Weekend Hospitality

As the run-up to the holiday heated up, I could not find any time to post.  The good news is that this years event was very good.  We learn from each year and tune our efforts.  This year, we have about 350 people.  The event ran from 6pm to 9:30pm and was by invitation only. This Thanksgiving marks 22 years of marriage for me and my (first and only) wife.  We were married at Taylor Road Synagogue in Cleveland, OH on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 27th, 1986.  Since then, we have hosted a Thanksgiving day dinner each year.  Not only do we give general thanks to God for what we have, but we also take a moment to give thanks for our marriage and our six wonderful boys. In the past years, we have always run out of what we call "Sweet Chili".  It a recipe that my wife brought from the old country (USA), and that we have adjusted and made our own.  Usually, we eyeball the recipe until its "right".  This year, we turned it into an industrial effort with more than 20 Kg of ground b

Why is it that Israeli politicians are so negative.  Their public vocabulary is full of words that evoke negative reactions.  A quick survey of the front page or today's sites for ynet , haaretz and jpost shows the following statements: " preventing peace " -- Surprisingly, Condolessa Rice said this and she's not even Israeli!  This is a meaningless phrase.  Why would any sane individual want to prevent peace.   Meir Sheetrit said : "I predict a dangerous situation in which the rightist bloc would win 65 Knesset seats and Netanyahu would have a greater chance of forming a coalition."   What's so dangerous about your political opponent winning the election?  Perhaps  Sheetrit meant to say, "I predict that my party will suffer from a loss of prestige and credibility if a right-wing coalition locks us out of power." Sheetrit went on to say: "Netanyahu and his rightist partners will not bring peace, but rather economic stagnation brought ab

Its that time of year again.  My wife has been drying various types of bread for about two weeks.  The butcher is getting our order ready and invitations have been sent out.  Thanksgiving is next Thursday and we are beginning to feel exited. Ok, it is true that there is so much going on in our lives that yet another event seems almost too much.  Thanksgiving is a tradition.  For 22 years, we've been serving our friends and family and celebrating our anniversary.  This year, we will also be giving special thanks for all that we have and particularly for our warm and giving community.  This coming year is going to be hard for everyone and only by working together within each family and across our extended communal family will we be able to weather the storms.  Health and Economy are the current dangers.  Let us pray that those are the only things we need to deal with. I really didn't intend on waxing poetical in this post.  I am trying to save that for my official Thanksgiving po

Its been one year since the last Alyn ride.   Here is last years post .   Three of our close friends make the ride this year.  They have been preparing for the past three months, riding between 50 and 75 kilometers each friday and smaller rides during the week.   The ride begins on Sunday and ends on Thursday, covering more than 400 kilometers.  All of our friends finished the ride, but they are totally wiped out!  So, they invited themselves over for lunch!  In addition, we have two young ladies from Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim (MMY).  They heard about us from one of their friends who stayed with us earlier this year. We were invited out for Friday night dinner, so my only responsibility is cook for Shabbat lunch.  Looks like an easy shabbat with our friends.    As you can guess from the menu, zucchini is in season.    Shabbat Parshat Vayeira Lunch - 18 Meat Roll - with beef Corned Beef Crock Pot Chicken and Rice Pakistani Zucchini - parve Zucchini Salad - with cabbage and hot pe

We continue on the path to a kidney transplant for my son.  Before I get to our story, you might like to read this one.  It was written in 2001 and things have indeed changed for the better.  Yet,  our own experiences show that there is still an issue.  My son's nephrologist has been particularly unhelpful with suggestions or help about transplants.  He told us to find a transplant, but did not suggest how to do it.  It was up to us to find a donor.  With thanks to God, we were able to find a number of potential altruistic donors in our community.  As one of our potential donors said: "Our community is a very large, very warm family".  So, back to our story. This week, we had our first appointment at hospital with the transplant ward.  We came with my son and two donors. I have had the opportunity (good or otherwise) to visit a number of hospitals in Israel.   Beilinson hospital is the main transplant center in Israel.  It feels new and clean.  The doctors in the ward a

Asaf is back from 8 days in Poland.  As usual, we have not heard much from him about his trip.  We are excited to have him back home and happy that he was able to take a break from his health issues. In honor of his return, we are not having any guests this weekend.  While we more than enjoy having guests most weekends, this one will be family time.  Menus are much simpler and I'm not going to try for new exciting dishes. Shabbat Parshat Lech-L'cha Dinner - 7 Soup Irish Beef Stew Mashed Potatoes Green Salad Lunch - 7 Roast Chicken and Vegetables Stuffed Pargiot and Rice Rice Israeli Salad

From Paris OneLab2 Operations Meeting I had the opportunity to spend three days in Paris this week.  Contrary to the general opinion of the french as anti-semitic and ungracious, I found the place to be very nice.  Our hosting organization (LIP6) were generous and helpful.  It is traditional is such meeting to have a group dinner one night.  Since two of us keep kosher, we were able to find a nice kosher chinese/japanese place call L'Asiatik .  The place is small, but the food was reasonably priced and no-one seemed to complain. We arrived around 2pm on the first day and had meetings until after 6pm.  My compatriots and I had missed lunch and were really dragging.  We tried to find our hotel, but probably because of our low blood sugar levels, we confused the address with the cross street.  After walking about two miles with our luggage, we took a cab back to our starting point.  Our hotel was about two minutes away!  After that experience, we needed to find food and fast.  It took