Weeks 10/11/12/13 - I'd Like to Think I've Matured Since High School

If you asked me when I graduated high school what it would take to get me to live back in my parent’s home for longer than a week or two, I would have laughed at you and said it would take a pandemic of crazy proportions. After college? Not even a question.

Well, clearly I wasn’t exaggerating, because 10 weeks into a pandemic, I made it back to my family home for what would turn out to be a bit more than a month. I know I’m a bit late to the game as many of my friends have moved back in with family long ago, but I now understand what they meant when they said it was like being in high school all over again. I decided, though, that was if I was going back to High School, it would be High School 2.0 - this would give me a chance to redo all the things I didn’t do in high school or did completely wrong. And before you say it, I wasn’t an absolute disaster in high school, here is a picture of me in 11th grade. My bad phase actually ended Freshman year. But that’s because while some people have the terrible 2s, I was known for the terrible 4 - 14s. A couple years back, my entire extended family got together for the first time in almost 10 years, and though we were all together for only an hour, 10 minutes of that was devoted exclusively to telling stories about how much of a disaster I was. My mom loves to tell a story about how after I got my tonsils out, the doctor said all I had to do was eat a popsicle and my family could go home. That was at 9 in the morning. By 4:30 pm I was still refusing to touch the popsicle. They even tried to compromise for one measly bite - but I still said no. What can I say, I was (read: am) quite difficult. Fun fact: I actually love popsicles. But someone telling me I had to do something? No. F-ing. Way. Clearly I was a huge butt head. (If you're trying to picture this, here is a photo of me at the time. I'm the one on in the middle. I may look cute, but don't let that fool you.)

Anyway, after years of being in my own space, cooking my own food, cleaning up after myself, and being completely self dependent, I was going to go home and be an active member of the family. I would cook dinner. I would load the dishwasher...only to come back 15 minutes later to see my parents reloading it. Why do I even bother trying to help? I also decided I was going to be more easy going with regard to food, which I was not as a child. I used to be known for only eating pizza, pretzels, and pasta, known as the three Ps. I also was vegetarian for 7 years and refused to eat almost any vegetable, and thought all nuts and beans were gross. Clearly I wasn’t eating a balanced diet. Regardless, this was going to be a new me. The same cannot be said for Ezra. During COVID, Ezra was that stereotypical high school kid whose parents just moved him to the basement because he just turned 16, called himself an adult, and “wanted more independence” - he essentially took over the entire basement with his stuff, spending almost his entire day hidden away, only popping upstairs to clear out the fridge of the leftovers the other members of the house were planning to eat, or for dinner, which was inevitably not what he wanted - not that he spent any time helping cook or cleaning up.

My family was also far more into “family time” than we had ever been - doing activities on Sundays, having dinner together every night, and long Friday nights that always included a cocktail very early in the afternoon, a last minute scramble for food to be ready at 8, eating dinner at 9:30, intense conversation until 11, and then board games until 2:30 in the morning. Maybe for some people this was the norm, but in my family, by the time Ezra and I got to high school, we maybe had family dinner once a week, basically never watched movies together, and maybe did one Sunday activity a year that almost never actually had all of us together - like the time my family went to Cirque Du Soleil and left me at home because my dad and I got into a huge argument about a burnt bagel that wasn’t my bagel. Fun fact: my dad and I did not get along in high school, to the point that every time my mom left the house she’d plead with us “please don’t kill each other.” Good to know she was worried her fully grown husband could kill his child. I was an angsty, difficult kid, with teenage hormones, so pleading with me made sense. But now we’re very close so this trip was a time to live in the same house and actually get along.

This trip also felt like an opportunity to connect with my family in a more thoughtful way. Something I often think about is what high school me was like compared to so many of the high schoolers you are seeing today who are coordinating marches and coding websites to track COVID cases in the world. I lived in a bubble. Yes, part of that bubble was created by living in an upper-middle class Jewish neighborhood and attending Jewish day schools, meaning all my friends growing up were white Jews and I didn’t have any friends of color until college. But part of the bubble was also my focus, in that I only thought about myself and the issues that were relevant to me - like the fact that I wanted to sleep at my friend’s house but didn’t have a car and my parents wouldn’t drive me - which are just such privileged non-issues. This trip, and being in Atlanta specifically, allowed my family to think and talk about race and privilege in a way that we never had before - especially given the fact that having the choice to come back to (and leave) suburbia with lots of space and multiple cars and the whole family being able to work from home is, in and of itself, super privileged.

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Before I start talking about the food I was able to make while home, I want to take this moment just to recognize the discomfort I have in even posting this blog. By doing so, it implies that, to me, life is going on as usual, and it very much isn’t. People have been posting articles about racism since I can remember, but I feel like only now are these posts really being consumed, even if it doesn’t appear that way. And as much as I would love to know what to say here, or to write some meaningful post about race, I don’t know what to say, and, being honest, having seen so many people genuinely try to do good by posting something and get absolutely destroyed, I’m fearful of saying the wrong thing.

An original version of this blog stopped here, with me saying that I wouldn’t share any perspective or thoughts, and me merely encouraging people to do some research. But I realize that part of this process is sitting with discomfort and challenging myself to go outside my comfort zone, and fearing saying the wrong thing doesn't mean I should say nothing at all.

My friend Aliza texted me recently saying she had so many questions and didn’t know how to ask them. This resonated with me, so I shared it to my social media. One of my friends, Cherie, texted me in response and asked what I was grappling with. I think being directly asked what was going on in my head really helped me work through my thoughts, which are as follows: There is just so much information and I’m just trying to take in as much as I can to learn how I can be the best ally I can be, but I keep getting caught up on the fact that, in retrospect, I grew up without any recognition or acknowledgement of privilege, and that is jarring to me. I’ve been seeing posts about racism for years, and it was always a problem that my parents talked about and that I recognized, but it is just so much greater than I realized. I constantly wonder how I’ve gone this far into life without learning almost any of the things that I’ve learned in just the last 3 weeks. Especially since, just months ago, I reflected on the fact that I grew up so ignorant of my privilege. Looking back, that version of me calling my high school self ignorant was also completely ignorant of privilege. And I’m still ignorant. And every time I think I understand, I read something else that shows me I only scratched the surface. I am such an impatient problem solver, wanting to be able to solve issues overnight, and it has been hard to reframe this massive, overwhelming issue that feels like something I, individually, can’t possibly change, into something that I, as an individual part of a larger group, can play a role in changing over the course of time. I also struggle with the fact that reading what I just wrote, I have somehow made it all about me. How do I find the balance between it not being about me and yet understanding that I can be part of the problem and part of the solution? Idk.

In short, I have none of the answers, and will never have all of the answers, but I am committed to resisting the temptation to be complacent. I want to learn, discuss, process, and sometimes I don’t know how or with whom. If anyone ever wants to chat, debrief, brainstorm, please reach out.

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Day 62: Tuesday, May 12th - Banana Boats

In my family, intense conversations about life always need to be accompanied by food. Being in Atlanta meant that I had access to a pantry loaded with almond flour, chickpea flour, xanthan gum, hazelnut flour, king arthur 1 to 1 gluten free flour, all purpose flour, bread flour, brown rice flour, white rice flour, einkorn flour, salt, brown sugar, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, boujee farmers market honey, and basic Trader Joe’s honey. Also lots and lots of dark chocolate. Dark chocolate chips, dark chocolate chunks, and what remained of a swiss dark chocolate bar that was 10 pounds when first opened. So, it is with little surprise, that the majority of food I made while in Atlanta was some sort of dessert or bread.

Having just come from our camping trip in Sedona, feeling extremely lazy, and seeing a massive set of bananas on the counter, I decided what better dessert than banana boats. Banana boats are that classic camp dessert that the counselors make on an overnight that sounds like a good idea until you realize you either have to make 40 banana boats for all the kids - which takes absolutely forever - or you’re asking kids to share hot, mushy, melty chocolate bananas, which is a recipe for attracting bears.

So, after my father made us a wonderful dinner, we cleaned up (we being everyone in the house but Ezra) and took a 15 minute relaxation break.

Then we (still everyone but Ezra) went outside and compiled the banana boats. Savyon’s version was to cut a line in the banana, shove the chocolate chips and marshmallows in, then close it up and wrap it in tin foil. I, however, still in the process of rewatching Grey’s anatomy and fresh off the discovery of fruit surgery videos on TikTok (you should really watch these), decided I was going to surgically cut a rectangle in the banana’s abdomen, remove some of the insides, and fill it with chocolate and marshmallows. I would then put back on the skin flap, add a few sutures to stay in place, and close up the banana in tin foil.

When I was a camp counselor at 18, I was basically a fetus. If babies can make banana boats easily in a fire they make in the woods, then it should be simple for a 25-year old established cook to make them on the grill.

Here is a fun fact for today: bananas are 75% water. Why is that relevant? Because by the time we were ready to eat the bananas (we being everyone including Ezra, because obviously he came up for the food), it had become liquidy melted banana chocolate soup. I actually took a spoon and sipped on some of the liquid (aka banana pee) just to test it out. It tasted like nothing, which I guess is better than it tasting like pee.

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Day 68: Monday, May 18th - Dumplings take 2

The truth is that these are essentially the dumplings we made in week 2 but instead of making our own wrappers, we bought some, and we learned a great way to steam so they wouldn’t become soggy burritos (this is a previous blog reference. See week 2.) This pic showcases the fried ones because the color is really nice.

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Day 70: Wednesday, May 20th - Witch Finger Cookies

After dinner, I was craving some sort of dessert, and had a bit of time to kill, so I decided to go back to the granola diaries website where I found the biscotti recipe and see what other desserts I could make that were: easy, gluten free, easy, easy, and also didn’t take a lot of time. They also needed to include chocolate because without chocolate, Savyon gets a bit hangry. After scrolling through their recipes, I found the witch finger cookies, which seem more fitting for halloween than a random evening in May, but given they posted the recipe on the website in October, it makes sense.

Part of the recipe said to shape them on the pan like fingers. Again, this was the classic situation where the recipe says something like “this should make 20 fingers” but after I’ve shaped them on the pan, I made 13. And yes, I did eat some of the dough before, but I didn’t eat 7 cookies worth. And yes, the dough did have egg in it, but these were white pasteurized eggs, and also, my Grandmother one time got salmonella from a cucumber so none of our food is really safe, might as well enjoy the simple pleasures of cookie dough. Except not this cookie dough - this dough tasted very much not so great.

Maybe it’s the size, or just my shaping abilities, but these cookies looked far more like gross toes than fingers.

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Day 74: Sunday, May 24th - Cooking Competition

Being Memorial day weekend, my family had this grand idea that Sunday we were going to wake up early, have brunch, go to the farmers market, go on a long hike, come home, cook a whole fancy dinner together, and then do a nice activity in the evening. By the time it was 12:30 and no one had seen or heard from Ezra, we realized that plan wasn’t going to happen.

Instead of cancelling though, we decided to raincheck to Monday - yay for long weekends - and went for a neighborhood walk instead, where we saw this wonderful street sign:

By 10:30 am on Monday, we realized that Ezra wasn’t going to come, so we just decided to leave him, going on a 4 mile stroll/hike nearby.

Long story short:

My parents got us lost.

We were gone for many more hours than we wanted.

Ezra called at 1 pm when he got hungry.

I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, you’re so harsh on Ezra.” As I mentioned before, he doesn’t read the blog, so it is fine. Secondly, as we bluntly told our parents over a Shabbat dinner table after a few margaritas, our family never really taught us the positive reinforcement thing nor the feelings thing. We do far better with insults and teasing. If you’re ever playing a game of beer pong against Ezra, instead of talking trash, just say words of encouragement, he’ll miss every time. #StillEmotionallyRepressed

Anyway, I decided to use my camp / Moishe House experience and come up with an afternoon game to make up for the family time we didn’t have in high school.

There is this massive farmers market in Atlanta that we wanted to go to. As a Berkeley native, Savyon wants me to clarify this is not actually a farmers market, it is just called a farmers market. But whatever. Sorry not everyone has access to little outside neighborhood farmers markets like the Bay Area has. Anyway, at the market, the family would be split up into two teams: the parents (Jeff and Mama Barb) and the kids (Shai, Savyon, and Ezra). The rules were simple, each team chose 3 ingredients that the opposing team had to use for dinner.

Our selections:

Ricotta Cheese

Woodear mushrooms

Rhubarb.

We were hoping my parents would take the bait and use the first two ingredients for some mushroom ravioli. For the third, we needed something weird or interesting, and stumbled upon rhubarb - something I had only really heard of used on the great british baking show or as the name of a friend’s dog.

My parent’s selections:

Miso.

Leeks.

Rainbow chard.

As accomplished as Ezra and I are with food, this was clearly all in Savyon’s wheelhouse, so we let her take charge. Our responsibilities were a miso leek soup, stuffed rainbow chard, and beer battered onion rings / leek rings.

Here’s some logic that makes sense when you say it but we didn’t think about before: if each team is

making multiple dishes for dinner, make it appetizer size because no one needs 6 full courses of dinner.

We, however, did no such thing. The soup was large and hearty enough to feed us all with multiple bowls. We had enough stuffed rainbow chard for everyone to have a chard today and tomorrow, and I made probably 30 onion and leek rings. Thankfully, my parents predicted this and made a side dish and a cocktail. What were they? As we hoped, ravioli with a red wine mushroom cream sauce. They also used the rhubarb to make a rhubarb simple syrup that made some dope whiskey sour. We came up with many fun names but the only one I can remember is ‘rhubourbon sour.’

A side note, Savyon was really learning the ways of the family at this point. She knew that the second a package of food or loaf of bread was opened, our family would devour it in minutes. An open package meant fair game. Savyon, however, wanted to open a package, take a bite, and know there would some for her later on instead of needing to eat it all immediately so that no one else could have. Her family clearly functioned differently from ours. Growing up, the move was to eat your first plate of food really fast so you could confirm you would get seconds before the food ran out, and then if you wanted you could eat your second plate slowly. Regardless, the prime example is Savyon and I stopped by Trader Joe’s and got some peanut butter cups. Later in the evening, my mom and I both wanted so we went to the cabinet and they were gone. We were very confused until we realized that Savyon had hid them from us, in our own home! It was quite the move, but she still is going to have to learn to hide better because we are expert food hunters. As my mom noted before she went on the hunt for the peanut butter cups, “At least I know that Savyon is the one who hid them, because it limits where it could be, she can’t reach more than half of the cabinet space.” To be fair, neither can my mom.

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Day 78: Thursday, May 28th - Baguettes

Something I had been wanting to try for the longest time was making baguettes. It was once described to me as a sourdough without needing a starter, all you really do is let the yeast sit out overnight and hope it doesn’t turn into kombucha. My coworker (the one who knows bread) told me that he has spent over a month (while sheltering) perfecting his baguette recipe. He takes meticulous notes of exactly how much flour, water, time to sit, etc, and notes any subtle changes in the bread from the last batch he made. Clearly he’s the person in class you want to get notes from when you decided to skip.

Unfortunately, what I didn’t plan for was the fact that you need to plan the timing of baguettes pretty specifically. I wanted the baguettes for Thursday afternoon, so after dinner on Wednesday I casually checked the recipe my coworker had sent me a month ago and it involved making the initial yeast concoction, 7-9 hours later creating the dough, then leaving it out for a bit, doing some folding, doing some shaping, and then doing some baking. So, unless I wanted to be up at 4 in the morning to make dough, I had an issue.

So I waited until 9 pm, made the yeast thing, and woke up at 6 am to make the dough. I then did some foldy things for the next few hours, ready for the dough to be wonderful bread by dinner time. But wait, there’s more! Apparently I didn’t read the instructions all the way first and I needed to let the dough sit in the fridge for like 6 more hours, but it was already 1 pm, and I had plenty more steps to do. So I decided to wing it. 6 hours in the fridge is kind of like 1.5 hours in the fridge and 2 hours not the fridge. Maybe. Idk. The math isn’t real.

Regardless, at around 3 it was time to shape the baguette.

My coworker had sent me all of these videos about how to properly form a baguette. I refused to watch them. My mom said we had a pan that helps shape baguettes. I refused to use them. I was going to live or die by my intimate knowledge of what a baguette was supposed to look like - namely, a log. Let me tell you, shaping these baguettes was not easy. For some reason I just couldn’t roll one of them out, so it looks more like an oversized cannoli than a baguette. The other one I just cut in half and separated like a person’s legs when doing a split.

On the bright side: it tasted quite delicious. On the downside: neither of the loaves made it to dinner.

Also, this trip was filled with thunderstorms, so I was happy.