Cook Dinner
Who doesn’t love a home-cooked dinner? We certainly do. In fact, what time can you come over to start the oven? Cooking for your family is the fundamental way to show you love them. Plus the studies show that kids who sit down with their families for dinner several times a week are less likely to get involved with negative influences like drugs and alcohol. How wonderful it is to walk into the house, smell something yummy and enjoy a good meal together. But the truth is that cooking dinner is a really hard thing to accomplish nowadays. You are the chauffeur from the time school ends until dinnertime, at which point everyone is starving and you haven’t had any time to cook. What’s left? The local fast-food joint or, if you splurge, the local diner. No wonder we are all fighting battles of the bulge.
Yes, it’s “do as we say, not as we do” time. Our advice is great, even if we don’t always use it ourselves. Cooking dinner makes a huge difference in family life. Probably the biggest single difference you can make to improve a host of things, from family harmony to education to good nutrition, is to sit down to a home-cooked meal together. But now that we think about it, it really doesn’t matter who does the cooking. So maybe you can find a more creative solution than we did. We hear personal chefs are fantastic, if you can afford them.
Growing up, Mommy cooked dinner five nights a week. She had a break on Tuesday night when Ethel made her famous fried chicken, and Wednesdays when it was “Dad’s night out” and we ate pizza. On Sundays, once in a while, we had Chinese takeout. Other than that, it was Mom. And speaking of dinner, we thought you might want to know a few of our favorite family recipes.
FROM THE KITCHEN OF
Lisa
LISA’S CHICKEN SOUP WITH MATZOH BALLS: BE WARNED, THIS TAKES TWO DAYS
1 kosher chicken, cut in quarters (no
livers)
1 large pot of water
1 large onion, peeled
1 tbsp. kosher salt
1 5-lb. bag of long carrots, peeled and
diced
1 bunch of celery, diced
matzoh ball mix
fresh Italian parsley
1. Wash chicken thoroughly with hot and cold water.
2. Place chicken in full pot of cold water on stove.
3. Add whole onion.
4. Add salt.
5. Boil on high, then reduce to simmer for 4 hours, minimum.
6. Add carrots.
7. Add celery.
8. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 4 more hours.
9. Turn off stove. After pot is cooled down, place in refrigerator, covered.
10. The next morning, skim fat from the top.
11. Debone the chicken and place the meat back into the soup.
12. Make matzoh ball mix as instructed. We like Manishewitz brand. Note: Boil the matzoh balls in half seltzer, half water.
13. Make sure you keep the matzoh balls separate from the soup until a couple of hours before you are ready to serve. Then place cooked matzoh balls into the soup. Reheat.
14. Add fresh chopped parsley to taste right before serving.
FROM THE KITCHEN OF
Jill
JILL’S POTATO LATKES, IN MEMORY OF GRANDMA HELEN
6 white potatoes
1 egg
1 onion, if desired
1 tsp. salt
matzoh meal
vegetable oil (do not use any other kind
of oil)
Peel potatoes, cut them in half and boil them in water until soft. Put cooked potatoes in a bowl. Add egg, grated onion if desired, and 1 tablespoon from the “dirty” water you boiled the potatoes in. Add salt. Mix until lumpy. Hand make thick pancakes, about the size of a small hamburger patty, and roll them in matzoh meal on both sides. Heat up ½ inch of vegetable oil on medium. Lightly fry the pancakes until crispy brown on both sides.
FROM THE KITCHEN OF
Gloria
GLORIA’S POT ROAST
deckel (This is a fattier cut of meat than
brisket, and the typical size is 3-4 lbs.
This will feed about 6 people)
2 packets Goodman’s onion soup mix
1 large or 2 small onions
Heinz ketchup (we’ve tried others; they
don’t come out as well)
1 cup water
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. If your oven is slow, 375°F.
2. With heavy-duty tinfoil, form a cross with two large pieces of it, one overlapping the other. Place the meat on it and take one and a half packets of the soup mix and rub it all over the meat. Place tinfoil in a roasting pan, disposable aluminum trays work perfectly.
3. Cut up onions and place them around the meat.
4. Dot the meat with ketchup. Splatter it all over.
5. Pour water around the meat and seal it up in the tinfoil very tightly. Place the meat in the oven for 4 to 5 hours depending on the weight. You know the meat is done when you put a fork in it and it is very soft all the way through.
WHAT WE SHOULD DO
This whole section is what we should do—cook dinner.
WHAT WE REALLY DO
The best we can—a combination of home-cooked meals, pizza and restaurants.
The Mommy Wars
Should mothers work or stay at home? We think that is a really dumb question, as if most mothers have a choice. We don’t. We resent this debate altogether. We resent it most when women pit themselves against other women, as if one lifestyle automatically results in better mothers than the other. Most mothers must work outside their homes to support their families. And for those few mothers who do have a choice between “working” and staying home, it is still a dumb question. It implies that if you stay at home, you are automatically more attentive to your children. Not true—some moms fill the day without earning any money or spending any quality time with their kids. This question also implies that if you do stay at home, you are not actually working that hard. Also untrue.
The only thing we would urge you to remember is that in the end, you have most of your life to work but you get only about eighteen years with your kids (sixteen if they learn to drive). It flies so fast. You can hardly remember the time after it has passed. So do the best you can to make your kids feel like they are the number one priority in your life, even if you cannot meet them at the bus every day. And remind them, and yourself, that you are juggling a lot of balls in the air. Once in a while, one or two will drop. You’ll all live.
ask yourself
1.
How often do you eat a home-cooked meal yourself?
2.
How often do you cook one for your family?
3.
Do you notice the difference in your family’s mood when everyone sits down to a meal together?
Interfere When Necessary: Don’t Be Afraid
The bugaboo of all Jewish mothers: They interfere! Yes, they do. Most don’t even apologize for it. Why should they? Since when does interference mean a lack of love? The Jewish mother will argue, forcefully (is there any other way to argue?), that the act of interference is in fact one of the sincerest forms of love. Occasionally, phone calls must be eavesdropped upon and rooms must be searched. Sometimes a parent even has to go outside the family unit to remedy a bad situation. Do we believe that parents can set kids on the right path, with the right mix of love, attention and intervention? Yes, we do. We know this; we’ve done this.
Belief in one’s right to interfere in the personal affairs of an adult child, versus an underage son or daughter, may separate many Jewish mothers from other mothers. It definitely separates our mom from almost all other mothers we know. Mommy believes it is her right and her duty to interfere when necessary in her daughters’ lives, meaning our lives, no matter how old we are. She does not care that her words or actions will make us angry. Mommy’s conviction that she alone knows what is best for us propels her. She does not second-guess her decision, because it is not impulsive to begin with. If Mom has decided to interfere, she will move forward with the certainty that her cause is just and her actions are merited. Our mother firmly believes that we, her daughters, belong to her until she dies. Merely because we happen to be adults, with husbands and children of our own, is no reason for Mommy to stop parenting us as if we still lived under her roof. Metaphorically, we will never stop living under Mommy’s roof.