best soup ever

This really is the best soup ever. I've made it for two Shabbat dinners and my friends keep on asking me to give them the recipe and telling me how poor their imitations of it are.

Cook, share, be happy.


Lentil Barley Soup
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, 1/4 inch dice
2 cloves fresh garlic, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, cut into 1/4 inch dice
2 stalks celery, 1/4 inch dice
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried thyme
1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes (we've also used peeled+chopped fresh)
1 (10-oz) box frozen chopped spinach (also used chopped fresh)
1/2 cup dried red lentils
1/2 cup dried green lentils (I just use one color because Pittsburgh doesn't like options)
1/4 cup dried pearl barley
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock, more for thinning (we once used a boxed chicken broth and another time the stock powder thing)
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

- heat oil in large pot on medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook 3-4 minutes, until shiny and translucent.
- Add carrots, celery, oregano, basil, thyme. Stir + cook 3 minutes.
- Add tomatoes and spinach; stir.
- Add red lentils, green lentils, and barley. Add stock.
- Cover pot and simmer over low heat 45 minutes. Thin with extra stock as needed.
(I like to let it sit overnight so that it really gets a great flavor)

בתיאבון!

pressing

I think, nay, I have decided, that what I need are more people who are real.

by the way

In two days, a few hours after the bus ride home with Eva listening to her iPod and musing together, and a few more hours after I've turned in my term paper, my dad will sit me down, probably in the living room. I'll take the blue fleece and wrap its soft warmth around me, my legs tucked under me and knees sticking out, sinking into the couch. Dad will sit, or more so lay with the pretense of sitting, on the blue arm chair with his feet (sneakers still on, but to be untied and taken off in the course of the conversation/lecture/discussion) pressing into the leather ottoman.

Dad will turn to me and pelt me with a series of questions (I know you will, don't deny it, daddy!): What do you want to do when you graduate? Where will you live? Where will you work? How will you get a job? How will you pay off student loans? What are your plans for the next five years? Next ten? How will you find a husband?

I know he will ask me all of these questions because he tried to once in September, over the phone, and I said that this (this = Rebecca's life) would be better discussed in person. When would that be? he asked. I told him I assumed that Thanksgiving would be the next time I would see him. Well, then, he said.

So that'll be, like I wrote, in two days.


These are clearly important questions. Clearly clearly. I know this because: I think so and am therefore trying not to think about them that much; everyone I meet asks me them; everyone whom I go to for Shabbat meals asks; and my dad would not sit me down in the living room in such a manner for unimportant questions. Important questions include: did I like his song about fried bananas, why I do not let him eat more uncooked chocolate chip cookie dough (pre-adding chocolate chips), etc. :). Being clearly important questions, they all deserve serious consideration and thought and discussion, which, I understand, is what certain people blog about. I, however, am a quirky individual, and prefer to diplomatically skirt around all clearly important questions I do not definitively know the answer to. (I mean, if I knew how I were going to "find a husband"- dad's phrasing- I would have done so already, no?)

But it is indeed this question that has been at the forefront of my life lately, so I shall make a few diplomatic skirts around it in a pretense of not at all answering it.

First, an excerpt from Kate's blog on the topic:

I think it's important I say something about basherts. All my friends, probably because we're graduating college this semester/year and are all single, etc., seem to be obsessed with the idea of meeting our "soulmates."

For clarification, I'll say here that I don't believe that there is one person special and intended for another person. However, I think that to find someone who you can be compatible long-term with is difficult and perhaps even the work of years. I use the term "bashert" mostly in jest, to mean someone who I would consider dating. And dating I suppose with a view to marriage, meaning I could in some sense see myself long-term with the person.

I was telling Wendy today that I don't think that people should draw up a set-in-stone list of qualities for their "basherts," because someone might come along who makes you see things differently, who doesn't fit the mold and who actually turns out to be right for you.

Maybe I'm too naive, maybe people don't come along and surprise you. Maybe I'll end up all alone and have to marry a snake...

No comments on Kate's post because her thoughts, on this topic, are my thoughts.

And an excerpt from quirkyalone:

For the quirkyalone, there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. We want a miracle. Out of millions, we have to find the one who will understand.

Better to be untethered and open to possibility: living for the exhilaration of meeting someone new, of not knowing what the night will bring. We quirkyalones seek momentous meetings.

Right? This speaks to me. This is me. So it is fine I am here now, where I am. I'm just waiting for the right one. Or, until Dad sits me down in two days and asks me what I plan to do about this.

west of here

I dreamed I was coloring, then my alarm went off and I colored outside the lines.

eh?

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Neutral You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you're just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

יש לי סיפור קטן על ישראל

יש לי סיפור קטן על ישראל.

בארצות הברית, כאשר אמבולנס נוסע ברחוב, כולם אומרים "אוו וה ווי, מה לעשות?! מה קורה?!" וכל המכוניות מפסיקות עד האמבולנסס עובר.

לא כזה בישראל. בישראל, אף אחד לא עושה כלום כאשר אמבולנס נוסע ברחוב. המכוניות לא מפסיקות, הן לא נוסעות לאט, כלום.

בישראל, האנשים מרגישים, "מה, יש לך בעיות? אתה חושב שיש לך בעיות? אני אגיד לך..."

I have a small story on Israel.

In America, when an ambulance drives down the street, everyone says, “Oy vay voy! What’s happened? What can I do?” and all the cars stop and pull aside until the ambulance passes.

It is not like this in Israel. In Israel, no one does anything when an ambulance drives by. The cars don’t stop, don’t slow down, nothing.

It’s like in Israel, the people feel, “What, you’ve got problems? You think you’ve got problems? I’ll tell you what problems are…”

all gone to look for america

As a little girl in Norway I often, too often, heard my mother say to my little brother and myself, 'If you do not behave properly, we will just have to send you to America!' This threat would bring us to line. During the long summer holidays with my kinfolks on grandmother's mountain farm our fears of America would be re-inforced. Mother's younger sister, Tomine, would walk around ghost-like, never speaking to anyone. She was very pretty, but she made us all sad.

'America did that to Tomine,' master Rina used to say. She was the one who had brought Tomine back to Norway with her.

She was only 17 when she emigrated, gay and strong--the things I could tell you. Melancholia the doctors called it. But we all know it was America that killed her.

שאלות שלי שהן לא כל כך שאלות

it is 39 degrees fahrenheit in pittsburgh
where the sidewalks are covered with leaves
that are slippery when it rains
make me happy and clear.

my toes are cold but i cannot sleep with socks
confine and forbid and my toes prefer freedom
, locke argues, is man's right to live in security with his property.

b'shaim hashem is the song of the moment
magazine is a bit pretentious
is a word that we pretend we know the meaning of
life.

i want to write a post on israeli ambulances
remind me of hannah
is the name i give to females in my hebrew homework
intimidates and affronts with no concern for personal space
is also pretentious.

i cannot write like ee cummings ( )

—tommorow is our permanent address
and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
we'll move away still further:into now

fear that i am giving what i should be taking
accounts, taking back, taking life, taking away, take
it from me.

the girl i tutor does not understand
hebrew question words
in hebrew have greater value in the language of my brain than those in english
lit 0580 intro to shakespeare next term
s you use to define me, you define me? in america i have become defined and identified and delineated.

three things that frustrate
---no answer
---lousy moral/civic arguments
---lack of morality

(רק צל של מה שרציתי לומר)

The Quest

A video taken over the summer of Young Cousin Sean's Quest to Find a Friend at the Jersey Shore.





Cute, eh?

loud prints

had some friends over for shabbat dinner for parshat lech lecha. told the story of the prince who thought he was a rooster (or a chicken, depending on your hashkafa). served homemade challah, vegetable soup, israeli salad, lettuce salad, long grain rice, ratatouille, and chicken. teambuilder- how everyone knows me/favorite rebecca story. (feel free to share if were unable to make the meal for reasons of being in different countries, eg samoa, israel.) was really nice to host. my method of introducing people to each other: "this is t. he is canadian. t, this is s, she has been to canada." it has been pretty successful, though the people may talk about how crazy the introduction was than the actual subject that brought them together.

here is the table, set in the sunroom.

but he talks like a gentleman

monday, 8:32pm, leaving hillman library with friend f (non-Jew, friends with many Jews), a nice-looking man in khakis and red button-down shirt approaches us with palm cards.

man: I would like to give you some information on this event.
(I see the palm cards. they have a cross on them.)
me: oh, no, thank you.
man: But it's actually about Jesus.
me: I know.

(walking away)
f (loudly): what, you don't want to know about Jesus?
me: no, not really.
f: are you Jewish or something? (knowing very well I am Jewish.)
me: Pretty much.

(walk across Forbes Avenue. encounter ends.)

days like this

(days like this)

make me :) deep down.

the wind blows and we dress warmly and drink tea and cappuccinos and listen to yummy music and sit cozily and give warm hugs. the wind wakes me up and i smile and laugh.



[edit]
this- the above- isn't exactly what I wanted to post yesterday, but I couldn't figure out how to post what I wanted to post but I still wanted to share the general idea so that is what came out. what I really want to figure out is how to upload just audio files - like this. any ideas?

recipes

I started writing a recipe book during my long summer at home, during the endless meatless Nine Days. There are many meat recipes in the book. Friend A had a recipe book at Hebrew U she made with her mom, basically a photo album with the recipes written on index cards for viewing and sliding-out ease, arranged by food type. It was a good idea, so like other good ideas, I took it.

iHo slipped me some of her favorite recipes on white index cards, and rl shipped me some via email, and I copied many from my momma's cookbooks and the recipe card index I made her one year for Mother's Day. Fifth grade, I think. (Feel free to post your own recipes and I'll write them on the pack of multi-colored index cards I got from RiteAid to study for my Geology exams. do it!!)

I like recipes. (What a sentence, Rebecca. Really says a lot there. Phew. Better go take a five minute break to consider that before I keep reading.) They provide good combinations and fresh ingredients and ingredients I have never heard of or considered as ingrediable before. When I don't cook using recipes (meaning when I cook using just my mind) things happen. Things generally do happen, yes. So either I end up making delicious pasta primavara or I saute strawberries with zucchini and mushrooms. There are many ideas and recipes in my head waiting to get out and be made and sometimes they get made together in what in my head seems like a swell idea but on the plate not so much. So I occasionally progress from the strawberry/zucchini madness and look up a series of recipes online for the same dish- like mushroom barley soup- write out all of the elements I like, and piece together a new recipe from that.*

On Wednesday-- well, some background first. Life has been extremely hectic for the past four weeks because of all of the Jewish holidays- Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and most recently, Shmeni Atzeret and Simchat Torah. The holidays are great, to be sure, and I __ (connected?benefitted?felt?grew?), especially after spending last year in Israel and having time to digest and internalize all I learned there. All of the holidays (excepting Yom Kippur, which was over Shabbat) fell out Wednesday night- Thursday- Friday, leading right into Shabbat, Friday night-Saturday, thereby creating a "three-day yom tov," three days on which all of the laws regarding Shabbat (electricity, writing, etc) except cooking are in place. Meaning, synagogue every morning +, eating out for every lunch and dinner (for three days in a row, with yummy holiday meals at each gracious host, even this gets exhausting), and no class or doing school work of any manner. I missed my Thursday classes for three weeks, but I told the professors, and they, unlike Kate's evil Hebrew Scripture's prof, are really kind and understanding. This past week I had some midterms (though a few of my syllabi say there will be "two midterms" so I assume I'll be suffering again soon enough), with a test Wednesday in class and an essay due and a test scheduled for Thursday. I turned in the essay and took both tests Wednesday, and babysat in the morning, so when I got home my brain was pretty much absent. Hannah (roommate) and I had decided that we would have Shabbat lunch just by ourselves, and I elected myself to make some kind of side dish.

So, on Wednesday, an hour before the holiday started, I decided to make rl's "fake sesame thai noodles." We don't have any noodles, so I put some orzo on to boil (messing up the directions for that) and just tossed an unidentified amount of peanut butter with hot water and oil and other flavoring liquids I thought would go well. The peanut butter sauce covered the orzo by a three-to-one (whatever that means) ratio, but there was hope that "something" would happen in the fridge and it would better itself.

Hannah had made chicken salad for lunch, which was a good thing. We tried a spoonful of the orzo-peanut butter and then put it back in the fridge, to be improved upon.

Which brings me to now. I decided to tackle the thing (well, at least, avoid wasting a whole bowl of orzo and peanut butter) and sauteed some veggies and tossed them with some heated orzo/pb. Turned out pretty well. יש תקווה, יש תקווה.

So, סוף סוף, (finally), what I actually wanted to share was my trip to Phipps Botanical Gardens today with E. Dale Chihuly's glass exhibit grows between the plants and trees and butterflies there. I took a few pictures with the cell phone, which is a phone and therefore not the best camera, so do check out these websites for better images. (My favorite is the Float Boat.)






The glass is planted in the middle of the gardens, growing up from the soil, wrapping around plants and trees.













The echoes of the plant movements and color changes in the glass bring attention to the natural beauty of the plants themselves.


Standing on a bridge, looking down at a stream boarded with glass plants and green plants, the eyes focus in on the color and abnormal presence of the glass.


I wonder first what my world would be if this fantasy were real- if I could walk through a dark green forest and happen across beautiful fairy tale creations of bright yellows and blues and oranges growing from the ground.

Then I realize the glass draws in the eye. Our eyes focus on its colors and curves, and as we gaze we start to pick up on bends and hues and life of the green plants surrounding the glass, and slowly realize the beauty natural creations around the glass, which were really there all along.


It's like that catchy song from Love, Actually.














So what I am trying to say is that this is a really good eye-opening feet-tiring exhibit that you should see. Come to Pittsburgh. I'll make dinner (no experiments). Or if you're here, I'll go with you again. Life is good. Do the better things more than once.








(what a post this is! so varied in its form and function. not at all what I was expecting. and much longer too. the end attempts to be so...inspirational and wise and the beginning witty and clever. long night, folks. recipes and visits please.)


*itunes surprises me. sometimes, when on shuffle, I hear a song, and am like "woah! what a cool song! whose music is that?" then I realize it is mine and brush my shoulders off. A blues song- "Smokestack Lightnin'" by Howlin' Wolf just came on, and, well, my shoulder needed some brushing. (damn now I sound conceited. well, it is just a blog and I am projecting myself as clever etc etc...)

על החיים

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

Andy Warhol

lack of focus

leaning over my biopsych book and notes right now to type this. good sign, eh? i am v. bad at reading textbooks- especially science books- and listening to people lecture. my roommate gave me some silly putty so sometimes i play with that during class and it helps me focus, but otherwise i draw pictures and make lists and doodle.



this is my modern britain professor, dr white. he has a big flop of white hair. pretty perfect. he also has arms, though not in my sketch.




this is my political theory professor, dr whelan. he lectures with his tie tucked into his shirt and a big pocket protector in his pocket. i think it might actually just be a pencil case. he never takes his tie out.



i got a lunch bag! mom said i couldn't take tuna fish, etc to school because it would go bad after a few hours so i had to buy a bag. the store didn't sell ice packs ("seasonal item"), but they did have back-to-school lunch bags (for elementery schoolers) on clearance. only $1.72 for this beauty!


(look! i've read already ten pages in my book tonight!)

desk lamps and green tea

I am very much in the mood for watching Jerry Maguire tonight. חבל (haval- too bad) that my roommates are no longer my roommates and their DVD's are no longer in the bedroom next door. But I have hours of reading and learning and memorizing to do* so God (or fortune, call it what you may) worked it all out.


* I often forget that being in college actually entails reading and taking exams and writing essays. The woman I babysit for told me that each three-credit course is equivalent to six hours of homework a week. Six hours a week! When do I spend six hours a week on all of my classes? Aye, there's the rub. Midterms next week. Three exams, two papers...

yom kippur

phew.

that was intense.

the ten days of posting

strange, eh? i'm working on the תשובה - teshuvah- repentence/return- part of it as well.
but god gives life and thus i live.

these pictures are of an afternoon.

beloved front porch- bench and facing chair.

notebook in the slated sun.

roses on the piano.

moses on the porch with the two tablets.

me with sleeping baby.
:)

open arms

these are things i see and things i live and these things make up my life (and make me happy too :) ) .

this is a bench at carneige mellon. eva and i walk around cmu sometimes and pretend we are smart and studious and go to school there. we also like the campus (an actual campus!? you mean a college can have its own campus?!). this is a nice bench. (a nice bench, rebecca? use your words, use your language! how is this bench nice? benches can't be nice! people are nice. benches are hard or well-placed or delightful. ok, well, this bench lifts up the corners of my mouth in a smile. tov?)

this is where i live. one of the many places, i guess. and i don't live on the river. i live- family home is- a block away from the left shoreline. this is the delaware river. new jersey on the right, pennsylvania on the left. taken when mom and i were driving home across the rickety bridge. sunset is mmm.

this is a bench, like the other, except i knew it first and it is closer to pitt so i love it more. it is part of the new (new? already three years old) schenley plaza where my friends and i lunch on mondays at noon and eva and i lay in the grass. lowercase lettering is greatly admired and loved.

this is the sunset from the columbus airport. my flight was delayed for five hours so i wandered around the terminal. the end was deserted so i hung out there and read and watched the sun set. two janitors came over and spent their break talking to me. the man sang gospel music- "wade in the water" - at my request.

this is the most beautiful and most favorite building of learning. the cathedral of learning. the words, the meaning of the words! a holy place of learning. in the commons room (favorite place to study sophomore year) a quote by robert bridges reads: "here is the eternal spring; for you the very stars of heaven are new."

view from forbes ave (cmu) down to the cathedral of learning lit by the setting sun.

(fall is my favorite season.)

fast car

this waiting and not knowing and apprehension is making me argh.*


explain yourself, life!



one way or the other or no way at all this hiatus is too much.

There are three things to do when the kettle boils. First, pay no attention to it, and so waste the energy. Second, clamp the lid so hard that there is an explosion. Third, invent a steam engine or make some tea.

Clarence R. Skinner
"Fashions in Revolution," March 1918

*college students have advanced abilities at expressing themselves.