What is more comforting than a hot bowl of homemade soup?

Hey folks! Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! May this be a bountiful, beautiful, healthy and happy, joy and love filled 2012 for all of us!

I have been in nesting mode this holiday season. Not that I've been a recluse by any means, but I have managed to do quite a bit of cooking and sewing. The weather has been cold and grey and rainy, and weather like that always makes me yearn for soup.
 So...several days ago, I searched the pantry shelves and the freezer and fridge and came up with some lovely staples for soup-making. I am sharing the almost-recipe with you all now as it came out wonderfully well and I have been enjoying it for days.
We will call this one KALE SOUP WITH BEEF SAUSAGE AND GARBANZO BEANS

Ingredients:
2 bunches kale
1/2 white or yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
4-5 stalks celery
beef kielbasa or other spicy sausage
1 box of chicken broth
hot sauce
celery seed
curry powder
1 large can garbanzo beans
1 small can blackeyed peas
1 large can tomato puree
1 small can diced fire-roasted tomatoes

Steps:
Chop onion, garlic and celery (you can mince the garlic and dice the rest) Green pepper would be fine with this too if you happened to have one in the fridge!
Heat large soup pot and lightly coat bottom with olive oil. Saute veggies and add salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste.
Add diced sausages next and continue to saute.
Add tomato sauce and diced toms and curry powder ( start with a little curry and add more to taste)
Add a sprinkle of celery seed at this point and a bit more salt and pepper.
Add both cans of beans after you've drained and rinsed.
Add chicken broth and stir well.
Finally, the star of the show: KALE (Yes, I am well aware that this is my second kale post but what can I say, I came late to the kale party and now that I'm here, I refuse to leave!)
Chop kale--make sure to discard the woody stems. Rinse well and then toss into the soup. It will do what kale does best: it will get nice and tender but still retain some bite which will make the soup even better and heartier. YUMMY!!!
If you are like my kiddos, and you believe that every good dish is made great by the addition of cheese, you may sprinkle a bit of shaved parmesan over the top.
ENJOY and stay warm!
The next time you hear from me it will be my first post of 2012!

WHAT PUTS YOU IN THE HOLIDAY MOOD?

Chanukah begins tomorrow night at sundown and Christmas is less than a week away. For weeks (months?), the streets have been filled with Christmas lights and holiday decorations. Every morning when my alarm goes off, Christmas songs fill my bedroom and my head with falalalalas. Cable channels, like Lifetime and Hallmark, have been running non-stop merry maudlin holiday movie marathons, and I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't seen more than a few.
I'm a sucker for this time of year. My close friends know that G-d made me Jewish so that I would not spend the 11 other months of the year sewing stockings and Christmas tree skirts! Seriously, if I had been Christian, I would have been all over the crafty part of Christmas. As it is, I invented ways to craft for Chanukah.

When the kids were little, it annoyed me that all the Chanukah decorations I found were plastic and paper. Nothing seemed permanent or special. There was nothing that one would treasure and pass down to his/her own children someday. So, to rectify that, I designed and sewed Dreidel Bags for each of my own children as well as my nieces and nephews and cousins and the children of my friends. Each one-of-a-kind felt bag contained a dreidel (which is a little toy top for those of you who are dreidel virgins), marbles to be used as currency (we use quarters at my parents' house) and a little laminated instruction card with all the rules for the simple little game.

I also made a bright felt table runner for our home so that every year I could pull it out to signal the start of the holiday season. I don't know exactly how old it is, but it has held up remarkably well!

Of course there are all the usual suspects too: latkes (fried potato pancakes), presents, chocolate Chanukah gelt and of course, the star of the show: the menorah. When I was a very new mom, (it may have even been Josh's first Chanukah) my parents gave me an amazing present. Growing up, we had owned a very large menorah which took large tapered candles rather than the usual mini candles that most menorahs require. I loved that menorah, and I loved the fact that it took up so much space (not as much space as a Christmas tree--but you definitely couldn't ignore it!). Somehow, my parents found a handyman who thought he could make a giant menorah. They commissioned him to try and I was the very lucky recipient of his efforts.

It is definitely a conversation starter since most people are not used to seeing a menorah of that stature. I will say that it is much more expensive to fill this menorah with candles for eight nights, but I wouldn't trade it for one of those puny little normal menorahs for anything!

I know that there are plenty of Christmas traditions that I cannot borrow, but there are a few that I will happily admit to enjoying. I LOVE gingerbread  and gingerbread houses. When we were little, some woman who has long since passed away used to send one to our family every year. I thought it was hysterical because my dad is a Rabbi and she was a congregant who must have known that this was a bit outside the norm for our tradition. However, I couldn't wait for that beautifully decorated house to arrive each December.

I am also incredibly fond of Christmas music and movies. Even though they do not represent me, I cherish the sweet, sentimental messages they espouse. Of course I've never owned a Christmas tree, or a Chanukah bush, but when my friends have invited me to their homes to help decorate theirs or just have a drink beside one, I easily shift into the holiday mood and soak up the twinkly lights and the fresh clean scent of pine.

Mostly, the holidays are a time to celebrate the magic that life offers to us every day; it  reminds us to stop for a moment to unwrap it. I wish you a holiday season filled with warmth and mirth, sweet traditions and abundant tables, the joy of giving and receiving, and lots of love!

WHERE DID YOU BEGIN AND WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

Why does this time of year lend itself to self reflection? I look at this sweet photo of me as a baby in my mother's arms, and I cannot help but wonder about the path my life has taken. Do you believe that our lives are like scripts? Has everything been written in some cosmic screenplay, and we are simply the actors cast in the starring roles? If so, would you like another take? A different script? A different leading man/woman? How much of our lives was written in the stars or in our dna? How much of our lives has been determined by the choices we've made? How much is controlled by our thoughts?

It is an idea that is both very new and very old that we can shape our reality through the perception of that reality. Contemporary gurus have cheapened these ideas as they have sought to popularize them for personal gain. Even Oprah gave the "Law of Attraction" writers her stage and access to her audience. But long before the cheesy movie, "The Secret," profound thinkers have expressed a similar belief.
Hidden among Rebbe Nachman of Breslov's wonderful teachings is this little pearl of wisdom:

 "You are wherever your thoughts are. Make sure your thoughts are where you want to be."


If you are as introspective as I tend to be, this can be a tough one. Sometimes, I have to call the Thought Police on myself. I can get lost in worries or fears that threaten to overwhelm me. My logical side knows that the negative thinking only sends me into further depths; I know that obsessing about the worries never dispels them. However, sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, these worries are traveling on a runaway train and I feel powerless to stop them. At those moments, I need the Thought Police (and some Tylenol PM) to rescue me from myself.

I am trying to work harder at feeling the present without fearing the future. I am learning to acknowledge my past without judging myself (or the universe) for the hills and valleys, the false starts and wrong turns. That tiny Rachel in her mother's arms cared only about having her immediate needs met, and they were met. She had love and warmth and safety and food; she had everything she needed. Mostly, we all still have everything we need. We may not have it all on every given day, but we know that when those bad days strike, the likelihood is that tomorrow will be better and brighter. Best of all, we own our thoughts and we can send them wherever we choose. Personally, I am going to try to do a better job of sending mine to "where I want to be."
SO, as you think about where you began and where you are going, don't forget to enjoy this day, this moment, this second and celebrate exactly where you are right now!

WHAT IS THE BEST GIFT YOU WERE EVER GIVEN?

It is a dreary, rainy Sunday here, folks! I had planned on going out and getting a jump on my holiday shopping, but I guess I'll stay inside and write about gifts and giving instead!

Can you think of the best gift you have ever been given? One of the first that comes to my mind is a lovely midriff-baring outfit my mom purchased for me when I was about 12 or 13. We lived in Chicago then, and we had travelled downtown on the train to do some shopping; while there, I had fallen in love with this very mod (yes, it was the 70's) pantsuit. It was white cotton with tiny little red and blue flowers all over it. The top had elastic around the cap sleeves and more elastic underneath the chest-- about 3-4 inches up from my belly button. The pants were probably bell-bottom-ish, though I can't honestly remember. I had just been asked out on my very first date. Perhaps this is telling, but I can remember what we ate but not the boy's name. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Needless to say, I fell in love with the outfit as soon as I saw it, and I desperately wanted to wear it on my date.
My mother, who was (and still is) a budgeter extraordinaire, informed me that this highly impractical outfit did not fit into my clothing budget. She reminded me that I needed to buy a temple dress and several skirts and a pair of jeans and that there was simply no wiggle room in the budget. The belly-baring hippie outfit was impractical and  unnecessary and that was that.
I suppose I whined a bit, but I was a pretty docile child, and I doubt that I engaged in any severe form of histrionics. But I know I longed for that outfit and the image of myself in it that had become stuck in my head. Maybe I thought that with the revealing outfit on my pre-pubescent body, I would be instantly transformed into a femme fatale--or at least a girl who was brave enough to go on a date with a boy.


Several days after the aborted shopping trip, I came home from school to find a green Marshall Field's box on my bed. To my utter delight and amazement, my sweet mother had gone back downtown and bought the outfit for me. I learned a valuable lesson that afternoon; the gift that I most valued was the way in which my mother had sacrificed time and money to make me happy. At that moment, it was actually less about the outfit than it was about a mother's love for her daughter.

I wore the outfit on the date to the hotdog stand in the park across from the Museum of Science and Industry. I swear to you that I have no idea who the boy was, but I still remember the hotdogs!

I am a gifty gal: I love both giving and receiving presents. I can't imagine being someone who doesn't give a flip about birthdays and holidays. Gift giving is as much a part of my DNA as reading or cooking.

When the kids were little, I would spend hours making things for them. I remember when I finished Emily's quilt (or as she called it "Quilty"),  and I sewed a special patch on the back that said "Made for Emily with love from Mom."  It filled me with such a sense of accomplishment to give my daughter that gift. When Josh was little, I designed numerous t-shirts and blankets and stuffed animals for  him: watching him wear or play with something I had made with my own two hands filled me with pride. I can still see the picture of my sweet tow-headed Josh  with  his two very primitively designed stuffed flannel animals: blue bunny and blue kitty.

Ben,  who came out of the womb an entrepreneur, was always engaged in various business enterprises. I loved to sit at my lime green ibook and create business cards for him which he proudly passed out to friends and relatives to advertise "Ben's Jobco" or "Ben's Petco."

I think that one of the reasons I love cooking so much is that making food allows me to feel like I am giving a little gift to the people I love.

So as the holidays once again draw near...think about the joy of giving (and the joy of receiving). What the heck, let's just think about JOY!