Mama Bear: I like this

Grandmama

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 10:48 pm

Traditions are very important to us.

So is the fact that I was born in the same era as "BAKERIES" I hardly ever bake anything except for cakes on Pesach. Occasionally I bake a cheesecake, pour the blended ingredients into a prepared pie shell. I never eat it though. Its usually done for someone else.

We make kiddush on dry wines, and have a bit of grape juice.
We drink seltzer, and/or diet coke or other diet soda.

We buy challas, whole wheat and white. (sometimes spelt)
We buy dips,.... baba ganoush, tomato, and grilled eggplant are our current favorites.
We buy fish, gefilte, white and salmon, depending on who wants what. We eat prepared horseradish (chrain)
Sometimes we serve freshly cut up salad after we wash, along with the dips.

We cook fresh chicken soup, usually every other week.
I freeze lokshin in small packets for about two months. (Knaidels are for the last night of Pesach.)
We steam frozen cauliflower to add to the chicken soup, when we are not in the mood of lokshen.
We eat (bought) lima beans, chic peas and white or black radish along with the soup.

No more potato kugel, it is not in our best interests to eat it. Never made a lokshen kugel.
We sometimes buy assorted vegetable/squash/apple kugels, which are usually (sadly) thrown out.
Grapes for dessert, sometimes other fresh fruit or applesauce (bought)

We have hot chicken made fresh in a teflon pan, skin side down, on Friday afternoon. That takes me all of ten minutes to prepare.

Shabbos morning, we make kiddush on wine and grape juice.
We then have spelt crackers, two types of herring, and cookies/cake (bought) for whoever wants.
We wash, then eat fish, dips, and 1 egg with scallion and a bit of olive oil for the whole family.
If we have guests, we use two eggs, sometimes adding avocado if the guests we have want avocado.
Cholent made of lamb and beans with potato, only if we have guests. No cholent lately.
Have not eaten cholent for a while, and feel really great without it.
Melons or grapes for dessert.

We use mostly plastic goods, so less dishes to wash and less mess.

Thank you to my local supermarket and take out foods, that supply us with fresh food for Shabbos.
We have no freezer, we have no dishwasher, we do feel like we are always on vacation.
If we have guests, we buy more things, more variety, more dips, cold cuts, chicken cutlets, liver, etc.

Raisin

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 2:36 am

for me the best part of the shabbos meal is the main course. And no one can eat it if I serve 2 large starter courses. So I only make one. One week I serve fish, 1 week chicken soup. (we always have fish in the day)

so a typical meal:

homemade challa

fried or boiled gefilta fish logs
homemade chatzilim
hummous, olives, pickles, other salatim (bought)
fresh salad

OR

chicken soup with lokshen and matza balls and mandelen.

then

chicken or sometimes meat
roast potatoes or kugel
rice
green beans

dessert: apple crumble or brownies or banana cake.

we don't usually invite guests shabbos day. I don't do cholent except for guests, we have fish, salad, chummous, maybe cold cuts. if I have guests I might make some fresh salmon and eggs as well.

Grandmama

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 4:33 am

Tamiri wrote:

OMG Grandmama. I am guessing you are busy business people.

While we are business people, we are not that busy, we just pick and choose what is good for us.
I started using plastic when I was 25, as my priority was my back, not eating out of a dish.
I always had guests, and enjoyed them very much.
They knew the food was delicious (in those days we still used to cook fish and cholent and kugel)
but it would be served on a plastic plate.
I do not believe that my daughters have to wash that many dishes just because some of us would rather eat out of a dish. So.... no one washes and we are all one happy family.
(of course someone has to wash the soup pot. We take turns on that one and the cutlery, which we still use.)

Life can be made less stressful. So although we do not overwork, not by any means, there are enough other things to do. As you get older you cut down on lots of things, potato kugel and ferfel are only two of them.
Shabbos is more about the rest and relaxation, and less about the food.
We enjoy the children and grandchildren, and each other's company.

ABC

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 5:49 am

hannah95 wrote:

Friday night is nearly always the same :

Salatim and dips such as matbucha babaganoush ajlouk tomato salad, heart of palm etc
Smoked salmon, or sometimes fish in red sauce
Traditionnal beef couscous
fruit salad

Saturday lunch :

Friday salatim + egg and tuna salad, harissa potatoes
Fish of some kind (sometimes only tarama lol)
Dafina or Couscous Loubia
Chocolate cake

We're Tunisian and I cook thursday evening only.

May I ask how you make these? I love Tunisian food.

Hashem_Yaazor

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 5:59 am

I do a structured menu that I just fill in the blanks for, usually.

Gefilte Fish (either baked with spices or with sauce)
Chicken Soup (either kneidlach or lukshen, depending on time)
Some type of easy chicken
Some type of starch (kugel or rice)
Some type of vegetable (either salad or greenbeans or something like that)
Some type of non-patchka dessert

Add in a cholent for Shabbos day.

And sometimes a dish or 2 for SS (like eggs, tuna salad, corn salad, coleslaw, or whatever).

fiddle

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 6:03 am

I honestly feel like I have the anorexic menu here.

I grew up with a regular shabbat meal consisting of friday night fish salad, chicken a kugel and another side. shabbat day liver, salad and cholent. I hate walking away from the table not being able to breath because I have to eat EVERYTHING. so our meals are simpler than the ones ive read through...hence the anorexia.

friday night: grape juice, challa, chicken and salad or chicken and rice

shabbat day, challah, cholent.

I still cant breath after.

kitov

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:29 am

Grandmama wrote:

Traditions are very important to us.

. No cholent lately.
Have not eaten cholent for a while, and feel really great without it.
.

Isn't there a reason we eat cholent Shabbos morning, bec the tzedokim interpreted "lo sivori aish" as "no fire on Shabbos", so they ate cold food Shabbos. The chachamim therefore imposed the "eating hot food Shabbos morn".

If my memory serves me well, my chassidish teaschers taught something along the lines of "having to check you ancestry if a yid didn't eat warm food on Shabbos".

Am I recalling well, does anyone know about this too?

PinkFridge

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:31 am

MB, is the chicken davka from the soup part of it all? Because my family wouldn't for it.
Also, if you make soup once a month, where's the chicken coming from the other weeks?

A friend all but swears by a book that I must get, Shabbos Secrets by R. Dovid Meisels and says that the food explanation is all there. A chossid we had the pleasure of spending Shabbos with waxed poetic about farfel, how the stresses of everyday life are farfellen, fall away, and yeah, for Friday night I'll be a chossid too ;-)

BTW, haven't checked the other thread, but how does this one differ?

Tamiri

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:34 am

kitov wrote:

If my memory serves me well, my chassidish teaschers taught something along the lines of "having to check you ancestry if a yid didn't eat warm food on Shabbos".

Am I recalling well, does anyone know about this too?

You are welcome to check my ancestry. Some of it isn't half bad. My parents eat cold food on Shabbat. My mother happens to be an excellent cook. They like the cold food she prepares and serves. I personally don't like cold food but that's nisht ahin nisht aher.

Tamiri

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:34 am

kitov wrote:

kitov

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:41 am

Tamiri wrote:

kitov wrote:

I don't know what to tell you, this is what I've learned growing up.

Aderaba, if anyone knows more about this, please share.

And like Mama Bear said, in the chassidishe traditional Shabbos meal, it's not really done by what we like or decided communally to eat, it's what has been eaten for generation, and each dish has its own reasoning. Lots of newer stuff has been added over the years though, to enhance the seuda, and that varies from family to family, from chassidus to chassidus.

Tamiri

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 7:52 am

Okay, so here's the thing: CULTURE SHOCK! The ones I imagined would davka be the ladies slaving for hours/days each week in prep for Shabbat are davka those who are KISSing! I am astounded. So my thinking says that the "plain" folks really ARE following Shabbos tradition from the alte heim. For sure, most of the ancestors European's had were NOT able to enjoy much more, if even as much as what is described in the "plain" meals here. Many most likely didn't even have a piece of chicken for each family member. So maybe the type of Shabbat I know is modern affluent American.
When we came to Israel my mother was shocked at how little "the Israelis" (the only Israelis we knew were our upstairs neighbors who were ex kibbutznikim) put out on Shabbat. As Israel grew more modern and affluent (the array of available food, the size of fridges grew, the income grew and the savviness grew), the eating habits changed and plenty of people here make elaborate meals, as I knew in the U.S. in my circles.
I don't think "plain" would fly so well here. First, we don't eat fish - certainly never canned tuna for a Shabbat meal. Second, it seems so boring, even though I know food for Shabbat always tastes special. Third, isn't part of the love we show for Shabbat and family demonstrated in direct relation to the hours we spend preparing it? shock

Fourth, only DH and I like liver and I'm not kashering liver on a regular basis for just the two of us.

gryp

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 8:01 am

Tamiri wrote:

kitov wrote:

It's more along the lines of an apikorus and not having hot food (like on a blech). It's not exactly one of the things to take literally. If I'm remembering right, it's about a person who doesn't have emunas chachamim so they don't want to use a blech- they don't want to be using the stove at all.

Last edited by gryp on Mon, Oct 25 2010, 8:22 am; edited 1 time in total