And the name of the mystery new fruit is......

Pitaya.
I knew it was from the "Prickly Pear" family.  My husband has a book called, "Fruit: A Connoisseur's Guide and Cookbook," by Alan Davidson, and there it was!  Although, the picture wasn't quite it, but the description was spot-on.
Excerpt from the book: "The fruit is oval to oblong, up to 4 inches long, and may be bright red, peach-colored or yellow.  The pulp inside is sweet, white, and juicy.  It contains numerous tiny black seeds.  The juice makes a refreshing beverage.  The fruit can be cut in half and chilled, then eaten with a spoon."
Although, I must confess, it looks very dramatic and pretty in cross-segment slices and I ate the other half right out of the skin by just flipping it inside out and *slurp* - gone.  Delicious.

Happy New Year! (A git g'bencht yor, y'all!)

"Madness, madness, they call it madness..."

In the pre-Rosh Hashanah whirlwind there was not much time to post ("cook for your life!").  Now that we sit in the wake of it, I can post recipes n' pix galore ('fat lotta good that'll do me now,' you may be thinking if you came in search of recipes FOR Rosh Hashanah -- maybe for next year.  Sorry, I'm bailing water as fast as I can.  I'm a mother of a newborn.  deal.).

"SIMANIM" (SEE-MON-EEM): THE SYMBOLIC FOODS OF ROSH HASHANAH

Apples dipped in honey (everybody knows that one)
Pomegranate

Dates
Gourd/Squash (butternut squash w/ brown sugar)

Carrot (honey-orange-ginger glazed!)

Leeks (leek pancakes)

Beets

Black-eyed Peas

Fish

Fish Head (specifically: "that we should be the head and not the tail.") 
(see pic of our stuffed trout, above -- mmmmm)

...and the exciting "New Fruit/s" of the second night of R.H.
I hafta find out the name of one of them.  Thought it was a "sabra" (aka: Prickly Pear or Indian Fig -- a cactus fruit) but what a surprise!  A pink, thick-skinned fruit that looked like a cactus fruit, and I strongly suspect is a variety of it, but when we sliced it open: Wow!  White with tiny, kiwi-esque black seeds!  Very dramatic.
We also had Persimmon and the sweet-lemony Starfruit.  
gurgle.

Recipes n' pix soon.  Promise.

In the beginning (aka: Bereishis)...

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Where to begin? As Alice would say, "Why, at the beginning, of course".

This is about exactly what the title would have you believe.

No trickery.

It's about my weekly table. ....or rather my "week-END-ly" table.

...but that doesn't have nice flow. A little lumpy.

So, succinctly, this blog is about my weekly Sabbath table (or as we call it: the "Shabbos" table).

It's about the food. The decor, perhaps. The food. The company every once in a while. The food. My family. The food.

My husband is a chef. He cooks a little.

Me?

Just a "home cook" (not a "garage cook").

He gives me "star" ratings for my cooking.

Most of the real cooking we do during the week is in preparation for Shabbos. The rest of the week is usually quick n' easy fare...and leftovers (we cook a LOT for Shabbos).

Shabbos begins at sundown on Friday and ends about an hour after sundown on Saturday night.

We sing together.

We eat together.

We schmooze.

We eat together some more.

We nap (sometimes, if we're veeeeerry lucky).

We read and learn together. We read and learn alone.

....aaaaand we eat together some more.

On Shabbos the phone is off, the car is off limits, money is off limits, the computer is off limits.

It's "us" time. Quiet. Together.

Family. Friends. Food.

I'll share with you, though.

We have a lot of frequent fliers on the menu, but we like to take the opportunity to experiment.

Sometimes it's hit and sometimes it's miss.

...but it's always fun trying.