dinner++

[cellio]

Tonight we went to Sitar (which does not seem to have a web site; tsk) with friends. It's an Indian restaurant with a nice variety of tasty dishes. Definitely recommended. Alas, they did not have the goat that Dani was seeking, so he had to settle for lamb. I got tandoori fish (I'd never heard of non-chicken tandoori). On reflection, that probably wasn't smart kashrut-wise; I failed to remember that a tandoori oven is clay, not metal. Oops. A couple other people got vegetarian dishes, so we were able to share.

The descriptions of dishes, while being passed, suffered some signal degradation: "one of the lamb dishes", "vegetarian something-or-other", "meat, um chicken?, with spinach", and so on. Fortunately, we were all somewhat aware of what had been ordered, so we only needed to disambiguate, not fully specify.

Later my mother called to try to figure out when we can get together. (Her birthday is Saturday.) This turned out to be challenging:

Her: Saturday?
Me: It's Rosh Hashana. Sunday?
Her: Your father has [schedule conflict]. Next Sunday?
Me: Well, Yom Kippur is that night, but we could do lunch.
Her: If that's a problem, what about Saturday the 11th?
Me to self: Do I want to explain to them about eating in the sukkah?
Me to her: Um, that's Sukkot. Let's go back to that previous Sunday...
Her: What's Sukkot?
Me: One of several holidays that are going to complicate this exercise for the next few weeks. :-)

Later I ended up explaining Sukkot to her anyway (quickie version) and she said it sounded neat, so if we decide that next Sunday doesn't work, they'll come out for Sukkot lunch or something.

Comments

Sukkot

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I remember one year when my favorite Minister of Music & Youth (MoMY to some) was still at the church, and he and the rabbi at my friend Susan's temple decided to do the Fall Youth Group stuff together. I had been going to services with Susan on Friday nights for .. months, I think, at that point. We did Rosh Hashana studies in our Sunday school, then went to temple for it. We built a "harvest booth" in front of our church (that's how the church bulletin described it, anyhoo), and did a bunch of other stuff together. Then, just after New Year's, he announced that he was going to join the FBI, and left our church. I really missed him. The next MoMY was a real fuddy-duddy.

---

I was raised Baptist. Susan was Reformed. I went to services with her, and she came to hear me sing in the choir every Sunday night, and came to revivals on the odd occasion to hear us do gospel. We did folk music togehter in our spare moments...

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

This is probably a dumb question, and the answer is probably "I converted" or something, but how come your mother doesn't know this stuff?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Although Mom never did keep Kosher, your dealings with holiday conflict and your mother remind me of my childhood (Mom also converted to Judaism from Catholicism). Easter was the most "interesting" holiday because most of the traditional Slovak foods are as un-Kosher as they come (ham, sandwiches made with sidik ("egg cheese"), nut roll...).

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Fish can't be cooked in a clay oven? What's the rationale there?

[goljerp]

Later I ended up explaining Sukkot to her anyway (quickie version)

Ooh, me, me!

OK: Sukkot is the feast of Tabernacles.

Just kidding. I hate definitions like that (Tefillin? Well, they're phylacteries. Everything clear now?)

Sukkot is a harvest festival where Jews build temporary structures (sukkahs), eat (and, ideally, sleep) in them, and wave around bits of foliage and produce during services.

Now, for an encore: Shmini Atzeret in one sentence:

Shmini Atzeret is a holiday for no specific reason that falls at the end of Sukkot.