstances (Thanksgiving feast travels and no computer access), I will once again rely on the archives for this week's offering. Next week, bli neder, I will get back into creativity mode.

Even though we will be out for the meals for this shabbat, we will help with the preparations, so Yosef's amazing coat of many colors can take center stage. A layered salad (a la one of the Kosher by Design cookbooks), striped vegetable terrine, striped jel dessert, and colorful striped table accessories will be prominently featured.

We will also serve foods to represent Yosef's dreams that so infuriated his brothers: star shaped muffins beside a butternut squash sunburst and a mashed potato moon. String beans and steamed carrot fingers tied with scallion will stand in for the sheaves of grain in Yosef's dream. His bundle will be made of asparagus tied togehter with the green onion.

Again, see the archives for how to get the baker's and butler's dreams into the meal and how to inlcude a punny food related to Yosef's time in a pit.

Have a colorful shabbat!

Tammie Rapps

Parashat Vayishlach

Sealed with a Kiss

The following is from the archives of this blog. Sometimes it is just that difficult to think of new ideas.

Parashat Vayishlach begins with Yaakov frantically preparing for a confrontation with his brother. When Yaakov realizes that he is about to encounter Esav whom he had not seen in decades since angering him upon receiving Yitzchak's blessing, the younger brother prepares for the meeting in three ways. He sends gifts to Esav in an attempt at diplomacy, he prays to Hashem, and he divides his camp as preparation for battle. This three-pronged approach to combating an enemy is the paradigm that the Jewish People has often followed (see Megillat Esther, for example). I think that the first approach, diplomacy, lends itself nicely to the table. I will wrap three large boxes and use them as the centerpiece for the meal. Under one will be small gifts for every guest, under the second will be birchonim, and under the third will be toy soldiers. During the meal we will discuss why using diplomacy should be the first communication between enemies. We would try to bring the conversation down to a micro level and talk about interpersonal relationships in the house and how Yaakov's example could help us in our own interactions at home.


Dessert for this parashah will focus on a famous midrash related to Yaakov and Esav's reunion. When the brothers see each other again after decades of separation, the Torah text states that Esav runs toward Yaakov, embraces him, falls upon his neck, kisses him, and they both weep. The Torah known for concision of language provides many verbs for this reunion. In addition, in the text itself, the word "and he kissed" appears with what appear to be extraneous dots above it. The midrash explains that the dots allude to Esav's true intent. While he seemingly envelops Yaakov in an embrace of forgiveness and fraternal love, Esav is really acting as a wolf in sheep's clothing (nice comparison to Yaakov in parashat Toldot who was a sheep dressed in wolf's clothes, so to speak). Esav falls on his brother's neck not to kiss him, but to bite him. The midrash continues that Yaakov's neck turns to stone/marble to become impervious to his brother's threatening action.
How does this midrash translate into dessert?
I have two confections that I am going to bake and serve side by side: Mexican chocolate cookies (http://bakingbites.com/2005/07/more-of-maida-mexican-chocolate-cookies/) and marble cupcakes (recipe adapted to make them pareve--http://littlechefandi.blogspot.com/2009/08/marble-cupcakes.html). The cookies look like chocolate cookies but, made with cayenne and black peppers, they have a definite bite to them (pun very much intended). I plan to try to cut the cookies in the shape of chocolate kisses before I bake them if possible. Marble speaks for itself.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashat Vayeitzei

Rock n' Roll

Rocks are featured prominently in this week's parashah. Yaakov uses rocks to rest his head when he camps out the night of his ladder dream and he later shows off his strength for Rachel by rolling a huge boulder off the mouth of the well. To recognize the suporting work that rocks play in Vayeitzei, I've used river stones and sharpie marker to make place cards for the meal. I've also made a cobbler out of stone fruits (peaches and cherries) for dessert. As I did last year, I got a pull apart challah to remind us of the midrash that explains that after all the rocks vied for the honor of resting under Yaakov's head, God miraculously merged them into one large stone.

For lunch, we are using the ideas from previous years, starting with foods fashioned into the shape of ladders. I've stuck cards under each seat that offer different explanations to the meaning of the ladder (all from the Ba'al Haturim who shares several gematriya calculations for the word sulam--including, money, poverty, voice, Sinai, throne of glory, etc.). At the emal, we'll ask each eprson to do an exercise in metaphors and explain how a ladder could be like ______ (the noun placed under his or her plate).

Dessert for that meal will be a speckled sheep cake.

Have a rockin' shabbat!

Parashat Toldot

This post is dedicated in honor of the birth of my brand new niece, yet to be named. May she lead a life filled with love, happiness, Torah, and wisdom.

I've discovered that I am very happy with the Parashat Toldot menus from years past. Placing lentils and red food front and center on the shabbat table just works so well for this parashah that I can only think of swapping out one lentil recipe for another or trying a meat stew to replicate the delicious delicacies that Rivka cooked up for Yitzchak.

With that said, I am going to focus on the decor for shabbat this year. I plan to set the table up as a sort of color war--the two competing sons/sides at odds with each other. One side of the table will be decorated with furry red napkin rings and arrows in the centerpiece. The other side of the table will be decorated with books and pictures of tents fashioned around the napkins. We will talk about the connotation of color: why red is such a strong association with Esav, why he actually went for the lentils when he preferred a fresh kill (what did he think was actually in Yaakov's pot?), what color could we associate with Yaakov (even though the Torah does not mention one) and why?

At another point over shabbat, I'd like to introduce a variation on a game our daughter invented on Sukkot: the blessing game. Our daughter instructed each person at the table to say something nice about the person sitting next to him or her. In honor of this week's parashah, we will switch it a bit and ask each person to give a berachah to he person sitting next to him or her. It would be intriguing to hear what our kids think of berachot, what they consider important for a parent to impart, how thy understand the birth order blessings that Yitzchak planned to give, etc.

I invite any additional ideas you might have about the parashah and ways to incorporate it at the shabbat table.

Shabbat Shalom!

© Tammie Rapps, 2010/5771

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.