Where the Time Went

Our new front door, recent reading, and a pineapple kugel that will save you

Taylor gets a change in scenery.

Life has been strangely busier than usual. I’ve missed you. I’ve also missed writing this newsletter. I’m glad to be back. I hope you are, too.

Where did the time go?

Well, what began as a relatively small project - installing a new railing on our porch — became a huge undertaking in a If You Give a Mouse a Cookie kind of way. The railing guy asked us to remove an overgrown shrub and the next thing we knew, we were redoing the landscaping in front of the house.

Then we replaced the original front door (c. 1957), which cracked three winters ago. That somehow led to the painting of the entire first floor of the house. For the first time in two decades, we are living with walls that are not Benjamin Moore Stratford Blue. I loved that blue, but am slowly adjusting to the idea of beige.

While we were at it, we swapped the placement of the pictures on the wall. My goose Taylor seems content with the change in scenery. If you’re new to my writing, the brief backstory is that when the CEO of Lord & Taylor saw this old blog post, she had a goose delivered to me for Chanukah.

Thank G-d, the house looks great and I know I know I know what a blessing it is to have been able to refresh the place as we celebrate 20 years here. We did a lot of the work ourselves. My husband Miro painted. I planted. The door installation we left to the pros. But no matter how you go about it, the process is both time-consuming and exhausting.

There’s only one problem and it’s entirely my fault. The installer noticed my height and asked me, “Can you see from there?” when he was ready to position the peephole in the door. I did a quick stand on my toes and said, “Yeah, that’s good.” Dear friends, it is not.

I’m not sure whether it was ego or haste or a bit of both that made me foolish. Many lessons learned, to be sure. But in addition to all the other changes in our refurbished living room, there’s now a footstool by the front door.

Books as silver linings

Like many people, I missed socializing with friends around the Shabbos table during the pandemic. I also longed for the old days, when we could meet in coffee shops and hug hello, but that’s not the story I want to tell you at the moment.

The months on lockdown had one silver lining. I read a lot. Especially on a long Shabbos, when I might have finished two or three titles before sundown. Once we were back to entertaining and going to friends’ homes for meals again, I quickly fell back to one a Shabbos. Still a nice average, but not three, though the tradeoff was always worth it.

This past month, even Shabbos has been busy in a good way it hasn’t been for ages. Hosting and being hosted more often. Really lovely surprise visits by friends, chances to catch up. Yet I’ve had little opportunity to read as a result, which I’ve had to adjust to as someone who equates Shabbos with books. Here are my recent reading highlights:

• Lia Levi’s Just a Girl is a memoir for young readers that reflects on her own childhood under Mussolini from 1938-1942. Effective and moving. Also check out her novel (not for children), The Jewish Husband, which I read a while back.

• The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg, translated from the French. This short Holocaust story is about family and redemption during the war. I found it by happenstance. It was the only copy on the shelf among the cookbooks and journals at Dollar Tree.

• I adored Itzhak: A Boy who Loved the Violin, a wonderful children’s book with really lovely illustrations.

Next up? Amy Tan’s Unintended Memoir (love the title!) and The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman, which explores bird intelligence.

A pineapple kugel that will save you

I love the expression, “Be like a pineapple. Stand tall and wear a crown.” Perhaps because I am short and cover my hair. But I like this pineapple kugel even more, and I’m not really much of a kugel person.

For decades, I made one for Pesach that was a real potchke, as anything involving the frothing of egg whites until firm is likely to be. Then my friend Dana K. told me, “I’ve got the easiest pineapple kugel recipe. Everyone loves it. No beating of egg whites involved.” She sent me a picture of the recipe. It’s from a website called www.gourmetpassovercooking.com that is no longer live.

So be like a pineapple and make a kugel so easy, you can throw it together on a chaotic Friday and impress everyone at the Shabbos table. No mixer required. :)

4 eggs 1/2 cup oil 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 potato starch (substitute corn starch if you have no potato starch left over) 1 teaspoon vanilla One 20-ounce can crushed pineapple, drained

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients. Pour into a greased a 8” round or square pan and bake for about 40-45 minutes.

It’s best served hot, but it’s also delicious cold (like eat-with-a-spoon-out-of-the-pan-with-the-refrigerator-door-open good).

A small ask

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Let me know what you’re up to this summer. What are you reading? What are you crafting? How are you spending your time?

Love,

Merri