Sunday Not So much A Fun Day

it is 7:00 p.m. in the holy city of safed.  I just got home form work.  I was very fortunate to catch a taxi across the street from my work.  I was sitting at a bus shelter and it was hailing and pouring and the winds were unbearable.  I was nearly drenched.  I took a cab to work ,too.  I cannot run around in this weather like I used to.  I think it was 1 degree Celsius today.  I do not know how to compute this into Fahrenheit. sorry.  all I know is that I'm pretty cold.  I'm sitting in front of a space heater. I need to buy triple a batteries for my remote control. I had to manually change the stations last night.  I watched friends reruns until 4:00 a.m.

I had cooked some black beans for Shabbat and decided to take them to the yeshiva to make a soup.  I didn't have much to work with.  I added onions, and a few carrots and tomatoes.  I also made a lot of corn fritters,baked potatoes and hard cooked eggs.  I don't think I made enough food for their lunch. I made a lot more for supper.  I fried up a lot of tiny turkey burgers.  I made a vegan cornbread and a vegan chocolate cake.  I made a sweet noodle kugel, a tray of spicy bulgur and a tray of green lentils.  I had to walk though a torrent of rain to put the food on the electric platter in the dining room.  it was not fun.

tonight is the new Hebrew month of shevat.  it is the height of the water we receive in the winter. we officially start to plant trees on the 15th of  this month. it was so warm and sunny on Shabbat.  I can't believe it turned so drastically cold and wet overnight.  most of my bath towels are on the porch in the rain.  thank goodness, I dragged in my clothes rack this morning. I am in shortage of warm clothes.  almost everything I own is damp.

my friend was supposed to move into my neighborhood with her two sons.  I offered to make Shabbat food for her because she was busy unpacking.  it was a true culinary challenge.  my friend is a vegan by choice and she cannot eat any gluten.  she also suffers with crohns.  I made a red lentil soup with carrots, pumpkin and sweet potatoes.   she cannot tolerate any oil and she doesn't use gugar.  I made a vegan, non gluten cornbread for her.  I substituted avocado for the oil. I used a tbs of apple cider vinegar instead of the egg.  I used cornmeal and almond milk.  I had bought oat milk only to find out that it contained gluten.

I cooked chickpeas for her and processed it into a very thin paste and added salt and garlic powder.  I added a tbs of tahini.  it was smooth enough for a baby to eat it.  for the boys, I made a chicken soup, potato kugel, egg salad, tuna salad, an Israeli salad, saucy chicken, and a pot of cholent with wheat, chickpeas, black beans and potatoes.  I thought she lived a block away from me.  it turned out that she moved to a neighborhood about 20 minutes away from me.  I called a cab to deliver the food to her.

I hope the food wasn't too spicy for her.  I tried my best.