A Sweet & Healthy Happy New Year

May this new year bring health, happiness, blessing and peace.

From our family to yours...l'shana tova - Happy New Year and many blessings.

P.S. this is still our favorite shana tova video...

A Good & Sweet New Year!

From my family to yours...wishing you a shana tova, a year of goodness and blessing, peace and light.

Beautiful Giraffa Designs (and a Confession)

Confession: I LOVE to get New Year's cards. (I even love them at the secular new year.) I love seeing the pictures of my friends and family and their kids and I really love those annual letters that some of my friends send. I am incredibly jealous of people who do that each year - and it gives me such joy to read them. (Am I the only person who loves these things?) I hang them up in our kitchen, I show the pictures to the kids, I get all giddy like a child when I get them in the mail. Maybe it's because the mail is otherwise so boring. But I think it's because I love love love the way that these cards and letters connect me to those I love. (Then again, I even get a kick out of seeing the cards of perfect strangers - one of my friends gets a ton of them each year in December and I see them displayed at her house...and I look at them all, even though I don't know any of the people! Okay, maybe this weird thing is for another blog post....)

Confession: I never send New Year's cards.

{{{Sigh}}} Usually, I just can't get it together. And I feel like once I get started....it's a big ol' snowball. Can't I just send my blog? :-)

When my pal LeighAnn posted on her Facebook profile that she was starting up a new business, I shared her link. She makes beautiful designs (and babies, by the way) and I loved the design she did for her daughter's birth announcement. (Yeah, I usually don't do those either. I'm such a slacker.)

And then she offered me a free design - no strings attached! (So there's the disclosure - I did get these gorgeously designed cards for free but that's all!) And so I decided to do it and this would be the first year that I ever send out New Year's cards. So if you get one from me, thank LeighAnn, okay? (If you don't get one, don't blame her, blame me. This is one of the reasons I don't usually send them - I'm so scared of forgetting someone!)

Isn't it beautiful!?

It was awesome to work with her - all I did was pick out my favorite, send her a picture, and she emailed me the proof. I love it. And then I uploaded it to VistaPrint, and thanks to a coupon from Ebates, the whole thing was quite inexpensive.

So it does happen that LeighAnn is in the same line of work that I am in...so this is a busy time of year. I'm not entirely sure that you could get a card in time for Rosh haShanah. But you could get it in time for Sukkot, I'm sure, and it's well worth it. (My advice, pay for quicker shipping from VistaPrint, though, that was the slow part for me.) I believe that Giraffa Designs is planning on offering designs for other simchas and occasions, so check back or check with her directly if you're looking for something right now.


But: I'm not making any promises that I'll actually send out cards every year.

After all, next year there will be even more of us.

(Oh yeah, that announcement hasn't actually been formally made here on the blog...

God willing, new little Sommer will arrive around Chanukah)

Shana tova!

From my family to yours...May you have a year full of joy, goodness, health, and peace.

Yummy Mock Chopped Liver, I Promise!

Rabbis do a lot of stuff to prepare for the holidays. Most of us write sermons and freak out. I do that in spades, trust me.

I do not "make yontif" - generally the expression used to explain all the meal prep, cleaning, and welcoming of guests. For obvious reasons, I'm rarely around for the holiday meals. But I do love to cook and bake, as you might know. So I try to make something for the yontif table.

This year, my synagoguge held a Rosh HaShanah cooking class. The instructor, a wonderful woman named Ruth Ross, demonstrated a recipe for mock chopped liver that I totally fell in love with.

(Sidebar: I'm a vegetarian, as you might also know. I don't think I've eaten real chopped liver in 20 years.)

When she made it, she brought out a small container filled with deeply beautiful caramelized onions. She explained that they take 5-6 hours to slow-cook but add the right depth of flavor to the chopped "liver." I was totally sold.

I started with the onions, about five pounds, sliced.
Cooked for about 5 hours (with the help of my mom and dad who were hanging around for the day)
You can see how they cook down:

The finished onion product looked like this:

Then I refrigerated the onions (which they tell me will keep for a week or so, but I did add some to my eggs this morning...mmm....they won't last long.)

Now, onto the recipe:

1 cup lentils cooked in 2 cups water until tender (or one package of Trader Joe's prepared lentils...shhh)

about a cup of those amazing onions. or more

a smidge of oil

1 1/2 cups walnuts, toasted in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes

3 hard boiled eggs

Put the walnuts and onions in the food processor, and pulse til chopped.

Add lentils, and process until smooth. Add oil as needed but not too much.

Add eggs, add salt and pepper if you think it needs it.

Chill and eat!
P.S. Don't want to make the crazy onions? Just take 2 onions, chop and saute in a little oil. Then use those. Won't be quite as complex and amazing but it will be pretty darn good.

Absolutely delicious. Even the Abba thinks so!

May your new year be sweet, wonderful, and full of delicious smells and tastes.
May you find happiness and contentment, blessings and peace.
Shana tova!

Rosh HaShanah Giveaways

It's the first of September, which means that things are moving rapidly toward (gulp) the Jewish New Year.

In honor of these days of preparation, I offer two giveaways!

The first, you can go and get for yourself. It's truly a gift that you get each day in your inbox. It's called Jewels of Elul (see the big ol' button on the left-hand column over there?) and it's a wonderful collection of writings by various people on the theme of forgiveness. Click on over there and sign up for their free daily emails. It will be a wonderful addition to your High Holy Day preparations. (And for you rabbi-pals out there, it might give you some much-needed sermon inspiration!)

The second one is courtesy of Oh Nuts! Here's why I like them: First, they have great products! Second, they are kosher, which is great. Third, I'm really impressed by their marketing on Facebook and Twitter. They've built a great following and use the social media really well. (Oh and fourth, they seem to like me, which is nice.)

THREE WAYS to win - 2 from them and one through my lil' ol' blog. (Aren't you lucky?!)

1. To go to the Oh Nuts Rosh HaShanah gifts page.

Choose your favorite Rosh Hashanah Gift and leave a comment  HERE with the name of the gift. 
Tweet my giveaway for an extra entry...

(Did you see those yummy-looking chocolate-dipped apples!? Heaven, I tell you.)

On Thursday Sept 10, I will pick a random winner and Oh Nuts will send you a $20 gift from their site! What could be better?

2. Go to the Oh Nuts Facebook page and write on the wall your favorite Rosh Hashanah Gift.

3. Follow @ohnuts and  Tweet

Win a free Rosh Hashanah Gift from http://bit.ly/2OwulF. Follow @ohnuts and Retweet to enter
(Click here to tweet this!)

Absolutely full disclosure: if I get more than 40 comments on this post, I will get my own gift from Oh Nuts! So help me out, folks!!! Tell your friends...thanks!

May the new year....

...be free of whatever bugs you.



May the new year bring us all blessings and peace.

L'shana tova from my family to yours.

Best Shots, like this crazy one of my family, are all over here.

Hiding under a Rock

Okay so in case I don't get to post anything between now and Rosh HaShanah, I think I'm declaring a little bitty High Holy Day hiatus. At least I wasn't called for jury duty...but I'm still pretty darn busy. Tomorrow is the opening day of my new preschool Shabbat program (12 weeks of Friday afternoons), I've been teaching every night, opening Hebrew School, Tichon (our 7th/8th grade program), Sunday School, and just about everything else is moving along too. Oh, yeah, and preparing for High Holy Day services. Sermons, readings, stories....plus my own personal preparation...

So.

I might get to posting.
I might get to reading all of your wonderful blogs.

But I might not.

So I'm telling you now. In case you're worried about me.

I'll be back. After Rosh HaShanah.
Maybe before. (it's hard to stay away!)

So to tide you over....

Blow the Shofar...my Best Shot Monday

Doesn't he look spiffy? This is David, dressed to the nines for Rosh HaShanah, his first time going to something other than the Tot Services...and toting along his own Shofar. A shofar is a ram's horn that is blown on Rosh HaShanah to start off the New Year. Its sound is primal and strange, considered to be a "wake-up" to us as we begin the year, wake up to our past, wake up to our future.


I love the way he is trying so hard to make the sound come out of the Shofar. It's very hard to blow, there is a special technique that is tricky to master. This too, I believe to be part of the lesson of the shofar...it's not easy to make the sound come out, it takes a great deal of work and practice. Being the best human beings we can be...that too takes work and practice. Sometimes we just get a squawk out of the shofar, sometimes we miss the mark in our dealings with other people. But we must keep practicing and working at it!

See more Best Shot Monday at Picture This...

Unwrapping the Mind...Taking a Breath...

This week's challenge over at Wrapped Emotions is...

With your digital camera in hand...and I know you have one because I see the photos you post on your blog...step forth into the world. A public place, not your living room or Aunt Bessie's kitchen. Think of places you frequent...a park, a museum (where cameras are allowed), a store, a playground, but do not be limited by my suggestions. Find an object or objects that you have seen before...by objects I mean anything from buildings to poles to poodles to garbage trucks, anything. Lie on your back on the ground or floor and snap at least one photo from that vantage point. Relax.

This has been a busy week for me. With Rosh HaShanah in the middle, I've been rushing around. I think I've only taken a few pics in general, let alone bring my camera into a public place. Have I been in any public places? See the dilemma...

So today, what is technically the second day of Rosh HaShanah (I'm usually a one-day gal myself, but I did lead second-day services at Am Shalom this morning), I am relaxing at home, getting things done, and enjoying the absolutely amazing weather. But I'm still not in a public place!

So...I did the best I could. I went outside into my front yard -- pretty public, don't you think? I laid out on the grass...it was wonderful. For a moment, I just breathed. I looked at the gorgeous trees above me and I marvelled at the wonder of God's creation. The Torah reading for the 2nd Day of Rosh HaShanah is the story of Creation, Genesis Chapter 1. I think that the fall is the perfect time to contemplate creation as everything is so beautiful and lush and perfect...

And so I captured these pics...of the trees above and this one of the roofline of my house. Both are certainly a new view for me, I don't think I've ever laid down in my front yard.

And that is the other lesson of these Holy Days -- to look outside yourself, to look outside your comfort zone, and see the world as you'd like it to be. Looking at these trees, this blue sky, doesn't the world look perfect? I must believe that we have the capacity to make it so...

See more participants at Wrapped Emotions...

A Sweet and Happy New Year

Here's a funny reminder of the sweetness of the new year. May your year be filled with blessings.