Sunday, September 12, 2010

Our sweet trip to Haifa

To get the year off to a sweet start, we took a trip last weekend (the Thursday before Rosh Hashana) to our friends' family in Haifa. Our lovely friend Chen's parents run a small, old-fashioned pastry shop that has a national reputation and loyal clientele. Her dad wakes every morning at 4 to get things started at the bakery. They hosted us for a delicious breakfast and behind-the-scenes tour of the industrial-sized mixer, sufganiya maker, and other pastry shop equipment. We then walked around the beautiful Bahai gardens and coast with Chen and her husband Eitan. A fun and delicious end-of-year / end-of-summer tiyul.



More:

Eco-tashlich

There are no natural bodies of water in Jerusalem, so tashlich is really tough. But we came up with a great solution. By the afternoon of Rosh Hashana, we found ourselves with three bags of composting -- apple skins, carrot peels, egg shells, pomegranate skins, etc. So we took all our composing to our local community garden, where we usually bring it, and recited the Tashlich verses as we cast our organic waste onto the compost heap. I think it was quite effective. Instead of the ducks eating our sins, the worms feasted on them. It might have worked a little better if we were able to compost our chocolate wrappers and leftover cake, since of course I have no guilt about our fruit and vegetable waste, but unfortunately the worms can't digest that.

--guest blogger INK. More to come on D'yo Ilu Yamey

Happy Birthday Saba Dad!

Yom Huledet Sameach! Hugs from near and far and best wishes from all of us for a happy and sweet year.