Aftermath

it's midnite in the holy city of zefat. everyone just left. kept the dogs in the master bedroom . cookie stayed on the bed and was quiet. cloey didn't stop yipping the entire evening. she stood in front of the door and at one point, sounded like she was going to die. i had to put her outside on the porch again. i'll probably hear about it tomorrow or the next day, from the neighbors. i have to say that everything turned out all right! i spent the day cooking and cleaning up and doing pots and pans from last week's meal. the chocolate cake, that i baked last night, was a big hit. i am so glad that i did it last night. it was really, very hectic today. i didn't even watch 'the days of our lives' or 'the real housewives of N.Y.' i ran out of gas this evening but it was no big deal because i just bought a two burner electric stove top. we have our own gas canisters here. we call them balloons. i use the small ones and it usually takes me three months to finish one. this last balloon has lasted for seven months, which tells you how little, i cook these days. i ended up making stuffed peppers with quinoa and sauteed carrots, celery, scallions, red onion, yellow raisins and raw almonds. quinoa is very healthy but it isn't very filling. i bought some bakala fish and baked it in a russian dressing 'like' sauce. i mixed mayonnaise, ketchup, dehydrated onion, garlic granules. chili pepper, sweet and hot paprika and dried coriander. i made fish roll ups which looked impressive. i then made a spinach and whole wheat noodle kugel. i also made a mixed green salad with baby beet leaves. everyone here goes wild for those baby leaves.! i ran outside in the rain to pick a couple of lemons. they were still green but i was desperate. i quickly whipped up some rich's non dairy whip cream and added 3/4 of a package of instant chocolate pudding and voila!, i had frosting and it wasn't bitter this time. i covered the circumference of the cake with the 1/2 inch white chocolate hearts that i made, yesterday. and i put the rose shaped chocolates in the middle of the cake. of course, i shook on some multi-colored sprinkles for effect. zvi said it was my fanciest cake yet! there was very little left over, so i guess it was good. i even ate an ordinary looking slice. i totally forgot that i was on a diet and that i'm prone to migraines and tend to suffer from eating things like fake whipped cream. my head is throbbing now. the cake was rich, so you could hardly tell that it was made with whole wheat flour. my daughter-in-law said it was good, but i can never tell if she is just trying to be polite or really means it. it was a nice get together and have a family reunion. my side held sahar and they held menachem mendush. his real name is menachem mendel. he towers over sahar. he only has four months on him but has a good, ten pounds over him. zahar is no slouch, either. he is already weighing in at 10 pounds. at one point , menachem was staring at sahar but just didn't know what to make of him. he definitely knew that it wasn't a doll. i set the table with a disposable paper table cloth with a party motif. i had really cheap paper party plates for the cake and disposable plates for the meal. i also had cheesy party napkins. i blew up 5 balloons by myself and i really struggled to blow them up. i asked zvi for help when he came home from work, but he was really tired and very cranky. he didn't even want to join us for the meal. so i blew and blew really, hard and at one point i thought that i might be having a heart attack. i still couldn't get those suckers to inflate. finally, i realized that i needed to blow out of my bad side and use the bad side of my mouth to get the best results. i successfully, blew up four balloons. during my last try, the balloon exploded in my mouth and i could hear ringing in my ears. it was a bit traumatic. i managed to mop the floor before anyone arrived. when my niece showed up we were already, assembled in the dining area, ready to wish her a mazel tov! we blessed each other and i wrapped up the remaining cake for them and threw in some of the banana-raisin muffins that i made yesterday morning. i gave some to my sister and threw in some of the corn muffins that i threw together in the morning. finally, i let the dogs out and gave them the remains of the spinach-whole wheat kugel, which they both devoured. i did the dishes and put away the leftovers. so good nite! my back is killing me! that's all of the aftermath.