Wordless Wednesday

A Chanukah Past

It's Chanukah!  I cooked a lovely dinner last night:  Italian Chanukah fried chicken and yummy latkes.  The chicken recipe is my riff on one that, if I remember correctly, came from Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar.  It was traditional in Corcos' family for Chanukah.  I can't find my copy of the recipe anymore, so I've been winging it for the past couple of years.  Everyone raved about this year's version, so I have to try to remember how I made it so I can repeat it next year.

Since it's Chanukah, I went looking through my photos for some to post.  The only ones I could find for my own family were these two, which had to have been from 1968, which is when my sister Laurie and her mother, Mary Lou, were living with us in La Puente, California.

According to TimeAndDate.com, the first night of Chanukah in 1968 was December 16 (coincidentally the same date as today!).  So if I'm seeing the candles accurately in these photos, the first one was taken on the evening of December 20 (I see five candles) and the second one on the evening of December 22 (I see seven candles).  Does anyone see a different number of candles?  And that, of course, assumes that my mother did the correct number of candles on the appropriate days.

I can't figure out what the thing is next to the menorah in the first photo.  Maybe some strange kind of tabletop Christmas tree?  Or, as my mother commonly said, a Chanukah bush?

Myra (Meckler) Sellers, Laurie Sellers, Janice Sellers,
approximately December 20, 1968, La Puente, California

Laurie Sellers
approximately December 22, 1968, La Puente, California

Matzoh Ball Soup, Yum!

Somehow, February 4 became National Homemade Soup Day.  I can't find any information on how this came to pass, but more than one site agrees on it, so I'm going with it.

My favorite homemade soup is matzoh ball soup.  I make it for my Passover seders, and I also usually make it for Chanukah, to go along with the latkes and my new favorite fried chicken recipe, which is an Italian Chanukah fried chicken.

When I make matzoh ball soup, it's almost always with chicken.  I make my chicken stock from scratch.  I save bones all year long, in addition to the cut-offs from carrots and celery and the skins from onions.  Sometimes I'll actually go buy a parsnip or two to throw in there, but not often.

Once I made a fish stock for the matzoh ball soup, just to try it.  Fish stock is much lighter than chicken stock, so instead of onions, the recipe called for shallots.

I make my matzoh balls from scratch also, including the super special "secret" ingredient for making the matzoh balls light and fluffy.  I didn't get that from my family, since my mother wasn't particularly domestically inclined and I never knew her to make matzoh ball soup, or any soup from scratch.  (The only Jewish food I vaguely recall her making was chopped liver.)  No, I had to borrow another family's secret ingredient.  But everyone I know has the same secret ingredient:  seltzer water.  There, I've said it.  Now the secret is out.  But if everyone has the same secret, was it really a secret?

I like small matzoh balls, about an inch in diameter.  I find they cook better and actually benefit from the seltzer water, so they really are light and fluffy.  I know that some people prefer big honking huge matzoh balls, the kind that one matzoh ball fills up the whole bowl.  Nope, not for me.  What's the point of the seltzer water if you get this dense, heavy medicine ball?

The soup itself, I don't put any meat or vegetables in it.  It's just the stock and the matzoh balls.

And I am proud to say that everyone loves my matzoh ball soup.  Even Jason (now the husband of my second former daughter-in-law), although it took three times of me bringing some over before he finally remembered to eat it before it went bad in the fridge.  And then he decided he wanted to come over to have it the day it was made, just to enjoy the freshness.  He liked it then also.

When I was still living in the San Francisco Bay area, my friend Anne always came for seder, and usually her daughter Karen did also.  Karen is a vegetarian.  After a couple of years of making the chicken version for everyone else and a small amount of vegetable stock for Karen, I got tired of making two versions and started doing the vegetarian version for everyone.  My secret for that is lots of onions to give it good flavor.  Karen actually asked me for the recipe to make it herself, which I took as a high compliment.  But now that I'm not cooking for a vegetarian, it's back to chicken stock.

Image copyright Just Nora.  Used under a Creative Commons license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Blog Caroling!

How do you carol on a blog?  Let's see how Randy Seaver explains it for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

Are you in the Christmas spirit yet?  I love this time of year — and hearing and singing Christmas carols and songs is my favorite holiday pastime.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

(1) Identify your absolute favorite Christmas carol or holiday song.  

(2) Share your favorite Christmas carol or holiday song in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment and link here to your post.

(3) For extra credit, post an audio or video of the carol or song (almost all are on YouTube.com) and the words to the song.  Add the background of the song and the artists if you can find them.

(4) Enjoy the memories and feelings that the carol or song brings to your heart and mind, and share them too!

I'm going to double-dip toinght.

First, my absolute favorite Christmas carol is "Do You Hear What I Hear?"  I don't remember the first time I heard it, but I might have actually sung it in junior-high chorus.  My teacher was Miss Foster.

You can find Robert Goulet singing the song here, on YouTube, as Randy predicted.  There's another recording of him singing it that includes this description of the song:

"Do You Hear What I Hear?", the beloved Christmas song was written by Noel Regney, in 1962 with Gloria Shayne, his wife at that time. It was recorded by Bing Crosby and Perry Como, among others, in more than 120 versions, in musical styles ranging from jazz and New Age to funk and reggae. Mr. Regney said in an 1985 interview in The New York, "I wrote it as a clear and plaintive plea for peace at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, in October 1962." His favorite version was Robert Goulet's. "When Mr. Goulet came to the line, ''Pray for peace, people, everywhere,'' he almost shouted the words. I am amazed that people can think they know the song -- and not know it is a prayer for peace. But we are so bombarded by sound and our attention spans are so short that we now listen only to catchy beginnings.''

And the lyrics:

Do You Hear What I Hear? 

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

 

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear?
(Do you hear what I hear?)
Ringing through the sky. shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear?
(Do you hear what I hear?)
A song, a song
High above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

 

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know?

(Do you know what I know?)
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know?
(Do you know what I know?)
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold

 

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say!
(Listen to what I say!)
Pray for peace, people everywhere
Listen to what I say!
(Listen to what I say!)
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

 

[Lyrics source:  Musicmatch.  Songwriters:  Noel Regney, Gloria Shayne.  "Do You Hear What I Hear?" lyrics © Jewel Music Publiching Company, Inc.]

 

And second, my favorite Chanukah song is "Light One Candle", the hippie social-protest Chanukah folksong.  (You didn't know there was such a thing?)  It was written by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary and sung by them many times before Mary passed away.  One of my favorite versions (yes, available on YouTube) is this one from a PBS concert.  And I love it even more than "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

The song has a Wikipedia page with some background information, and here are the lyrics:

Don't Let the Light Go Out

 

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand

 

Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our hope and our tears. (2)

 

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
The pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our hearts 

 

Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our hope and our tears. (2) 

 

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
And this is why we will not fail! 

 

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!

 

[Lyrics source:  LyricFind.  Songwriter:  Peter Yarrow.  "Light One Candle" lyrics © Warner Chappell, Inc.]

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday