Tag: family
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Thankful
It goes without saying that 2016 has been a bit of a year. From shootings and refugee crises and legends lost to the festering dumpster fire that was this year’s presidential election, there is no shortage of doom and gloom around us. Even in this season of twinkly lights and cocoa, it can be hard…
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Required Reading: Volume Nine
My mother collects cookbooks. It started (she thinks) with the Moosewood Cookbook, purchased in March of 1983. She had always loved to cook, and to bake especially, learning hamantaschen and icebox cookies in her mother’s Pittsburgh kitchen. From one book, her collection grew, adding Jewish Cookery and Cookie Cookery (related in name only). When my…
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Long Time Gone
Wednesday morning I woke up early. My weird work schedule has me basically nocturnal of late, so I was shocked to discover that a. 6:15 a.m. is an hour that exists and b. it’s light outside, at least in my corner of Brooklyn. I stumbled through the steps of getting ready: brush teeth, wash face,…
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Gumbo Day
Thanksgiving has officially come and gone. Our bellies are still full from the feast, the detritus of which lingers on the dining room table. And in my house, my dad is busy cooking up the traditional Day After Thanksgiving Turkey Gumbo. It’s a time-honored tradition in the Zelda household, handed down from one generation to…
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Gettin’ Loud All Summer Long
Something about summer always makes me nostalgic. The heat, the smell, the sounds — summers always remind me of hot sticky days in Louisville or frollicking in summer rainstorms at camp, two and three-a-day field hockey practices and the post-practice pain that aches in that sort of wonderful kind of way. But most of all,…
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Deep Greens and Blues
I’ll be honest: July has not been the kindest to me. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m moving, which in and of itself is a stressful ordeal. I‘m a nester, someone whose wanderlust runs counter to my extreme discomfort about any big life or location change. Add to that the serpentine torture of the…
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So Here’s the Spiel
There’s an episode in the first season of “Girls” when Hannah Horvath/Lena Dunham goes home to Michigan for a weekend. The ostensive purpose of the trip is to see her parents (if I recall correctly, an anniversary is involved), but our favorite would-be Voice of a Generation manages to squeeze in a date with her mother’s…
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All Other Nights: On Passover and Growing Up Jewish in the South
I think I grew into my Judaism. Yes, I was born Jewish, have practiced every year of my life. Even before I understood what it meant, It was always a part of me. I was Jewish the same way I was a Louisvillian or a Kentucky fan. As soon as I was old enough, I…
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Oh Tannenbaum
Decorating my family’s Christmas tree is hands down my favorite holiday tradition. When I was in high school, we would all make the trek on some blustery Saturday in mid-December to a local high school, where men in a field sold big fat conifers. After the traditional twenty minutes of arguing over one person’s pick…
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A Very Merry Holiday Marathon
December is a big month in my house. For starters, my mom is Jewish and my dad is Christian, so we get the double whammy of both Chanukah and Christmas. But the fun doesn’t stop there. My sister’s birthday is on the 13th, mine is on the 27th, and then it all wraps up with…
Zelda & Scout 