BIZZY BAKES

I made this about a week after the funeral and it was probably the first food, we enjoyed. This is the kind of meal, hubby likes, when he arrives home from work.  It has a little bit of everything and is warm and filling.  I got to use up leftover cold cuts, leftover spinach, a can of artichokes which was hanging around too long and a bottle of sundried tomatoes which also was taking up space. Pasta with Sausage, Spinach, and Artichokes (adapted from Taste of Hom e ) Ingredients: 12 ounces pasta 1 teaspoon olive oil 1/3 pound cold cuts (I used turkey pastrami), chopped 1/2 onion, chopped 1/2 cup canned artichokes, chopped 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 1 teaspoon oregano 1 teaspoon parsley 3/4 t. black pepper 1/4 cup white wine 1 cup fresh spinach Method: Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain, reserving 1/3 cup of pasta water. Keep pasta warm. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add mea

Am I ever glad, the recipe for WWDH is an easy one, this week because this is my time to jump back in, not to regular posting but to just a little bit, tiny little footsteps.  We do eat and I do cook although, I don't have that adventurous feeling.  My daughter, who was the greatest cook and baker would surely be upset with me.  Her passion for cooking outdid mine by miles.  She would get up, in the middle of the night, and start baking.  Sometimes, when she awoke, the next morning, the food would be gone, eaten by loving family members. When I started blogging, she sent me a bunch of platters and serving dishes for photographs.  She read the blog and commented on recipes and made constructive suggestions.  I guess one way to keep her memory present here is to continue this blog but it still has to be in my time. This week, we are making an easy linguine, one I have made variations on, for many years and I love this.  Pasta with a little butter and cheese is always delicious.

I decided to bake the  Milk-Chocolate Walnut Coffee Cake   selected by  Eileen of One Hundred Eighty Degrees  and organized by Joyce of  Kitchen Flavours.   You will find the other bakes at THB . Since hubby does not like chocolate, I used raisins and walnuts and I think, it turned out well.  I forgot to put the filling in the middle so it is somewhere on the bottom. I thought, I would add a little about mourning in Judaism.  There are stages of morning,  Right now, for us, this is called the Shloshim which ends 30 days after the burial.  We do not listen to music, cut our hair or go to parties.  The children of the deceased mourn even further, lasting the entire 12 months.  Celebrations are avoided at this time.  The other relatives are over the official mourning period,  Certainly, it is a time to remember the loved one.  Someone has suggested that since my daughter was such a fantastic cook and baker, we make a cookbook with her recipes and hopefully, we will get this done.  

I have been doing a lot of thinking of late and much of it brings peace and acceptance.  I have discovered that these three words, love, loss and life are intertwined and the lines can be blurred.  The sadness of the loss is powerful, the memories of my daughter's life are momentous, and the love we had and have is awe inspiring. She was my first daughter and was always filled with life.  As a child, her spunkiness got her into big trouble. Despite this, how could one be angry when she was always fighting for a cause.  So what , if she told a bully off in no uncertain terms.  So what, if she argued with a teacher who was acting like he was ten years old.  Once again, she was in the right.  This led her to become an adult who fought for the rights of others, fought for the lives of others, fought for her beliefs. In her years of pain and sickness, she counseled others with her illness, she spoke in public to inform, she quietly listened to others weeping.  Her home was open

Although I am not up to blogging normally, I do realize, this is a good time to share random thoughts and perhaps to even share a little about the Jewish customs, at the time of mourning.  Right now, nothing seems real in my world.  I am functioning and doing what must be done but there is still a fuzziness surrounding me. To ground myself, let me start with "shiva", the week after the funeral, when we sit with other mourners. "......... once shiva begins, the focus shifts to the mourners. The mourners experience a week of intense grief, and the community is there to love and comfort and provide for their needs. This is a critical point, for if one must feel the heart-wrenching pain of grief and loss, it should be done at a time when all those around are there to help and comfort. The laws of mourning have the purpose of focusing a person on their own spirituality. We experience an overall feeling of physical discomfort as we totally focus on the soul of the one who h