Such a change inevitably causes some stress, friction, hiccups, and a general emptiness (as in, WHERE’S MY EMAIL??). However, we appear to have gotten through it with minimal damage, very few missing items, and only a handful of duplicated contacts. We are all also still available for contact through our signature email addresses, and have not switched over to new and/or weird Gmail addresses.

My brother handed me an article this morning on email, and how misinterpretation of typed text has become somewhat of an epidemic in our culture. I don’t know why that should be – people always tell me I type exactly the way that I speak. Perhaps that’s not the case for everyone, or perhaps these people have been lying to me all my life. Either way, emails are often “taken the wrong way” and hurt feelings can be the outcome. This article, printed in the January 2012 edition of Entrepreneur, humorously suggested answering all emails in the style of Robert De Niro, with short, savvy, one-word answers. Like “Yes”, “No”, “Sure”, “Great”, and “Sorry”, and basically communicating to those with more fragile feelings to get over it. It’s email.

What I found most interesting was the final few paragraphs, which emphasized the “power of small messages of sincerity and hope”. The author used “Thank you” as an example – apparently, these two precious words have fallen out of favor with our speed-reading, busy, hurried, rushed generation, and one rarely sees them in email anymore. This, the author says, makes it a powerful message. Almost extravagent. It makes it memorable. And, unlike so many other things we say or type, these words are virtually impossible to misinterpret.

One more interesting comment from this email article:

“Not only should you assume that every email you send will get forwarded to someone else, you should assume that every email you send will someday be read aloud in a court of law. Discretion.”

Yikes. Food for thought, isn’t that?

Nothing is sacred. Someone is always watching.

Or listening.

Or reading.

Probably because I don’t remember to post often enough.

So every post I write ends up being a summation of a large portion of our lives…sorry about that. Perhaps this new year will bring more regular posting from The Residence.

Here are a few updates for you:

• Morgan Bartos is pregnant!! She and Gregory are SUPER excited about the upcoming birth of their baby girl (lovingly termed “Raspberry”, for the time being) in March. She continues to post frequent updates on her own personal blog, torahgirl.wordpress.com.
• I’m engaged! I wrote, back in June, about the start of my courtship with Joshua Spurlock. Well, on October 23, with the beautiful autumnal trees of Biltmore Estate as a perfect backdrop, he asked me to marry him. If you’re really interested in that, you can actually see the proposal here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KI2CzppMdo). Joshua filmed it without me knowing. (!)
• Christine is keeping busy, nannying small children and taking care of elderly women – what a woman she is!
• Peter, while working full-time for our family business, has also managed to record and release his very first album, entitled “Bygones Be”. It is 100% self-composed piano music, and is available on iTunes. I consider it a must-buy.
• Mary is chugging away through her schoolwork, as well as handling the logistics of our company. Her birthday is coming up next week, and none of us can believe she’s turning 17. Yikes.
• My parents are happy as ever, and eagerly awaiting the day when they will become grandparents. It’s hard to think about that becoming a reality…wow.

Our family as a whole is doing very well, and the new year started off excellently, with the viewing of the 5-hour BBC Austen epic “Pride & Prejudice” and an appropriate toast with bubbly.

My sisters, mother, and I spent a few days at our grandparents’ mountain estate (although they weren’t actually there), enjoying some delightful bonding time and relaxation. The mountains in the winter is one of my favorite places to be. Fireplaces in cold weather really do it for me.

Yesterday, we celebrated Morgan’s baby shower with the women of our congregation; Morgan is at 32 weeks! My sisters would say that we should make a paper chain, the time has gotten so short.

That, I believe, sums everything up and brings you up to date. Now, let’s see if I can keep things that way, so that I don’t have to do another one of these catch-up posts in June!

Anyway, my mother, Mary, and I went up for a short visit two Wednesdays ago. We stayed for a day, and came home on Friday morning. My grandfather had baked us an apple pie, which we enjoyed after lunch upon our arrival.

It was cool and breezy in Bristol, the perfect temperature. One of the things I like the most about going to Bristol is walking through the gorgeous hills of my grandparents’ golfing neighborhood. Their house is actually situated at the top of a steep hill, and there isn’t a single square foot of flat ground in the entire subdivision. It reminds me a little of Israel in that respect – always a good thing.

Mary and I took many enjoyable walks. One afternoon, we even took a Penny Tour. For the uninitiated, a Penny Tour is when you flip a coin to determine your route. Heads you go right, tails you go left. Or vice versa. I’m not sure if there’s a right and wrong, but Mary and I made up the rules as we went along. This certainly allowed us to see more of the neighborhood than we might otherwise have found time to view.

On Thursday, my grandfather took us to visit Heartwood, an central hub for Southwest Virginia’s arts and crafts. Besides the interesting and impressive art, musical instruments, and pottery, Heartwood also boasts a full cafe and coffee/wine bar. Mary and I had a lot of fun taking cool pictures and sipping some of the most inexpensive iced coffee we’ve ever bought.

Spending time with my grandparents is always a treat, and this trip was no different. They are some of the most hospitable hosts I know, and there home feels almost like a mountain retreat, so comfortable do they make us.

I’m thinking another trip is in order, perhaps when the leaves start to change color…

Christine, the tower of strength? Christine the Flinty? Christine, who is made of steel covered in silk?

It was inconceivable.

So I rushed downstairs to find out what was going on.

Turns out that Christine had made the family a delicious zucchini egg casserole, using our brand new, Williams-Sonoma mandoline. In the midst of cleaning this dangerous kitchen tool, she inadvertantly sliced off the tips of two of her fingers. It was pretty intense…and there was a good deal of blood going on – I’ll refrain from further descriptive comments, in case you’re one of those people who gets easily grossed out.

Being the homemade, slightly eccentric, all-natural family that we are, Christine’s first thought when this happened was to staunch the bleeding with cayenne pepper. I hear it stung like nobody’s business, but it definitely did slow things down. After cleaning the wounds, we smothered them in People Paste, which is made up of myrrh, echinacea goldenseal, and cayenne, mixed with honey, and wrapped everything safely in gauze and medical tape.

Our mother assures us that everyone cuts their fingers on a mandoline once. It only takes one time, she says.

Christine and I, previous to this incident, had talked about getting ourselves mandolines for our hope chests, but…not anymore. We are now convinced that they are of the devil. Only sharp knives for us!

My mom has recently rediscovered canning; she is a woman of myriad talents, and she tends to phase in and out of some of them (like canning), while sticking with loyalty and passion to others (like knitting). Canning is back in vogue in our home at the moment, which is most beneficial to me. Yesterday, my mother and I made apricot vanilla-bean preserves together.

Mouth-watering, I know.

We took six pounds of fresh apricots and four vanilla beans, mixed them with a splash of rose and a few handfuls of sugar, and cooked them to death. The apricots softened and rendered their delightful juices, which then thickened and sweetened. Those vanilla beans added to the preserves those beautiful, gourmet black specks, and the smell…was divine.

The canning itself was much like a kitchen chemistry experiment – the pressure of boiling water forces all air out of the jars of goodness, creating a vacuum when they are removed from said water. This vacuum is what keeps a gentle suction on the top of the lid, sealing it for preservation. I don’t know who figured it out, but they were a genius. The whole process was a magnificent amount of fun, and one I cannot wait to repeat in the near future.

Plus, the preserves tasted even better than they smelled. I call that a win-win.

Yeah, I kind of did, too.

But something got me thinking about the whole birthday thing a few months ago, and I started to feel like maybe we shouldn’t be celebrating those, after all.

A friend of mine pointed out that we as a nation celebrate those dates when special events that affected our destiny occurred, like Independence Day. As individuals, then, shouldn’t we celebrate those dates of personal significance? And what could be more significant than the day of your birth? Perhaps we should just celebrate in a different way from the rest of the world.

I wavered.

After getting my mother’s opinion (birthdays are a celebration of LIFE – what’s wrong with that?!), I decided that my birthday could be recognized, but that I would strive to make my celebration as unique as I could, possibly including some Jewish traditions.

So. For those of you who don’t know, my beloved brother’s birthday is two days after mine, on June 9. One warm afternoon, we sat down on the swing and concocted a birthday party idea to end all birthday party ideas.

This past Thursday, it finally rolled around, and we had a BLAST! As our good friend Monk says on so many of his TV shows, here’s what happened:

Everyone arrived around 5:30/6:00. We had about fifteen young people here, including Gregory & Morgan Bartos (married though they are now <wink>). The first thing we did was dessert. That one thing was what catapulted our party idea creativity to stardom and helped us come up with our Plan. Our family eats kosher, and we separate meat and dairy (we wait about 3 hours meat to dairy, more like 30 minutes or 1 hour dairy to meat, per traditional rulings). Since our menu for dinner was burgers & hot dogs, we had to have our very dairy-based dessert first, so that we could fit everything in.

From that point on, we turned a traditional birthday party on its head. We had dessert, and THEN we did the “Happy Birthday” song. Everything had a catch, though – the birthday song was *clapped*, not sung (“clappy birthday”, as Peter dubbed it). Hilarious!

We had asked people specifically to bring no gifts; I think that sometimes people look at a big birthday celebration as a way of raking in the gifts – what a terrible way of using your friends and their affection for you. Ok, I’m off that soapbox. After dessert, we told everyone it was “time for gifts”, and we all headed inside. I could hear the murmurings behind me of, “What gifts?” and “Didn’t they tell us not to bring any gifts?!”

And yet, when we all got inside, there was a whole stack of birthday gifts sitting there on the table, waiting to be opened. That’s because Peter and I had taken the traditional gift-giving of a birthday party and reversed it – we got our friends gifts, instead! On a side not, it was SUCH FUN shopping for everyone, walking around the Blakeney shopping center for an entire Sunday afternoon, trying to find the perfect item for each person. We didn’t come home until we had succeeded in that. Since I don’t particularly like opening presents (although there’s nothing wrong with receiving them – it’s really just the opening), this was a perfect way to slither out from under that pressure, and allow our friends to enjoy tearing paper and untying bows.

I think they were suitably surprised.

Then, we moved on to the activities of the evening. One of the Jewish traditions with regard to birthdays is to recite your birthday psalm. Actually, you’re supposed to do that every day all year. But on your birthday, you get a new psalm to start reciting. It’s traditionally your age +1, so Peter’s is Psalm 19 and mine is Psalm 23. Both of those are really great psalms, and Peter and I had come up with an activity for each of them to bring our party focus to the Scriptures.

We started with mine, since we already had everyone in a circle. Each person got a copy of Psalm 23, and Peter turned on our recorder. As fluidly as possible, we read the psalm around the room, one word at a time. So I said, “The,” and Morgan followed with, “L-rd,” and Gregory followed with “Is,” and so on. With only a few misspeaks (for which we started over, after loud bursts of laughter), we made it through the whole thing. I can’t wait to hear the recording.

Then we split into two teams for Psalm 19. We had printed it off and cut it into one-line strips. Each team had to reassemble the psalm in the correct order before the other team could do it. Psalm 19 is longer than Psalm 23, and is filled with repetitive Hebrew poetry, so it was difficult to put things in their proper place. As I watched the hands of my friends rearrange little strips of the Bible, their heads bent to the table in dedication, I was awed by the favor of G-d toward us, in allowing us a group of close friends who would actually want to sit there and pore over a Scripture passage like that. What a privilege!

When one team had finally gotten things in order, we cheered and moved on to the next item on our agenda. Ignoring frequent comments from a few of our guests with regard to FOOD and DINNER, we took our friends on a walk down the sidewalk to the church right around the corner from The Residence. Our thought was to focus our minds and hearts on our mortality – we are here today and gone tomorrow. Shouldn’t we then strive to make every moment count? Shouldn’t we “repent the day before we die”, as Hillel says? The church down the road has a moderately-sized cemetery, and we wanted to go have a look, and at the same time, do a mini photo shoot. It’s not often that you have all your friends (ok, MOST of your friends) in one place. Peter, in keeping with our upside-down and totally-reversed theme for the evening, suggested we take pictures of backs rather than faces. It was a very interesting shoot…

Having promised everyone that food would be next, we walked home (some of our guys ran the whole way, which was quite the feat in the muggy afterstorm atmosphere) and grilled up some meat. Many thanks to our dear brother-in-law, Gregory, who stood tirelessly by the grill, and provided us with perfect burgers and dogs to serve to the rest of the guests. He really is a gem.

Dinner was quick, as everyone chowed down and inhaled their food. Guess they were hungry…

After blessing G-d, we moved inside, to escape the close air and to gather in more of a circle for our next activity. When each person had arrived, we had given them a thank-you note. They hadn’t realized it at the time, but that was all part of the master Reversal Plan (normally, you’d get a thank-you note after the party). In the note, we thanked them for coming, and gave them each a topic upon which they’d be asked to speak later in the evening. That time had now come.

Again, we had the recorder on, so all of this will live in infamy. It’s been a while since I’ve laughed that hard, I have to say. Each person segued from topic to topic as seamlessly as possible, and then tried to work in their answer to our question without telling us what they had been asked – I was so proud of all of them! No one shied away from the challenge, wriggled uncomfortably, or declared themselves unwilling to speak. Their creativity was boundless, and their answers superb.

When we had gone the full round, and everyone had spoken, we announced the final item on the schedule: fruit. You see, it’s traditional in Judaism to taste a new fruit on your birthday (one you haven’t had that season), and recite the special blessing after doing so (Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, Who has kept us in life, sustained us, and brought us to this season). Our family is into fruit, so there weren’t many we hadn’t had this season yet. However, Peter and I went to the grocery store together and found the perfect solution. Horned melon!

Now, you really need to know what this stuff is to appreciate the rest of the story, so I’ll give you a moment to look it up on Wikipedia.

Ok, ready?

So we came home that afternoon with three horned melons poking out of our plastic bag, and sat down to watch YouTube videos on how the things are supposed to be cut open and eaten. They are resilient green on the inside, even with their oddly orange exterior, and filled with mammoth cucumber-like seeds suspended in what looks like green jello that didn’t quite set. But green jello normally has an intense, artificial lime flavor, and this goop was a gentle mix of banana and cucumber – very inoffensive. The skin, we read, was edible, packed with vitamin C and fiber. Eating skin with horns is for the brave, that much I’ll say.

So Peter and I attacked our melons, cut them into more inviting pieces, and wrapped things up to wait for that moment in our party. We did not try any of the melon, much as we were tempted.

At long last, at 9:40pm, we presented our guests with pieces of horned melon, oozing green globs of goodness from its crunchy orange peel. I couldn’t believe it, but every single one of our brave partygoers tried it. True, some stuck with one bite and grimaced, but a few even had a second piece. And some ate the skin! Together, we were all able to bless G-d for bringing us to this season – nothing like horned melon to help you remember that G-d is the One keeping us here, one breath at a time. In fact, I’m thinking of making those scary-looking things a birthday tradition…

Without further ado, we packed everyone up and sent them home. I was floating on air – it was positively one of the best birthday parties I’ve ever had. Scratch that – I think it was THE best.

(skydiving doesn’t count as a party )

Happy birthday to us! May you enjoy yourselves as much as we did when your turn rolls around!

Well, not *all* about it. I’m much better in person.

But here’s the bottom line: a young man in our congregation actually bit the bullet and asked my dad if he could court me. Seriously! And then he asked me if I would be interested in that, and I, of course, said yes. In fact, I barely let him finish his sentence, I was so excited. Not just because “this is finally happening to me”, although there’s that, too. But also because, out of all of the excellent young men of my acquaintance, this particular one would be my top choice when it comes to Husband Material. So, in that sense, it was not only textbook – it was fairytale.

After a few days of living on adrenaline, very little sleep, and a lot of coffee, my father made the official announcement of this official relationship at our Shabbat gathering this past week, making *us*…official! That renewed all of my initial excitement, as the congratulations and mazel tovs continued to pour in from around the world (believe it or not).

Almost every single person I’ve told about this new milestone in my life has responded with something along the lines of, “Well, I totally saw that coming,” or “It’s about time,” or “I’ve always thought you two would be perfect together!”, etc. <sigh> While I agree with being perfect together, the suddenness of this blindsided me a little, so I don’t see how people could possible say that it’s about time. <wink>

And now I’ve made it through the entire post telling you all of this, and at the same time, leaving you completely in the dark, because I never told you that it’s Joshua Spurlock. Yes, for real! We’ve known the Spurlock family for nine whole years as of next week – crazy! Unbelievably cool, too.

I am so very happy, so overjoyed, so overwhelmed, so excited, and so blessed. Keep us in your prayers as we walk down this path…together.

[today is forty-three days of the Omer; that is, 6 weeks and 1 day]

For such an unassuming man, we certainly sing his praises to the high heavens. Our Uncle Fred is easygoing, hilarious, and downright cool. He is beginning to look more like my dad, I think, but there are still marked differences…for one thing, we always have to comment on how young Uncle Fred and Aunt Stephanie look, and we attribute this to their non-existent children. With kids, we’ve decided, come laugh-lines and worry-lines, gray hair and gravitas. Since our aunt and uncle have no children, they are missing those facial characteristics, which lends a carefreeness to their general presence.

Anyway, we all enjoyed having our dear Uncle Fred with us for an entire weekend. I say “all”, becaue over the course of the past week, Mr. & Mrs. Bartos II (that’s Greg & Morgan) graced us with their presence just about every other day. It felt like old times, having them here so much. Also, I took the opportunity to loan out my room to Uncle Fred, and joined my sisters in their bedroom for the weekend. Aside from the fact that I no longer have a bed in there, that really did bring back all kinds of memories. Lots of fun.

And so life slowly circles onward, as we continue counting our days. My mother’s daughters (one has to wonder, is that really the easiest way to say it? I can’t use “Squicciarini girls” anymore, because one of us isn’t, and “Squicciarini & Bartos girls” isn’t true either, because Greg has a sister…”Squicciarini girls + Morgan Bartos” works, but it’s a little awkward) are accompanying her to the spa today for a massage. That was our Mother’s Day gift, and it’s finally been scheduled! We’re all hoping that she feels pampered and indescribably soothed after this experience. We’ll see.

Remember that Memorial Day is less than a week away! You might want to look it up and do some research on why we call it that, and what we’re celebrating – turns out over half of our country doesn’t know. Be one of the ones who does, ok?

[today is thirty-five days of the Omer; that is, 5 weeks]

Christine is turning 20 tomorrow! That’s right – my tall, gorgeous sister of infamous pouty lip and artistic excellence is stepping into a new decade. She is leaving her teen years behind, embarking on what is believed to be the best years of one’s life. We spoke about this transition as a family last night; it turns out that during my mom’s 20s, she got engaged, got married, moved three times, bought a house, had two children, and switched jobs upwards of four times. When asked what she was doing when she actually turned 20, as Christine will be doing tomorrow, she grinned and said, “The same thing I had been doing before – getting into trouble!” [Our mom was a real wild child.] We are all looking forward to seeing what Christine accomplishes in this new decade.

She started the celebrations last week with a birthday dinner at Cowfish, among friends. Cowfish was recommended by Morgan, who had gone with a friend and enjoyed her meal immensely. It’s a SouthPark restaurant specializing in sushi and burgers, oddly enough. Their menu is a veritable book, and the choices are endless. Eating kosher is a little tricky, but Christine printed off the menu for us before we went, so that we could pore over it, Sharpie in hand, and cross out anything we couldn’t have. Worked like a charm. Christine strategically invited some friends to join us, and it was a really fun time. Mary was snapping pictures non-stop, so we also have some good memories.

Tomorrow evening, we will be spending time as a [complete] family – Greg & Morgan will be here with us, eating Christine’s favorite dish, salmon, and helping us celebrate the fact that we have Christine. She’s a special lady.

In Judaism, birthdays aren’t such a huge deal. However, I like to think of them as a day we can each set apart to look back on our lives and thank G-d for all that He has allowed us to do, and where He has allowed us to go. It’s an opportunity to thank G-d for those who have influenced our lives for the better, and pray that we merit to do the same in the lives of others. B”H, He will enable us to continue to walk in His ways and touch the future.

In honor of Christine, we pray:

“Chopped” is a cooking contest in which four chefs compete to produce a three-course meal using key ingredients from baskets, which they are each given at the beginning of the round. There are three rounds, one for each course, and one chef is eliminated each time, leaving one chef the champion of that “Chopped Challenge”. The ingredients in the baskets are unknown to the contestants until they actually open them, on the show, and they are given a very short amount of time to produce their entries – exciting. They are judged on taste, presentation, and creativity. The ingredients are usually either odd combinations or just plain weird, so the show is very fun to watch (if you’re into cooking).

We came up with an idea to play off of this show on our own, and stage a personal “Chopped” night here at the Residence. All of us love to cook, and Christine, Mary, and I thought we might be up to the challenge of cooking with surprise ingredients, selected by our mom. We chose to cook together, as a team, rather than compete against one another. Competing would have been a little too difficult, I believe, since we would all be in the same kitchen at the same time, getting in each other’s way and stealing each other’s ideas. <wink> Plus, our family is all about unification.

So, weeks ago, my mom started planning our “Chopped” night. She carefully selected the ingredients for each course, and successfully kept them all completely secret until we saw them (moments before diving into the kitchen to cook). She invited another couple to join us as judges (Rick & Beverly Hergenreter), so that a [hopefully] gourmet three-course meal would not go to waste on two. Peter decided to play Ted Allen’s role of emcee, and get to partake in the food as well.

Last night, we finally did it.

Christine, Mary, and I had been looking forward to this evening for weeks. We were so excited about seeing the ingredients our mom had chosen, and just a little nervous about coming up with a creative idea for each “basket” (our mom actually did paper bags, which was cooler).

Our guests arrived, and the chefs and judges were introduced. My mom had given the three of us chefs toques, which we were sporting with pride. My grandfather assures me that if you’re going to cook, you need to wear the hat; otherwise, people tend to question your seasoning choices or cooking times. The hat, he insists, gives you ultimate authority in the kitchen. I have to agree with him there.

Amid much excitement and suspense, we opened the first paper bag. For the appetizer round, we had to use radicchio, boxed macaroni & cheese, fresh strawberries, and multigrain corn thins. I was absolutely horrified when I pulled out the macaroni & cheese. Junk food?! What was my mom thinking?? What in the world were we going to DO?

We dashed into the kitchen. In less than two minutes, we had a plan. Even I can’t believe we decided on something that quickly. We decided to form the macaroni & cheese into mock arancini, coat them in corn thin crumbs, fry them, and serve them in a pool of strawberry sauce on a radicchio leaf (radicchio is a purple, bitter, Italian chicory). Arancini are fried rice balls, commonly made from leftover risotto, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Christine and I had made them once or twice before this, and had had huge success. We just hoped that using cheap macaroni & cheese would work as well as risotto.

Mary started on the strawberries, I got a pot of water boiling and peeled off radicchio leaves, and Christine threw the corn thins in the blender to pulverize. On “Chopped”, the contestants are given 20 minutes for the appetizer. I guess we had that in mind, because we were moving as fast as we possibly could, even though we had decided not to time our rounds. Before long, our macaroni was cooked and the disgusting cheese packet added. We were at a little bit of a loss when it came to forming our macaroni balls, though. Risotto is very starchy, so it sticks together automatically. Macaroni & cheese, on the other hand, doesn’t. We dumped a few things in, we used a pastry blender to chop up the noodles a little more to allow for golf-sized balls instead of tennis-sized, and began to fry. Christine is an expert fryer. I am petrified of hot oil, myself, so we were all grateful to have Fearless C on our team.

I tackled the strawberry sauce while the arancini fried, adding a little balsamic vinegar to cut the grease, and then some sugar, to soften the acidity. Mary painstakingly sliced strawberries into little fans, leaving the green tops intact, to use as a garnish. Peter was frequently in the kitchen with Christine’s camera, asking how things were going, so we have pictures of each of dishes, as well as our entire experience.

A radicchio leaf, a scoop of sauce, one of our arancini, and a strawberry on top for garnish – we named it “Mock Arancini with Strawberry Balsamic Reduction, served on Radicchio”.

We wowed our judges with the presentation of the appetizer – I’m not exactly sure what they were expecting, but apparently not what we gave them. I think that’s a good thing. Combining scores, they gave us a 7.5 for taste, 10 for presentation, and 8.5 for creativity (all scores out of 10), 8.5 overall. Our strawberry sauce got rave reviews, but our arancini were lacking flavor, and one of the judges dinged us on creativtiy, saying, “Using the radicchio leaf as a cup for the rest of the appetizer is SO 5-minutes-ago.” Regardless, we were pleased with ourselves for surprising them, and for using the macaroni in a creative way, rather than sticking it in a pile on the plate.

We opened the next bag.

For the entree round, we had gluten-free granola, tilapia fillets, fennel bulb, and freeze-dried apple chips.

Honestly, I wasn’t too worried until we got back into the kitchen and opened up the apples. I was expecting those little apple chips you see in stores sometimes…really thin, kind of crunchy, a skinny band of red peel all the way around the edge…hard to explain. Anyway, these were NOT those. They weren’t just dried; they were freeze-dried. That meant that they were basically the same size as regular apple slices, but they had the consistency of styrofoam and a strong fake flavor. We brushed them aside for the moment, went with the obvious path of crushing the granola and breading our fish in it, and using the fennel in a chutney of sorts on top. The apple chips were the bane of our existence. What to do, what to do?

Christine suggested we try throwing them in some hot water to rehydrate them, and use them that way. We did that with a few of them, but thank goodness we didn’t use the whole package – remember, they weren’t DRIED. They were FREEZE-dried. So all of the fake apple flavor with which they had been injected was sucked out into the water, leaving us with limp pieces of white mush, which somehow used to be apple.

We threw them into the pot with our fennel, and added some real chopped apple on top of it, to reinforce the apple flavor. A little butter, some white wine, fresh lemon juice, and a handful of cranberries, and our chutney was well on its way to being ready.

The fish, breaded in crushed granola and parmesan, was in the oven. It was hard to remember to keep an eye on it, but it ended up not overcooking (baruch HaShem!).

Christine realized that we had no filler. We had used pasta in the first round, so we knew we couldn’t double that up and use it as a bed for our fish in this round…but what to use instead? Rice would take too long, so we went with quinoa. Well, we *started* to go with quinoa, but then we ditched it and cut up some potatoes. Christine crisped them up in some oil, getting that nice brown color on both sides. Mary made a mustard sauce to add some pop (one of the judges had specifically mentioned mustard in the previous round, so we hoped this would win us some favor).

A swirl of mustard sauce, two crispy potato rounds, a fish fillet gently resting on top of them, with a scoop of fennel chutney and a lemon twist – we called it “Granola-Encrusted Tilapia Fillets Over Crispy Potato Rounds, served with a Fennel Apple Chutney and Creamy Mustard Sauce”.

The judges gave us 9.5 on taste, 9.5 on presentation, and 8.5 on creativity, for a total of 9.0 overall. They cited a lack of color on our plate – everything looked a little brown; if we had added a green vegetable of some sort, it would have really added to the presentation. The taste was great (the fish was perfectly cooked!), and our mustard sauce was the star of the show. We lost points because there wasn’t enough! One judge renamed it the “Dancing Lemon, Reclining Tilapia”, and another said that our chutney was amazing, and there was a perfect ratio of chutney to fish.

At this point, we opened the next bag, but we didn’t start on it immediately. We took our time, had some dinner ourselves, and stared thoughtfully at our dessert ingredients.

For the dessert round, we had to use cinnamon-sugar donuts, white chocolate, aged cheddar cheese, and limes.

I was totally stumped.

All of my ideas incorporated everything so perfectly, and I would get excited about trying them, and then I would remember the cheddar, and that I hadn’t worked it in. It stuck out like a sore thumb – like the fourth side of a triangle.

We brainstormed as we ate, feasting on revamped arancini, the remainder of the fish, drowned in mustard sauce, and grape leaves stuffed with rice (an Earth Fare treat my mom had picked up for us). Finally, we decided.

We cut the donuts in half and toasted them, melting some of the cheddar on the bottom halves, and sprinkling them with some turbinado sugar and shaved ginger. The top halves, we dipped in melted white chocolate, grated lime zest all over them, and stuck them in the refrigerator to harden. Looking for a sandwich effect, we made a lime and cream cheese filling to stick between the layers, which turned out to be our demise. A lot of lime juice went into that cream cheese, and we still weren’t happy with the end result. Right before we finished plating, we decided it needed more color, so we stuck some bright yellow mango on top.

A donut half, topped with melted aged cheddar, turbinado, and ginger shavings, with a dollop of lime cream and a mango strip, with another donut half, dipped in white chocolate and covered in lime zest, leaning against it – we had such trouble coming up with an inventive name! We went with “Lime Cloud atop a Sugar Donut with Ginger and Aged Cheddar, served with a Mango Involtini”. As an aside, an involtini is actually a thin strip of something (usually beef or chicken), stuff and rolled up. In this case, it was a mango roll, but we wanted a classier name than that. The judges were suitably impressed.

We dove back into the kitchen as soon as we brought it out, because we all knew it wasn’t going to be great. We didn’t want to hear the judges reactions. We were exhausted, exceptionally hot, and very ready to sit down and relax.

Sure enough, our dessert scored lowest. We got a 6 on taste, 8 for presentation, 7 for creativity, and a 7.0 overall. The taste, the judges said, was confusing. They loved the top donut half, with the white chocolate and lime – excellent! But the lime cream was too sour, and they didn’t have enough cheddar cheese to get that exciting salty flavor in with the sweet. We could only agree.

Of course, after the whole thing was over, we figured out exactly how we should have used the cheddar, to create a stunning and delicious dessert. But then it was too late. <sigh>

Mary made us chefs some anise tea (a new Pukka digestif we picked up recently – great stuff!), and we sat down with the judges and talked the whole thing through, beginning to end, all the dirty details. It was such fun. They were kind enough to say that it was very hard for them to critique us, as they were blown away by what we had done with each paper bag.

Be that as it may, I’m just in shock that we were able to do it at all. No recipes, no measurements, no prior knowledge of the ingredients? I’m amazed! Just goes to show you what an incredible cook and teacher our mom must be, you know?

Happy Mother’s Day, Mums. We love you!

P.S. – we’re looking for a repeat performance next month! Woohoo!

[today is twenty days of the Omer; that is, 2 weeks and 6 days]