Esther & Adiel’s Blog

As you’ve previously heard, we had a very special guest here this past Shabbos, hailing all the way from Atlanta, GA — our very own dear Mom!! She missed her ‘bubbalehs’ and wanted to see us, so she booked a ticket, and hopped on a plane (thankfully, we knew about it in advance and weren’t surprised). It was loads of fun seeing her, spending time, shmoozing, catching up, reminiscing (well her and Adiel), and just plain being around our wonderful, humorous and helpful mother (in-law).

She came in Thursday afternoon. Adiel picked her up from the airport, and then picked me up and we got home around 5. As we were all starving, it was a good thing we had planned in advance. We took out our two crockpots (cholent one and shalom bayis one) and put up dinner in the morning. I made wild rice with mushrooms, and Adiel made chicken with potatoes. We both made minor changes but all in all the end product smelled and tasted delicious! I just threw together a salad and dinner was served and gladly eaten. After dinner, Adiel had to go to a meeting, so Mom and I spent some time together shmoozing and relaxing. Than we did one of the 3 special mitzvos that women have — making challah!! We only made the dough as it was already too late to start baking.

Friday, while I was at work, Adiel and Mom went shopping to Costco and Brach’s. Mom insisted on buying us tons of stuff that we never would have bought ourselves, and paying for it. She absolutely loved Brach’s as it had loads of Israeli and hard-to-find Kosher products all available. Thanks Mom, we’re still using all of the stuff!! When I got home, she prepared some baked chickpeas and cumin, what a fun snack. And than, the work had to begin. There seemed to be a ton more work than normal, partially because we were home for both meals (last time that happened was months ago!), and partially because we had done practically ZILCH Thursday night, we usually start a lot of food up then. Plus, randomly, two different sets of friends called up (one couple, and one set of girls) to invite themselves for a meal, so there was a couple of more mouths to feed.

Anyway, for the next 5 hours it was work, work, work. Cook! Clean! Bake! Clean some more! Cook and bake some more! It seemed never ending but was lots of fun. The kitchen was very hot and we all kept taking turns breathing in front of the AC. Here’s a list of the foods we made:
Adiel: chicken soup, gefilte fish, lots of potato kugel (we even sent one upstairs!)
Me: tomato and scallion dips (5 minutes before Shabbos, literally), lukshin, cholent, sauteed mushrooms, Israeli salad, deli roll
Mom: Challah (with my help), delicious soy chicken with Israeli couscous underneath.
The day zoomed by, but definitely one of the highlights for me was being able to say the bracha on hafrashos challah (seperating challah) with Mom.

Here’s how the challahs came out. Looked and smelled great!! Behind the challah is the cholent cooking, and next to it is the gefilta fish.

You know the chazal, ‘mishetarach b’erev shabbos, yochal b’shabbos’? Boy did we all deserve a wonderful shabbos and we certainly got it. Both meals were lots of fun and full of good food and shmooze. Friday night, we had Toby and Sari, who are awesome friends of ours that really should NOT be dieting (I hope you guys are reading this!) and Shabbos day our friends Shoshana and Yanky Koenig came who just moved into a two bedroom nearby. Everyone loved Mom and Mom loved everyone, it was a shidduch made in Heaven! We also went to the kiddush of Laya and Gershon Russel’s baby girl, Shevy, where we saw some of our favorite Strickman-Bayda people. We also rested a bunch (Mom could only get in a 1/2 hour nap, unlike the two of us who managed 2+ hours). Than we went to our wonderful upstairs neighbors for a yummy shalosh seudos. After that, Adiel went to daven, and I went for a walk with Mom. We walked to the beach, and actually waded in! Then we walked along Beach 9th Street, and I showed Mom some of the shuls and homes in the neighborhood. We met Adiel coming out of Maariv, and went home for havdalah.

Being that it was 10′Oclock, Mom thought the day was pretty much over. But she doesn’t know Motzai Shabbos, especially in New York! Rochie and Shabsy, who had hosted her sister and BIL, Mina and Moshe, for the kiddush invited us over for pizza and a game. The game never ended up happening, but we had loads of fun munching on yummy pizza and talking about everything and anything under the sun! Although we got home close to 1, and Mom’s flight was early on Sunday, it was still worth a few less hours of sleep.

Sunday morning, we tearfully bid Mom good-bye (I admit, I was still in bed when her and Adiel left) and sent her home with a few good ol’ Kosher NY bialies. All in all, it was a wonderful experience for us and for Mom. She got to see how wonderful our community is, and meet some of our terrific friends while also being able to celebrate shabbos to the fullest . All of us thoroughly enjoyed Mom’s insights and comments about everything and anything from blonde hair dying to cooking ideas to life in Atlanta. We miss you Mom, and hope to see you again real soon!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Stam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.