I've been talking about my 60th birthday celebrations which included a party at a kosher Russian restaurant in Queens (man, do those Russians know how to have a good time!), a dinner with friends in Jerusalem, and a dance party in Melbourne last week. But there was something else I did, not exactly celebratory, spurred by my turning 60.
I had my ovaries removed.
I'm not Angelina Jolie, and that won't make headlines. But the reason that I had my hardworking little girlies removed was that I was increasingly afraid that they would go rogue on me. My maternal grandmother was 55 when she died of ovarian cancer; I never knew her. My mother was just 66 when she died of ovarian cancer; my older kids hardly knew her, the younger ones never knew her at all. And here was I, smack in the middle. It's called 'the hot decade'.
About 8 years ago, when genetic testing started, I decided to have the test to see if I had the BRCA1 or 2 genetic aberration. It was done at the Peter Mac (cancer hospital in Melbourne) Familial Cancer Centre, and I have to say that getting my patient appointment card to a cancer hospital already had me sweating a bit.
I made the appointment on advice of a colleague who is a Gynaecological Oncologist, who, when I disclosed my family history in a sort of inappropriate social situation (umm...at my Shabbos table where he was a guest), sort of drew himself upright in his chair and told me to get tested asap.
They have this whole way of doing things there at the Peter Mac. First they told me to go away and think about having the test, and all that it means, and how it might affect my medical and health insurance. And then I had to schlep back and do the test which I had wanted to do at the previous visit. And then they said to come back with a support person when they gave me the results. They also said that they would try to find the 'tumour blocks'- i.e. tissue samples, which would have been taken from my mother 25 years earlier when she was operated on (and diagnosed at the time of surgery; it was a big shock for everyone, surgeon included. He thought he was repairing an umbilical hernia). Since the operation had been done in a different hospital which had since been relocated, I didn't like their chances too much, and in fact they couldn't find them.
So I brought my husband with me when they called me in to give me the results. We were sat in a bleak little room with a box of tissues on the table. The ladies who came in and out of the room, asking us how were were, were very nice and solicitous, which actually made me more anxious. And then the doctor came into the room and, in a roundabout way, which kept me guessing right to the end, informed me that I did not have the BRCA mutation.
Well! The relief! But Doctor Circumspect wasn't smiling; because they did not have the genetic material from either my mother or, of course, my grandmother, they didn't know their BRCA status, so they couldn't actually tell me what my chances were of getting ovarian cancer. And in fact, most cases of ovarian cancer occur in people with normal genes. It's just that if you have the BRCA mutation, your chances of getting cancer are extremely high. (And then my usually slightly more sensitive husband said that we could exhume my mother and thus obtain a DNA sample. Mr Practical. Mr Only Trying To Help. Just..NO.)
So it was really back to square one for me. I sought advice from several doctors and a medical ethicist, and although there was a good case to having the op, it was not really something I wanted to do at that time.
Why not? Mainly because I am a big chicken when it comes to surgery. Stuff goes wrong.
Also, who has time for this? I was busy with kids' weddings and babies and travelling and and and.
And then, maybe my ovaries were still useful! I wasn't having hot flushes etc, but my blood tests did show that I was menopausal. But maybe I was running on empty! The motor was working well enough, why rip out the Oestrogen fuel tank?
And my OB GYN of many years was very keen to do a total hysterectomy, with the kind of insouciance that male surgeons often have. I mean, that uterus isn't doing anything anymore, why not just take out everything.
Poor old uterus. She never did a wrong thing in her life. Never a minute's trouble. I never even had a period pain my whole life. Never bled when she wasn't supposed to. When I wanted to conceive, I did. When I didn't, I didn't. My pregnancies were uneventful, my deliveries uncomplicated. And for all the years of faithful service, you want to just whip her out? She's an innocent bystander! It just seemed wrong. OK, maybe there were some auxiliary lady issues, like a bit of a prolapse here and there, but really, nothing that bothered me. Everything was well worn, but had worn well, so to speak. So, no thanks. Oh, but technically it's simpler to just do a full clearance, and repair this and that and yada yada; and then another GYN started talking about robotic surgery and multiple staged this and that, and FORGETABOUTIT. Not going to. Freaked out.
So for the last 10 years or more, I have been having pelvic ultrasounds and keeping an eye on the ovaries. That's all you can really do. There is no precancerous detection, as there is in breast cancer. Any change means cancer. And although annual ultrasounds sound like a good idea, in fact, ovarian cancer can go from go to whoa in as little as three months. So what's the good of that. Blood test (Ca 125) is non-specific, and I had those too, for all they're worth. And that's the state of the nation, folks. This is why you should buy a ribbon on Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day, because there needs to be more research done, looking for a pre-cancerous marker that would then make screening possible. Right now there is nothing.
So as the years went by, the anxiety mounted. I passed the age that my grandmother died. It felt like a milestone. And as I approached the age that my mother became sick, I felt that it was time to take action. After the last scan, I spoke to the GYN who did it and he heard me out, about the ovaries and the uterus and the prolapse and the robotic surgery and how I just did not know what to do. So he asked, 'What is bothering you the most?' and I answered, 'The fear of ovarian cancer.' So he said, 'Just have the ovaries out and see how you go.' So simple.
Because when you have the ovaries (and tubes) removed, the risk of ovarian cancer is pretty much zero.
And suddenly I knew what to do, and I made the appointment with the original GYN who told me to do it nearly 10 years earlier. After a couple of months' wait, laparoscopic removal, overnight stay in hospital, take it easy for a couple of weeks, no worries. Pain was minimal, took some Panadol; 4 tiny little cuts on my tummy, healed up. On the 3rd day post op, I saw a patient. On the 9th day, I went to an ACDC concert (Amazing BTW). On the 13th day, danced like a fiend at my 60th. After 2 weeks, back at water aerobics. (Not looking forward to going back to gym, I have been enjoying getting up later than 6am. But.)
So BH it all went well, the pathology results were fine, and I feel exactly the same.
I was afraid of feeling castrated, gonad-less, less of a woman, blah blah. Nothing like it. I'm glad that I can cross off that potential cause of death from my list.
I'd better not be hit by a bus. The irony would be too much.
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Sunday, 13 December 2015
SIXTY
So the 60th birthday celebrations are coming to a close. Last night was the party, along with a good friend, who also turned 60 not long ago; our kids put it all together. It was also the last night of Chanukah, so we were all burning with full light, to strain a metaphor. There was a DJ. I danced. Today I cannot move. But it was worth it.
Here's the speech I made; my brief was to be funny and I think I was. Well, people were laughing anyway, and I hope it was with me and not at me.
I still can't believe I'm this old.
BEN SHISHIM LE ZIKNO
In Pirkei Avot, 'Ethics of the Fathers', there is a reference to the arc of life and what is expected at various ages:
5- LeMikrah, 10- LeMishna, 13- LeMitzvah, 15-
LeGemarah,
18- LeChuppah, 20- Lirdof- ie pursuit of a
livelihood
30- Koach- full strength
40- Binah- Understanding
50-Eitzah- Ability to give advice!
60 - Zikno. OLD. Over the hill.
ZIKNO. Age. Comprised of 4 letters, Zayin, Kuf, Nun, Heh, which forms a neat acrostic:
Ziftzin - Sighing
Krechtsen- Groaning
Nissen- Sneezing
Hissen- Coughing
70- Seivo – ripe old age
80-Gevurah – Great strength; Because 'getting old ain’t for
sissies'.
Goes downhill from there.
BUT I note that this is all BEN and not BAS. SO
could it be it only applies to MEN? Huh?
3 things happen with aging:
ONE, your memory isn’t so good.
I forget the other 2 things.
It’s good that women over 50 don’t have babies,
they would put them down somewhere and forget where.
SCIENTIFIC FACT: Brain cells come, and brain cells
go, but fat cells live forever.
Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy
beautician.
When you go through menopause, they say you are
going through the change of life. The change. But they don’t tell you what
you’re changing into – in my case, my dad.(Stroke
bristly jaw of nana whiskers) But like a hot, itchy, mental version.
Age doesn’t always bring wisdom: sometimes, age
comes alone.
THINGS
I HAVE LEARNED: WORDS OF WISDOM-RULES OF AGING *
Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping
pill and a laxative on the same night.
Never pass up a toilet; never waste an erection;
never trust a fart.
Never lick a steak knife
Never say anything to a woman that even remotely
suggests that you think she is pregnant unless you can see an actual baby
emerging from her at that moment.
Do not confuse your career with your life
There is a very fine line between ‘hobby’ and
‘mental illness’
People who want to share their religious views
with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
No matter what happens, somebody will find a way
to take it too seriously.
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is
always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command.
Very often, this person is crazy.
The most destructive force in the universe is
gossip.
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the
waiter, is not a nice person. (THIS NEVER FAILS, pay attention.)
Your friends love you anyway.
Here are few more:
1.
Most things don’t matter.
Stuff that you think really matters usually
doesn’t. You can work yourself into sickness worrying about things that, in the
long term, are unimportant. Anyone planned a wedding?
What IS important: Being kind and being a mensch.
2.
Nobody is thinking about you.
You are certain that everyone spends half their
day talking about you or discussing your weight or denigrating your work. But
really, NOBODY is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves, just
like you.
(I wish I could tell this to self-conscious young
women, especially about their looks. They are all beautiful. Youth is
beautiful. Joy is beautiful.)
3.
There comes a time in life when you have to stop
trying to strengthen your weaknesses. It’s ok with kids, you see some gaps and
you try to help things along, or it might work on the sport field, but not in
life. In life, in maturity, if you attempt to strengthen a weakness, you will
get weaker. BUT if you keep playing to your strengths, people will not notice
you have weaknesses. Don’t believe me. Take singing lessons. But it’s true.
4.
Give honest, frank and open criticism to nobody,
ever.
Someone, friend, relative, workmate, employee, whatever,
has behavior or character flaws evident to all but themselves. You think that
an honest, frank, pull-no-punches conversation will show them the error of
their ways. They will see the light at once! And be forever grateful for your
kindness and candor and courage. Better still! They will reform their ways,
their lives will be redeemed and improved and they will owe all that you
candid, courageous you.
FORGET ABOUT IT. Don’t do it. Who here likes to be
criticized?
This relates to my previous point: Nobody is
thinking about you, UNLESS you tell them about their faults. Then you can be
sure they are thinking of you. They are thinking of killing you.
On that note:
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up
and dance anyway.
Friends, family, thank you for coming tonight to
this celebration.
At my age, I know how much easier it is to stay
home. Not to mention how much more enjoyable, as a rule. I love when things get
cancelled and I can just stay home. I’m sure I’m not the only one. So thank you
all for making the effort.
Thank you to the young ‘uns (Maaryasha, Nechama,
Rosa- sorry if I forgot anyone, my memory isn’t so good) for organizing this
and not letting it fizzle into a couple of 60 year olds being overwhelmed by
the thought of being that old, and hiding under a blanket while soothing
ourselves with chocolate (Just me, then).
Thank you to Ralph and Tilly for giving their home
for the party, I really appreciate the work involved. I hope nothing got too
trashed, guests included.
Last but not least, thank you to my loving husband
for always being there, for his support and forbearance and being an all-around
good guy (WHO IS NEVER RUDE TO WAITERS BTW)
And finally- people rarely remember what you say
in a speech. But they sure remember if you took too long to say it.
I conclude! With-
A TOAST:
TO PUTTING THE ‘SEXY’ BACK INTO SEXAGENARIAN!
May the light of this last night of Chanukah stay
with you all throughout the year.
LECHAIM
* Although I wish that all these points were
original, I did in fact scour the internet and came up with these. Some are
from Dave Barry, and the 4 points are from Roger Rosenblatt’s ‘Rules of Aging’.
The line about ‘change of life’ was from American comedian Mrs. Hughes. (Link above.)
Friday, 6 November 2015
A Chunk of the Apple
Every time I go to NYC I learn something. 5th Ave divides the East and West. 6th Ave traffic goes uptown. Pedicab drivers charge $4 per minute. I stumble upon pockets of peace in the midst of the rush and activity. Some of the doorway embellishments are just gorgeous and there is so much Art Nouveau and Deco around.
I saw one of the prettiest horses I have ever seen carrying a traffic cop near the Rockefeller centre.
It's 18 degrees Celsius on the 5th of November, unseasonably warm, but they have the Rockefeller Plaza ice rink up and going and the skaters are out. Yesterday I read that they have cut down the tree that they will shlep to the Plaza and decorate for Xmas. 
There is a joke, 'how many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb?' And the answer is 'None of your business! Get out of my way!' The real joke is that New Yorkers are not like that at all. People are extremely polite, in the city at least. It's all 'excuse me' and 'thank you' and 'you're welcome'. Some guy standing on a corner handing out leaflets for a comedy club, when asked (perhaps a little brusquely by my husband) about the number of the street we were standing on (Little Brazil, but I think it's 42nd?) admonished 'Hey, first say good morning, I'm not a tour guide!' Then he pointed out the number just below the name. So it helps to smile and make eye contact and be polite. There are so many people from so many backgrounds and skin color/race is a real issue here, that you must not even remotely appear to be disrespectful; and maybe the politeness has an edge to it but it is a necessary thing. So every one is actually very polite and I don't know where that joke came from. Maybe things were different a few years ago. Or maybe it refers to the Bronx. (But you don't want to linger more than a millisecond when the lights turn green. In the car, all semblance to politeness disappears.)
Anyway as I was shpatziring along looking at the buildings and the doorways and the shop windows and the people and the other tourists with their sneakers and baseball caps and fanny packs and 'I ❤️ NY' T-shirts, looking and spending and craning their necks like me to look at the skyscrapers, I was thinking yet again, what a great city is NYC. Really, as my young Tajiki pedi-cab driver, who had won the green card lottery and came to NY with his wife with whom he now has an American baby, said: it truly is a city that never sleeps. This guy left Tajikstan and here he is peddling a fat old lady tourist to her hotel, living the dream. I'm sure his son will grow up and go to college and who knows, be President one day. You never know.
So what makes this city so great? Why is NYC so great in ways that say, Riyadh or Doha are not? I suppose I could substitute 'NYC' with London or Tokyo or Paris, and they are fantastic and amazing cities, but the difference is that they are 1000 years old. Moscow is also an amazing city, also 1000 years old but with a crazy post-Soviet twist which gives parts of it this manic insane no-holds-barred excess energy. New York is only what, 300 years old? With really most growth in the last 150 years? That's when the robber barons made their mark and became the upper class. The Rockefellers and Roosevelts and co. And the skyscrapers are only since the 1920s when they were made possible by the invention of the elevator and other technological advances. That's not even 100 years ago. But you can't think of NYC without thinking of skyscrapers. (And the Twin Towers of course. That's a whole other thing. Not going there now.)
So much growth and vitality and wealth. And yes there is a port and all sorts of reasons why there was a town put there in the first place. But I think the biggest and most powerful thing that the city has is the drive and the desire of its people to get on, get ahead, reach for the brass ring, and take advantage of the myriad opportunities that are there. Sure you have to work hard and you need some luck. But anyone can be anything in NYC.
And one of the reasons that this is possible is tolerance. All religions, all races, all points of view. Ok, nothing's perfect and there were dark days during the stewardship of some Mayors. But overriding all is the vitality of freedom.
And that is why despite all the wealth of the Emiratis or the Saudis (for as long as it lasts) and no matter how many ski runs and skyscrapers they build in Dubai on the backs of slaves, their cities will never result in anything remotely approaching New York. No freedom, no tolerance, and of course no Jews. No chance.
Wednesday, 23 September 2015
A Beastly Matter
The other day I had a bit of an altercation with someone. A gym buddy type. She is pretty opinionated, as am I, so that's always a recipe for argument. Anyway, she was waxing lyrical over this new Kashrut venture, recently launched, involving the breeding of beef and lamb for the Kosher market, where the animals would be kosher from head to tail because of the invocation of a rather arcane law. Usually the hindquarters of the beast are not considered kosher and are sold by the butcher to non-kosher butchers. This is because of the sciatic nerve, or Gid HaNasheh; we can't eat this because ...umm...that's where Jacob was wounded when he was wrestling the angel and was subsequently named Israel? Have I got that right? As I'm writing it, it seems to not make sense. Please correct me, O knowledgeable ones.
There is a way to dissect out all parts of the Gid by a specialised shochet, rendering the meat edible. This is called Treibering or Porging, and is very time consuming and difficult, so these days it is not done much.
OK, so here's the thing. Apparently, if a pregnant cow or ewe is Kosher slaughtered and the foetus is removed, it is considered Kosher and doesn't need its own Shechita. OK, that's not too controversial, even though is is a bit sad to think about this, and I have never heard of anyone doing this. But if this foetus, untimely ripp'd from its mother's womb, like MacDuff, is mature enough to survive; and if you can get such calves or lambs, male and female; and if you breed them together when they are grown, the resulting progeny would be completely edible. Also, the animal does not need the exhaustive examination of innards that regular animals do after slaughter, which saves time and money I guess. This is called Ben Pekuah, and it has been about 1,000 years since anyone sat down to a plate of such meat.
The idea is to make kosher meat cheaper for kosher consumers. I guess it is also about the exciting prospect of eating a rump steak or a leg of lamb etc, previously forbidden foods.
There are a couple of reasons that I don't buy this. Firstly, the cheap thing. I would have thought that the profits made by the butcher when selling the hindquarters on, would factor into the final price of meat; but then again I may be naive.
The other thing is this: although the rabbi endorsing this may be a man of wonderful character and good intentions, I think, frankly, he is not up to the standard needed to do these fancy-pants manoeuvres and I don't trust his Hashgacha (supervision). There have been a few dodgy things in the past involving his Hechsher (kosher stamp of authority) which are enough to make me uneasy. Yes, yes, you're going to talk about all the divisions in Hechshers and these Jews won't eat from that rabbi and those Jews won't eat from this rabbi, and it's all politics yada yada, and it IS a problem. And meat IS expensive. OK.
But Rambam did it! Sure- and this rabbi is not Rambam.
And that's when my buddy got stroppy with me:
'That's the same argument that is used all the time about Agunah! That nobody is wise enough or learned enough nowadays to make any changes and so no changes are made and women are trapped in bad marriages by recalcitrant husbands! And so the Beth Din does nothing and the women suffer!'
We sort of bickered that out a bit and it wasn't till after that I thought of a decent response, as is the way of these things.
And that is: It's not the same thing. The problems of Agunot are basically human rights issues. Withholding a Gett is a form of abuse, and this is being sorted in civil courts even if the Batei Din drag their collective feet, often to their disgrace. I share my buddy's anger and frustration with the situation. And in fact there are brave rabbonim who are stepping up to the plate and who are trying to effect change.
But this Ben Pekuah deal is not about human rights; it's about economics. But it's also about having a good fress, is it not?
You know, I actually don't think meat should be cheap. Maybe it should be a bit cheaper than what it is, but it should be expensive. It certainly is expensive for the animal. I am not advocating vegetarianism, nor am I a vegetarian. But I have always felt that people need to understand what meat-eating entails. I don't think we need to be like Mark Zuckerberg who, for a while, only ate meat from animals that he had killed himself; that's a bit extreme, also impossible for folks who keep kosher, unless they are trained Shochets. But I think that we need to keep in mind that the animal- whether animal or fowl or fish for that matter- died for our nourishment and pleasure. They are not just choice cuts wrapped in plastic on a tray. If you want to eat meat, don't just eat the fillet steaks. Eat the cheap cuts, learn how to cook them. You can feed a family a meat meal and make it quite economical. The real sin here is to waste the meat by poor handling. And as far as nutrition is concerned, you really don't need to eat much meat to get the iron, zinc, B12 etc. We are used to serving and eating slabs of muscle- thats what fillets and all the cuts you know are, muscles; maybe we should be more like the Chinese and use meat almost as a condiment. And maybe not turn up our noses at offal - liver, tongue, sweetbreads, tripe etc. If these things make you squeamish, I think that you are being a child about it and you are not recognising the fact that it was a living, breathing animal that gave you that juicy steak, and it should be acknowledged and respected.
Pushing the boundaries of Halachah is important, if the object is worthy. Unchaining the Agunah, helping the convert, these things are important.
Stuffing our faces with cheap meat, not so much.
There is a way to dissect out all parts of the Gid by a specialised shochet, rendering the meat edible. This is called Treibering or Porging, and is very time consuming and difficult, so these days it is not done much.
OK, so here's the thing. Apparently, if a pregnant cow or ewe is Kosher slaughtered and the foetus is removed, it is considered Kosher and doesn't need its own Shechita. OK, that's not too controversial, even though is is a bit sad to think about this, and I have never heard of anyone doing this. But if this foetus, untimely ripp'd from its mother's womb, like MacDuff, is mature enough to survive; and if you can get such calves or lambs, male and female; and if you breed them together when they are grown, the resulting progeny would be completely edible. Also, the animal does not need the exhaustive examination of innards that regular animals do after slaughter, which saves time and money I guess. This is called Ben Pekuah, and it has been about 1,000 years since anyone sat down to a plate of such meat.
The idea is to make kosher meat cheaper for kosher consumers. I guess it is also about the exciting prospect of eating a rump steak or a leg of lamb etc, previously forbidden foods.
There are a couple of reasons that I don't buy this. Firstly, the cheap thing. I would have thought that the profits made by the butcher when selling the hindquarters on, would factor into the final price of meat; but then again I may be naive.
The other thing is this: although the rabbi endorsing this may be a man of wonderful character and good intentions, I think, frankly, he is not up to the standard needed to do these fancy-pants manoeuvres and I don't trust his Hashgacha (supervision). There have been a few dodgy things in the past involving his Hechsher (kosher stamp of authority) which are enough to make me uneasy. Yes, yes, you're going to talk about all the divisions in Hechshers and these Jews won't eat from that rabbi and those Jews won't eat from this rabbi, and it's all politics yada yada, and it IS a problem. And meat IS expensive. OK.
But Rambam did it! Sure- and this rabbi is not Rambam.
And that's when my buddy got stroppy with me:
'That's the same argument that is used all the time about Agunah! That nobody is wise enough or learned enough nowadays to make any changes and so no changes are made and women are trapped in bad marriages by recalcitrant husbands! And so the Beth Din does nothing and the women suffer!'
We sort of bickered that out a bit and it wasn't till after that I thought of a decent response, as is the way of these things.
And that is: It's not the same thing. The problems of Agunot are basically human rights issues. Withholding a Gett is a form of abuse, and this is being sorted in civil courts even if the Batei Din drag their collective feet, often to their disgrace. I share my buddy's anger and frustration with the situation. And in fact there are brave rabbonim who are stepping up to the plate and who are trying to effect change.
But this Ben Pekuah deal is not about human rights; it's about economics. But it's also about having a good fress, is it not?
You know, I actually don't think meat should be cheap. Maybe it should be a bit cheaper than what it is, but it should be expensive. It certainly is expensive for the animal. I am not advocating vegetarianism, nor am I a vegetarian. But I have always felt that people need to understand what meat-eating entails. I don't think we need to be like Mark Zuckerberg who, for a while, only ate meat from animals that he had killed himself; that's a bit extreme, also impossible for folks who keep kosher, unless they are trained Shochets. But I think that we need to keep in mind that the animal- whether animal or fowl or fish for that matter- died for our nourishment and pleasure. They are not just choice cuts wrapped in plastic on a tray. If you want to eat meat, don't just eat the fillet steaks. Eat the cheap cuts, learn how to cook them. You can feed a family a meat meal and make it quite economical. The real sin here is to waste the meat by poor handling. And as far as nutrition is concerned, you really don't need to eat much meat to get the iron, zinc, B12 etc. We are used to serving and eating slabs of muscle- thats what fillets and all the cuts you know are, muscles; maybe we should be more like the Chinese and use meat almost as a condiment. And maybe not turn up our noses at offal - liver, tongue, sweetbreads, tripe etc. If these things make you squeamish, I think that you are being a child about it and you are not recognising the fact that it was a living, breathing animal that gave you that juicy steak, and it should be acknowledged and respected.
Pushing the boundaries of Halachah is important, if the object is worthy. Unchaining the Agunah, helping the convert, these things are important.
Stuffing our faces with cheap meat, not so much.
Sunday, 20 September 2015
For/give
I received an odd phone call last night.
This time of year, before Yom Kippur, Jews often ask forgiveness from each other, for having done something or said something which would have been hurtful or embarrassing. Because on Yom Kippur, all the breast-beating and confession to G-d is worth little if there is an actual human being hurting from what I actually said or did to him or her. I haven't done much of this asking thing in my adult life, because generally I try to be kind to people and if I have wounded someone, I probably wouldn't know. But I have done it.
Anyway, the person who called me was someone I went to school with, so since we graduated in 1972, and I think I have seen her twice in the intervening years, she is not really someone about whom I think very often. Or at all. I was intrigued when she confessed her wrongdoing to me, which was in my mind most trivial, and I wasn't even aware of it. As she was speaking, I was wondering if she was in fact, mentally ill. Then I wondered what she really wanted from me. OK, OK, I'm a bit suspicious of strange phone calls.
When I asked her how she was and what she had been up to, the floodgates burst and she talked for the better part of an hour about events in her life which frankly made it sound like a soap opera. I was aghast at some of the things she told me. My end of the conversation went like this:
Really!
Oh that's awful!
OMG, how sad!
Wow, she really said that, huh?
Whoa, that's weird!
I'm sorry to hear that.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
And I meant most of it because it was sad and weird and awful, most of her jumbled tale. She was getting pretty emotional too, but that's how she always was, even at school. And she was always a storyteller, embellishing and embroidering.
And then she said she had written a book, an autobiography, and had found a publisher (I must say that this made me very skeptical, because I know how bloody hard it is to get a book published when you have no 'platform', i.e., if you are a nobody). And I'm in the book. Well, I'm not worried nor do I think she was trying to make me worried. I don't think she has a grudge against me and I also don't think this book will get published. Just saying.
So she finished up by tearfully asking my forgiveness which of course I gave her whole-heartedly because even at the time it allegedly occurred, about 15 years ago, I didn't notice anyway.
Sometimes I think I am a little too insensitive, but really, there is little that hurts me or that I even notice without laughing at, or that sticks in my memory. (Except duplicity. That, I remember.)
She wanted to give me her mobile number, which I took, but I demurred when she asked me for mine. You can't blame me. I still don't know what it was really all about apart from a wounded soul wanting someone to listen. So I hope I did that well enough.
And if she does get her book published, I hope she sends me a copy. It will be pretty juicy, I'm sure. Just not the bits with me in it, I am too boring.
OK, just thought I'd share that on behalf of the lonely wounded people. I wish them all, and myself, and all of us, and the world, Gmar Chatimah Tovah; to be signed and sealed in the book that matters, the Book of Life.
This time of year, before Yom Kippur, Jews often ask forgiveness from each other, for having done something or said something which would have been hurtful or embarrassing. Because on Yom Kippur, all the breast-beating and confession to G-d is worth little if there is an actual human being hurting from what I actually said or did to him or her. I haven't done much of this asking thing in my adult life, because generally I try to be kind to people and if I have wounded someone, I probably wouldn't know. But I have done it.
Anyway, the person who called me was someone I went to school with, so since we graduated in 1972, and I think I have seen her twice in the intervening years, she is not really someone about whom I think very often. Or at all. I was intrigued when she confessed her wrongdoing to me, which was in my mind most trivial, and I wasn't even aware of it. As she was speaking, I was wondering if she was in fact, mentally ill. Then I wondered what she really wanted from me. OK, OK, I'm a bit suspicious of strange phone calls.
When I asked her how she was and what she had been up to, the floodgates burst and she talked for the better part of an hour about events in her life which frankly made it sound like a soap opera. I was aghast at some of the things she told me. My end of the conversation went like this:
Really!
Oh that's awful!
OMG, how sad!
Wow, she really said that, huh?
Whoa, that's weird!
I'm sorry to hear that.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
And I meant most of it because it was sad and weird and awful, most of her jumbled tale. She was getting pretty emotional too, but that's how she always was, even at school. And she was always a storyteller, embellishing and embroidering.
And then she said she had written a book, an autobiography, and had found a publisher (I must say that this made me very skeptical, because I know how bloody hard it is to get a book published when you have no 'platform', i.e., if you are a nobody). And I'm in the book. Well, I'm not worried nor do I think she was trying to make me worried. I don't think she has a grudge against me and I also don't think this book will get published. Just saying.
So she finished up by tearfully asking my forgiveness which of course I gave her whole-heartedly because even at the time it allegedly occurred, about 15 years ago, I didn't notice anyway.
Sometimes I think I am a little too insensitive, but really, there is little that hurts me or that I even notice without laughing at, or that sticks in my memory. (Except duplicity. That, I remember.)
She wanted to give me her mobile number, which I took, but I demurred when she asked me for mine. You can't blame me. I still don't know what it was really all about apart from a wounded soul wanting someone to listen. So I hope I did that well enough.
And if she does get her book published, I hope she sends me a copy. It will be pretty juicy, I'm sure. Just not the bits with me in it, I am too boring.
OK, just thought I'd share that on behalf of the lonely wounded people. I wish them all, and myself, and all of us, and the world, Gmar Chatimah Tovah; to be signed and sealed in the book that matters, the Book of Life.
Monday, 31 August 2015
VALE OLIVER SACKS
In the early 80's, a decade in which I was basically constantly pregnant or nursing, I managed to find time between working and kids to browse bookshops (remember those?) and I chanced upon a small Pan paperback called Migraine. I was quite interested in the topic, as I had a friend from school (until today) whose migraine was a third person in the relationship and I had seen up close what it could do to a person's life. I had also seen some funny things as a doctor, and I had also experienced a few episodes myself, strange visual blind spots and shimmering, temporary inability to find words, and other slightly scary stuff, usually associated with a pregnancy.
So I bought the book and took it home.
I had done a bit of medical reading during my training but I had never read a book like this before. It was full of literary and historical allusions. It was not actually written for doctors in particular, that was clearly stated in the forward; it was also for sufferers of migraine. And it didn't just give over dry case histories, but fleshed out stories and descriptions, and then mused and philosophised over the stories and the patients. It was like nothing I had ever read. I didn't just learn about the different types of migraine; I learned about Hildegard of Bingen. (Could be her visions related to migraine!) Underpinning the whole style of writing was a deep intellectual curiosity and an attitude of seeing the malady not as The Enemy, but as an expression of the patient's actual being. The aim was not just to vanquish the problem, but to understand it and work with it along with the patient who was living with it.
The author had obviously really listened to the patients and really saw them, not just as sufferers in the consultation room, but as fully realised human beings, carefully and thoroughly, even lovingly, you could say, described and depicted. It was a revelation. The book had been originally written in 1970 and had been revised in 1980.
The writer was Oliver Sacks. I have to say that the name meant nothing to me.
About 5 years later I heard about and then bought the oddly titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. As soon as I started reading it, I made the connection. This book was easier, it made no effort with glossaries and index, it was purely stories. Case histories of patients with things that we used to think of as exceedingly rare, like Tourettes, or Aspergers. A deeper understanding of neural deficits caused by disease or alcoholism or trauma- and not just as deficits, but as part of the patient's story and journey through life.
Then I found Awakenings, and they made a movie of it, but by then I was completely hooked. A Leg To Stand On was a timely offering; my husband was recovering from a badly broken leg and someone gave it to him as a gift while he was recuperating- but I had already bought a copy. I don't know if it helped hubby but it certainly diverted him.
I own every book that Oliver Sacks published, the later ones in hardback because I couldn't wait for them to come out in paperback. His first autobiography, Uncle Tungsten from 2001, was an eye-opener. I had worked out that he was Jewish and related* to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (whom I also admire greatly), but the story of his childhood, his unusual and brilliant surgeon mother, who brought home an aborted foetus for him to dissect when he was about 12- can't get that little detail out of my mind- his clever extended family, including Abba Eban (yet another person I admire!)- it was riveting.
I didn't admire or agree with every single thing that he wrote; in Hallucinations from 2012, I was strongly struck by his complete atheism. In describing some hallucinatory experiences it was as if he was bending over backwards to reduce every described experience to a set of chemical events. There was no room for the spiritual in his narrative, and I found that fascinating. But as far as his compassion and sense of the patient's humanity was concerned, he remains a great influence on how I try to relate to my own patients.
He came to Australia on at least one occasion, because I went to hear him speak - I think it was the early 2000's- and to buy his latest book AND I took the opportunity of bringing my own stack of books for him to autograph as well.
All of them were published by Picador, except Migraine, the smallest book, on top of my pile. He picked it up and glanced at me with a smile, then showed it to his personal assistant. He signed all of the books in a semi-legible scrawl of green felt-tip pen; but Migraine he signed Oliver Wolf Sacks, because he was pleased to see it, his first literary offering, written when he was in his 30's. I guess it amused him.
For the record, he was a very shy man with a self-diagnosed inability to recognise faces (prosopagnosia - like me) or places (thus getting lost anywhere and everywhere- like me.) He lived alone and I guess he turned his love and affection on to his patients; it certainly felt that way when I read his books.
In his book The Mind's Eye, he described his own visual problems, which turned out to be due to a melanoma of the retina of his eye. I won't say that I am a prophet, but the diagnosis of malignant melanoma is too often a terrible one with a poor prognosis. And in the retina. It sounded bad when I read about it, and it turned out to be bad, because he passed away yesterday at the age of 82, from metastatic melanoma. His last essay, about the Sabbath, is a gently told story about growing up in an orthodox Jewish family, keeping Shabbos, until he broke away, partly because of his mother's rejection of the possibility that he was gay; the last paragraph is elegiac in tone and as sad and beautiful as any of his writings. But I didn't want to believe that it would be the very last thing he wrote.
I have his last autobiography, On The Move, next to my bed, next in line for reading. So I have a full set of his books; I should be pleased. But I feel as if a light has departed from this world.
RIP, Oliver Sacks. I know you didn't believe in Heaven, but I believe that you're there anyway. And if it turns out you were right, then you live on in your books and in the people you influenced.
So I bought the book and took it home.
I had done a bit of medical reading during my training but I had never read a book like this before. It was full of literary and historical allusions. It was not actually written for doctors in particular, that was clearly stated in the forward; it was also for sufferers of migraine. And it didn't just give over dry case histories, but fleshed out stories and descriptions, and then mused and philosophised over the stories and the patients. It was like nothing I had ever read. I didn't just learn about the different types of migraine; I learned about Hildegard of Bingen. (Could be her visions related to migraine!) Underpinning the whole style of writing was a deep intellectual curiosity and an attitude of seeing the malady not as The Enemy, but as an expression of the patient's actual being. The aim was not just to vanquish the problem, but to understand it and work with it along with the patient who was living with it.
The author had obviously really listened to the patients and really saw them, not just as sufferers in the consultation room, but as fully realised human beings, carefully and thoroughly, even lovingly, you could say, described and depicted. It was a revelation. The book had been originally written in 1970 and had been revised in 1980.
The writer was Oliver Sacks. I have to say that the name meant nothing to me.
About 5 years later I heard about and then bought the oddly titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. As soon as I started reading it, I made the connection. This book was easier, it made no effort with glossaries and index, it was purely stories. Case histories of patients with things that we used to think of as exceedingly rare, like Tourettes, or Aspergers. A deeper understanding of neural deficits caused by disease or alcoholism or trauma- and not just as deficits, but as part of the patient's story and journey through life.
Then I found Awakenings, and they made a movie of it, but by then I was completely hooked. A Leg To Stand On was a timely offering; my husband was recovering from a badly broken leg and someone gave it to him as a gift while he was recuperating- but I had already bought a copy. I don't know if it helped hubby but it certainly diverted him.
I own every book that Oliver Sacks published, the later ones in hardback because I couldn't wait for them to come out in paperback. His first autobiography, Uncle Tungsten from 2001, was an eye-opener. I had worked out that he was Jewish and related* to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (whom I also admire greatly), but the story of his childhood, his unusual and brilliant surgeon mother, who brought home an aborted foetus for him to dissect when he was about 12- can't get that little detail out of my mind- his clever extended family, including Abba Eban (yet another person I admire!)- it was riveting.
I didn't admire or agree with every single thing that he wrote; in Hallucinations from 2012, I was strongly struck by his complete atheism. In describing some hallucinatory experiences it was as if he was bending over backwards to reduce every described experience to a set of chemical events. There was no room for the spiritual in his narrative, and I found that fascinating. But as far as his compassion and sense of the patient's humanity was concerned, he remains a great influence on how I try to relate to my own patients.
He came to Australia on at least one occasion, because I went to hear him speak - I think it was the early 2000's- and to buy his latest book AND I took the opportunity of bringing my own stack of books for him to autograph as well.
All of them were published by Picador, except Migraine, the smallest book, on top of my pile. He picked it up and glanced at me with a smile, then showed it to his personal assistant. He signed all of the books in a semi-legible scrawl of green felt-tip pen; but Migraine he signed Oliver Wolf Sacks, because he was pleased to see it, his first literary offering, written when he was in his 30's. I guess it amused him.
For the record, he was a very shy man with a self-diagnosed inability to recognise faces (prosopagnosia - like me) or places (thus getting lost anywhere and everywhere- like me.) He lived alone and I guess he turned his love and affection on to his patients; it certainly felt that way when I read his books.
In his book The Mind's Eye, he described his own visual problems, which turned out to be due to a melanoma of the retina of his eye. I won't say that I am a prophet, but the diagnosis of malignant melanoma is too often a terrible one with a poor prognosis. And in the retina. It sounded bad when I read about it, and it turned out to be bad, because he passed away yesterday at the age of 82, from metastatic melanoma. His last essay, about the Sabbath, is a gently told story about growing up in an orthodox Jewish family, keeping Shabbos, until he broke away, partly because of his mother's rejection of the possibility that he was gay; the last paragraph is elegiac in tone and as sad and beautiful as any of his writings. But I didn't want to believe that it would be the very last thing he wrote.
I have his last autobiography, On The Move, next to my bed, next in line for reading. So I have a full set of his books; I should be pleased. But I feel as if a light has departed from this world.
*turns out he wasn't related at all to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I'm not sure where I got that info from but in On The Move OWS makes it clear that they are not family.
Sunday, 30 August 2015
FASTER AND FASTER
I cannot believe that I haven't posted since June. And you know what else I can't believe? It's Rosh Hashanah in two weeks. TWO WEEKS.
This is actually not possible, because wasn't it just Pesach a few months ago? And didn't I just write about RH a couple months before that? And isn't today Monday, so it's just been Shabbos, but it's nearly Shabbos again? What the hell is going on?
OK, yes, I'm busy, so that makes time go faster I guess. And yes, I am older, and the older I get, the quicker time passes because each unit of time is a smaller percentage of the time that I have already lived so it is perceived as a shorter interval. That's why, when you are young, it takes FOREVER for your birthday to come around. If you are 5, a year is a 5th of your life! That's a long time. But if you are pushing 60, like me, a year is only 1/60th of your life. So as I get older, the years will spin by faster than an Iranian centrifuge. And that's what we all have to look forward to.
There is some good to be found in this. For example, if I find myself stuck in something unpleasant or tiresome, like listening to a boring speaker or working out in gym, I just tell myself that it will all be over soon, because everything is over soon.
I have a manicure every 2 weeks, because when I became a grown up lady, some time after 45, manicures became compulsory. At first I had weekly sessions involving cleaning things up and lots of tsk-tsking from the manicurist, but as I got sucked into this desire to always have perfect nails, I eventually succumbed to the Biogel, so that needs maintenance every 2 weeks. It takes about 20-30 minutes of tidying up, infilling, painting yada yada and then about an HOUR of sitting there waiting for it to dry. (Of course, that hour passes in 15 minutes, so NP.) Only then do I go out and usually it all holds until the next session which is 2 weeks (i.e. 4 days) away.
So last session I sat and sat and then I went home and promptly got my thumb stuck in a drawer, which cause a scrape of the nail polish. Curses. One really does get obsessive about this stuff.
Daughter: 'Why not go back and have her fix it?'
Me: 'Because I do NOT want to be THAT sort of person.'
Daughter: 'I hear you.'
Me: 'And besides, it's almost time for the next manicure.'
Daughter: <silence> (But kind of judgmental silence.)
So I have got a bit of a leg-up on Rosh HaShana, because I have made a lot of chicken soup and even several containers of tzimmes, AND a honey cake, and it is all safely nestled in the freezer, along with the bulk order of meat and chicken from the butcher. So I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself about that. Except I haven't actually gotten around to inviting anyone to come for meals over Yom Tov, apart from immediate family. (But that ALWAYS happens because the butcher starts warning me about Pesach and Yom Tov at least 3 months before, which sends me into a mini-panic. I end up buying vast amounts of meat with no idea of who is actually going to eat it. And yet...it gets eaten.)
But as for the spiritual stuff, G-d help me. Every year, I feel less prepared. And before I know it, I will be sitting in my rarely-frequented seat in Shul, trying not to leaf through my machzor, counting the pages until it will be over. Because I know it will be over. It will ALL be over: Too soon.
Ksivah veChasimah Tovah, wishing for a year of good health, joy and peace. And living in the moment. (Unless the moment is unpleasant, in which case I will eat chocolate.)
This is actually not possible, because wasn't it just Pesach a few months ago? And didn't I just write about RH a couple months before that? And isn't today Monday, so it's just been Shabbos, but it's nearly Shabbos again? What the hell is going on?
OK, yes, I'm busy, so that makes time go faster I guess. And yes, I am older, and the older I get, the quicker time passes because each unit of time is a smaller percentage of the time that I have already lived so it is perceived as a shorter interval. That's why, when you are young, it takes FOREVER for your birthday to come around. If you are 5, a year is a 5th of your life! That's a long time. But if you are pushing 60, like me, a year is only 1/60th of your life. So as I get older, the years will spin by faster than an Iranian centrifuge. And that's what we all have to look forward to.
There is some good to be found in this. For example, if I find myself stuck in something unpleasant or tiresome, like listening to a boring speaker or working out in gym, I just tell myself that it will all be over soon, because everything is over soon.
I have a manicure every 2 weeks, because when I became a grown up lady, some time after 45, manicures became compulsory. At first I had weekly sessions involving cleaning things up and lots of tsk-tsking from the manicurist, but as I got sucked into this desire to always have perfect nails, I eventually succumbed to the Biogel, so that needs maintenance every 2 weeks. It takes about 20-30 minutes of tidying up, infilling, painting yada yada and then about an HOUR of sitting there waiting for it to dry. (Of course, that hour passes in 15 minutes, so NP.) Only then do I go out and usually it all holds until the next session which is 2 weeks (i.e. 4 days) away.
So last session I sat and sat and then I went home and promptly got my thumb stuck in a drawer, which cause a scrape of the nail polish. Curses. One really does get obsessive about this stuff.
Daughter: 'Why not go back and have her fix it?'
Me: 'Because I do NOT want to be THAT sort of person.'
Daughter: 'I hear you.'
Me: 'And besides, it's almost time for the next manicure.'
Daughter: <silence> (But kind of judgmental silence.)
So I have got a bit of a leg-up on Rosh HaShana, because I have made a lot of chicken soup and even several containers of tzimmes, AND a honey cake, and it is all safely nestled in the freezer, along with the bulk order of meat and chicken from the butcher. So I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself about that. Except I haven't actually gotten around to inviting anyone to come for meals over Yom Tov, apart from immediate family. (But that ALWAYS happens because the butcher starts warning me about Pesach and Yom Tov at least 3 months before, which sends me into a mini-panic. I end up buying vast amounts of meat with no idea of who is actually going to eat it. And yet...it gets eaten.)
But as for the spiritual stuff, G-d help me. Every year, I feel less prepared. And before I know it, I will be sitting in my rarely-frequented seat in Shul, trying not to leaf through my machzor, counting the pages until it will be over. Because I know it will be over. It will ALL be over: Too soon.
Ksivah veChasimah Tovah, wishing for a year of good health, joy and peace. And living in the moment. (Unless the moment is unpleasant, in which case I will eat chocolate.)
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
A PIECE OF CAKE
'Booba, can you please make me a dolly cake for my birthday?'
Sure! Why not. I've done a few. For younger kids though. Age 2 or 3. This is for a 6 year old, and probably slopping on a bit of whipped cream and some sliced berries for decoration was not going to make the grade.
So I went to Chef Google and asked for some assistance with Dolly Varden cake, and check out what crazy obsessive women come up with. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was a far sight more complex than my previous attempts. But I'm up for a challenge!
'What's you favourite colour?' I asked Birthday Girl, expecting the usual pink, or Princess Elsa blue or such.
'Red! Aaaannd...black.'
Ummm...great! I'll do a Goth theme. That hasn't been done. Or an Essendon supporter doll. Why not.
'No, no! I changed my mind. Rainbow! I love the rainbow.'
Rainbow. Hmm, that's a LOT of food colouring. The kids will go mental. But there must be a shortcut...
Ah, taste the rainbow! Skittles! Haha, too easy. On a white background. Of fondant. Stuck on with...buttercream frosting.
Now I am committed enough to actually own a Dolly Varden cake tin which lends shape to the skirt of the doll. It is deep and stands on a narrow base.
The cake takes longer to bake because of the depth, and the tin when full of batter is unstable because of the narrow base. So when I made the cake batter which I marbled with blue, green and pink (eww, won't do that again), you would think that I would remember this, but of course when I checked on the cake after a reasonable time, the centre was still runny and then the tin tipped over when I slid the tray back into the oven. So, cursing, I whipped it back out and used a spatula to scoop the batter back into the hollowed cake and hoped that the Cake Goddess would not be a bitch and it would be OK.
And so it was. Didn't do the marbling pattern any favours though.
That was Thursday night. The party was scheduled for Sunday, and I was planning on decorating the cake on Sunday morning. I had bought the ready made fondant. I had food colouring. I even had Cholov Yisroel butter and cream for the frosting. And I had the kosher Skittles.
Friday, 40 minutes before Shabbos I remembered that I didn't have a doll.
I dashed out to Coles down the street and snagged a Barbie for $10. I was back home in 20 minutes and hello Shabbos.
Saturday night I actually could not sleep because of the cake. I tossed and turned and fretted over patterns and rainbows and, befuddled and slightly anxious, I got up at 7.30 - on a Sunday, people- and addressed the task at hand.
So it turns out, that unlike with a cheap $2 plastic Barbie knock-off, the legs of a real Barbie do not pop out. Removing the legs, while seemingly cruel, allows one to stick the doll's legless torso into a small depression on top of the cake, i.e. scoop out a bit of cake and stick on Frankenbarbie with some frosting. No can do with Real Barbie. This time was for real. So I used a zucchini corer (I have no idea why I own such a thing, but I do) and reamed out the cake as neatly as a geologist's core sample. I stripped Barbie of her hooker clothes and heels, wrapped her in plastic from the waist down, (to keep her clean and protect her impressive thigh gap) and thrust her into the hole in the cake. And it turned out that Barbie, with her impossibly long and shapely legs, was taller than the cake.
Huh. Never had this problem with Frankenbarbie. I needed something to elevate the cake and accommodate her legs. Corks? No, should be edible. More cake? Oy, too late, no time.
I found some marshmallows and with a stroke of genius, constructed a marshmallow-buttercream plinth, and Voila! Cake up to the waist now. Sort of.
Then the buttercream frosting, made with REAL butter and REAL cream. Yes, ma'am, no pareve fake stuff here. Nosirree.
Slather that on, fill in all the gaps. AND NOW. The Fondant.
I had bought a block of this, kosher of course, and had never worked with it before. But I had to try (refer to images of dolly cakes). You knead it and roll it and then you can cut it like cookie dough. And it was like kneading a brick, but it did soften eventually. Since I know a thing or two, I rolled it between 2 sheets of baking paper so I didn't have to curse it for sticking to stuff, and then I cut out dozens of hearts with a cookie cutter and stuck them on to the frosting. The marshmallow plinth was hidden and I built the skirt. And I made a little bodice for Barbie, so no more nudity.
After admiring the bride-like creation, with plastic wrap veiling all over her face and hair, keeping it nice and clean, I set to work sticking Skittles in a sort of rainbow gradation of colour EXCEPT it turns out that kosher Skittles do not have red or blue. Plenty of green, yellow, orange and a murky violet, but no red or blue. Anyway, I toiled away with the Skittles and a little dab of frosting sticking them all on, one by one, until I ran out of them.
See the bow? See? See?
Ta-daa!
It had taken 2 hours.
Then everyone came to set up, and when I mentioned, with some pride, the buttercream frosting with the REAL butter etc, Birthday Girl's mummy went a bit pale and told me that the menu included hot dogs. I must have missed the memo. After an initial frisson of panic, we decided that the cake would be served first, and then games etc and then hotdogs. Saved from Treyf.
And when it was time to cut the cake, you wouldn't believe it, one of the little girls informed me that it was not a rainbow, because there was NO BLUE. But, aha! On cutting the cake, the marbled blue green and pink interior (ew) made up for that. Take that, smart little kid.
And in 2 minutes she was eaten, down to the marshmallows. After stripping Barbie of her fondant bodice and Glad Wrap fetishwear, a quick wipe over with a cloth and on went her pink mini and hooker heels, and Barbie was ready to be fought over by Miss 6 and her feisty little sister, Princess 3.
After the party was over and the presents unwrapped, with some maternal prompting, Miss 6 thanked me and told me that I was the Best Booba.
I know. I have the apron to prove it. (Okay, different spelling, same sentiment.)
Sure! Why not. I've done a few. For younger kids though. Age 2 or 3. This is for a 6 year old, and probably slopping on a bit of whipped cream and some sliced berries for decoration was not going to make the grade.
So I went to Chef Google and asked for some assistance with Dolly Varden cake, and check out what crazy obsessive women come up with. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was a far sight more complex than my previous attempts. But I'm up for a challenge!
'What's you favourite colour?' I asked Birthday Girl, expecting the usual pink, or Princess Elsa blue or such.
'Red! Aaaannd...black.'
Ummm...great! I'll do a Goth theme. That hasn't been done. Or an Essendon supporter doll. Why not.
'No, no! I changed my mind. Rainbow! I love the rainbow.'
Rainbow. Hmm, that's a LOT of food colouring. The kids will go mental. But there must be a shortcut...
Ah, taste the rainbow! Skittles! Haha, too easy. On a white background. Of fondant. Stuck on with...buttercream frosting.
Now I am committed enough to actually own a Dolly Varden cake tin which lends shape to the skirt of the doll. It is deep and stands on a narrow base.
The cake takes longer to bake because of the depth, and the tin when full of batter is unstable because of the narrow base. So when I made the cake batter which I marbled with blue, green and pink (eww, won't do that again), you would think that I would remember this, but of course when I checked on the cake after a reasonable time, the centre was still runny and then the tin tipped over when I slid the tray back into the oven. So, cursing, I whipped it back out and used a spatula to scoop the batter back into the hollowed cake and hoped that the Cake Goddess would not be a bitch and it would be OK.
And so it was. Didn't do the marbling pattern any favours though.
That was Thursday night. The party was scheduled for Sunday, and I was planning on decorating the cake on Sunday morning. I had bought the ready made fondant. I had food colouring. I even had Cholov Yisroel butter and cream for the frosting. And I had the kosher Skittles.
Friday, 40 minutes before Shabbos I remembered that I didn't have a doll.
I dashed out to Coles down the street and snagged a Barbie for $10. I was back home in 20 minutes and hello Shabbos.
Saturday night I actually could not sleep because of the cake. I tossed and turned and fretted over patterns and rainbows and, befuddled and slightly anxious, I got up at 7.30 - on a Sunday, people- and addressed the task at hand.
So it turns out, that unlike with a cheap $2 plastic Barbie knock-off, the legs of a real Barbie do not pop out. Removing the legs, while seemingly cruel, allows one to stick the doll's legless torso into a small depression on top of the cake, i.e. scoop out a bit of cake and stick on Frankenbarbie with some frosting. No can do with Real Barbie. This time was for real. So I used a zucchini corer (I have no idea why I own such a thing, but I do) and reamed out the cake as neatly as a geologist's core sample. I stripped Barbie of her hooker clothes and heels, wrapped her in plastic from the waist down, (to keep her clean and protect her impressive thigh gap) and thrust her into the hole in the cake. And it turned out that Barbie, with her impossibly long and shapely legs, was taller than the cake.
Huh. Never had this problem with Frankenbarbie. I needed something to elevate the cake and accommodate her legs. Corks? No, should be edible. More cake? Oy, too late, no time.
I found some marshmallows and with a stroke of genius, constructed a marshmallow-buttercream plinth, and Voila! Cake up to the waist now. Sort of.
Then the buttercream frosting, made with REAL butter and REAL cream. Yes, ma'am, no pareve fake stuff here. Nosirree.
Slather that on, fill in all the gaps. AND NOW. The Fondant.
I had bought a block of this, kosher of course, and had never worked with it before. But I had to try (refer to images of dolly cakes). You knead it and roll it and then you can cut it like cookie dough. And it was like kneading a brick, but it did soften eventually. Since I know a thing or two, I rolled it between 2 sheets of baking paper so I didn't have to curse it for sticking to stuff, and then I cut out dozens of hearts with a cookie cutter and stuck them on to the frosting. The marshmallow plinth was hidden and I built the skirt. And I made a little bodice for Barbie, so no more nudity.
After admiring the bride-like creation, with plastic wrap veiling all over her face and hair, keeping it nice and clean, I set to work sticking Skittles in a sort of rainbow gradation of colour EXCEPT it turns out that kosher Skittles do not have red or blue. Plenty of green, yellow, orange and a murky violet, but no red or blue. Anyway, I toiled away with the Skittles and a little dab of frosting sticking them all on, one by one, until I ran out of them.
I had a scrap of fondant left so I dyed it red and made a sash with a BOW, noch, so at least there was red, then orange, yellow, green, NO BLUE (or indigo, goes without saying) and violet. Eh, what 6 year old would notice, I thought.
Then I freed Barbie from her scary-looking plastic head wrap and here she is.
It had taken 2 hours.
Then everyone came to set up, and when I mentioned, with some pride, the buttercream frosting with the REAL butter etc, Birthday Girl's mummy went a bit pale and told me that the menu included hot dogs. I must have missed the memo. After an initial frisson of panic, we decided that the cake would be served first, and then games etc and then hotdogs. Saved from Treyf.
And when it was time to cut the cake, you wouldn't believe it, one of the little girls informed me that it was not a rainbow, because there was NO BLUE. But, aha! On cutting the cake, the marbled blue green and pink interior (ew) made up for that. Take that, smart little kid.
And in 2 minutes she was eaten, down to the marshmallows. After stripping Barbie of her fondant bodice and Glad Wrap fetishwear, a quick wipe over with a cloth and on went her pink mini and hooker heels, and Barbie was ready to be fought over by Miss 6 and her feisty little sister, Princess 3.
After the party was over and the presents unwrapped, with some maternal prompting, Miss 6 thanked me and told me that I was the Best Booba.
I know. I have the apron to prove it. (Okay, different spelling, same sentiment.)
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
WO/MAN
What does it mean, to be a woman? Or to be a man?
Now that Bruce has transitioned to Caitlyn and been photographed by Annie Leibowitz, there is comment, there is bemusement, there is chatter and judgement and well-wishing and confusion. Bruce was living a lie, and Caitlyn is now free. But what does it all mean?
Superficially, Caitlyn is a woman. She seems feminine, wears make-up and has long hair and wears dresses and heels. Her breasts are full and plump, her skin is hairless and smooth (and the photoshopping is VERY smooth, Ms Leibowitz, for let us not forget that Caitlyn is 65 years old) and she looks very attractive. Let us not spoil the party by saying that she has male genitalia and XY chromosomes, for that is irrelevant. Caitlyn is a woman. And, since gender identity and sexuality are two separate entities, Caitlyn is a lesbian, I believe; she still loves women but is no longer married to one.
I am a woman. I don't have beautiful glossy hair, long nails or wear heels. Until I was 40 I hardly wore makeup and didn't have a manicure. When I was a kid I didn't like dolls or tea parties and I never owned a thing that was pink. When I was 18 I had long flowing hair and wore long flowing dresses and tried walking around barefoot, a faux-hippie chick who never smoked pot, studied hard, and got into med school. When I was 21 I cropped my hair and wore pants and drank whisky and smoked cigars, a faux-tough chick/lesbian-who-wasn't. Fast-forward a few years and I was married with 7 kids, having had an epiphany of sorts, and the Orthodox lifestyle and philosophy stuck. But I still love Acca Dacca and turn the car radio up to 11 when 'Jailbreak' comes on.
I'm nearly 60 now, younger than Caitlyn, and I don't look nearly as hot as her. My (small) boobs sag and I have stretch marks and varicose veins, and my post-menopausal skin tends to dry out if I don't use industrial-strength moisturiser. My ovaries are now a liability, because my mother and grandmother both died of ovarian cancer so I plan on finally having them removed surgically later this year. And when they, along with my long-passed fertility, are gone, I will still be a woman.
I may have mentioned that, many years ago, I worked in the field of Gender Dysphoria. That is to say, in 1980 I worked as a trainee psychiatrist in the old Queen Vic hospital which later relocated to Monash Medical Centre, under Dr Trudy Kennedy, dealing with patients who strongly felt that they were born into the 'wrong body' and were of the opposite sex. In the main, these were men who strongly felt that they were women. In their heads, they were women. They wanted to be rid of the accoutrements of masculinity and they wanted to live as women in an approximation of the body of a woman. Some of these people were mentally ill, and a sex-change operation was never going to fix that. But there were many who were not psychotic or crazy, but they were miserable in their bodies and only transitioning would help them.
Apart from that year at the coal-face, I worked for many years in General Practice in St Kilda which catered to the denizens of St Kilda including a fair number of trans-people. There were many who came from far away as well because the doctor who had worked there some years before was known to be tolerant and non-judgemental. So the transwomen came for their Oestrogen and Androcur prescriptions, but also for coughs and colds etc etc. During that time, I only saw one person who had changed his mind, i.e., was born a boy, started transitioning with hormones age 16 - all very shady, not through a clinic- but then realised that he was a 'normal gay male'- his words- and he wanted the breasts off. I referred him to the GD clinic at Monash but he never turned up, so goodness knows what happened to this poor kid. I only saw him once but this particular guy was no doubt a person who had been poorly parented, probably abused, and was confused about a lot of things.
I have a friend, a very conservative surgeon, who scoffs at the whole phenomenon. He said to me, 'If I had a patient who came to me and said, 'Doctor, I'm not a man, I'm really a giraffe', I wouldn't paint spots on him and teach him to eat leaves and stretch his neck. I would say that he was crazy and send him to a psychiatrist. Same thing if a man tells me he's really a woman.'
And yet.
It's a real thing. It's a source of much suffering. It's not a lifestyle choice. It's associated with a terrible rate of attempted suicide and suicide in young people. It's not good enough to 'giraffe' them.
It's not entirely clear, however, that hormonal and surgical treatment is going to fix these problems. Although there is some subjective satisfaction after gender reassignment surgery, the rates of suicide attempt and psychological distress is still very high.
It's not a simple problem. And I think that the field of paediatric GD is a minefield. I have never worked in this field. There is a GD clinic at the Royal Children's Hospital here which is run by a respected psychiatrist, Dr Campbell Paul, which treats children from as young as 5 to age 17, after which there is the Monash GD Clinic.
Now, I think this is even more vexed. If a 5 year old girl says that she hates being a girl and she wants to be a boy, what is she saying? Is she saying that she never wants to have babies? Is she saying she hates the idea of menstruation? No. She is usually saying that she wants to play with trucks and get muddy and wear boys' clothes, or she has been bullied by the mean girls, or perhaps worse. Does she really understand what it means to be a woman or not in the arc of life? Ditto for a boy. Surely in this day and age we can respond to this by saying, cool, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, wear ties and trousers, climb trees, that's alright, and it doesn't make you a boy. Instead we are seeing this stuff about how we have to accept the reality that 'some boys are born with vaginas and some girls are born with penises'. I know that people who are saying this think that they are being very liberal in their understanding and acceptance of gender fluidity, but in fact, I think it reflects the opposite. I think it reflects real rigidity in understanding gender roles. My mother never said that I was not a real girl because I would rather play in the mud than with dollies. GD is more intense and complex than this example, but the more interviews I hear from transgendered people, the more I hear how many grew up hearing that they couldn't do this or that because they were a boy or a girl. I wonder how things might have turned out differently with more blurring of what is acceptable gender conforming behaviour. It's not so long ago that an athletic girl was called a 'tomboy', but now that we accept athleticism in girls, we hardly hear the term.
So I'm not dismissing Gender Dysphoria, and I hope I don't come across as if I am. I think it is a thing that we are going to hear more about as our society becomes, for better or worse, more unstitched about matters of gender and sexuality. It's not that common, but it is a tremendous source of misery and it must be flagged and dealt with by trained professionals in the context of accepting families, or, in the absence of a supportive family, then a supportive community. We need to be less judgemental and more educated. Just as being accepting of gays doesn't make people more gay, accepting trans people won't make more people want to transition. The answer might not in the end be surgery and hormones; the answer might just be accepting that there are those who just don't fit into the gender binary of male and female (even the Talmud recognised 6 genders) and helping them get the help they need, which will be different in every case.
Good luck, Caitlyn, I hope you really have found what you were looking for.
Now that Bruce has transitioned to Caitlyn and been photographed by Annie Leibowitz, there is comment, there is bemusement, there is chatter and judgement and well-wishing and confusion. Bruce was living a lie, and Caitlyn is now free. But what does it all mean?
Superficially, Caitlyn is a woman. She seems feminine, wears make-up and has long hair and wears dresses and heels. Her breasts are full and plump, her skin is hairless and smooth (and the photoshopping is VERY smooth, Ms Leibowitz, for let us not forget that Caitlyn is 65 years old) and she looks very attractive. Let us not spoil the party by saying that she has male genitalia and XY chromosomes, for that is irrelevant. Caitlyn is a woman. And, since gender identity and sexuality are two separate entities, Caitlyn is a lesbian, I believe; she still loves women but is no longer married to one.
I am a woman. I don't have beautiful glossy hair, long nails or wear heels. Until I was 40 I hardly wore makeup and didn't have a manicure. When I was a kid I didn't like dolls or tea parties and I never owned a thing that was pink. When I was 18 I had long flowing hair and wore long flowing dresses and tried walking around barefoot, a faux-hippie chick who never smoked pot, studied hard, and got into med school. When I was 21 I cropped my hair and wore pants and drank whisky and smoked cigars, a faux-tough chick/lesbian-who-wasn't. Fast-forward a few years and I was married with 7 kids, having had an epiphany of sorts, and the Orthodox lifestyle and philosophy stuck. But I still love Acca Dacca and turn the car radio up to 11 when 'Jailbreak' comes on.
I'm nearly 60 now, younger than Caitlyn, and I don't look nearly as hot as her. My (small) boobs sag and I have stretch marks and varicose veins, and my post-menopausal skin tends to dry out if I don't use industrial-strength moisturiser. My ovaries are now a liability, because my mother and grandmother both died of ovarian cancer so I plan on finally having them removed surgically later this year. And when they, along with my long-passed fertility, are gone, I will still be a woman.
I may have mentioned that, many years ago, I worked in the field of Gender Dysphoria. That is to say, in 1980 I worked as a trainee psychiatrist in the old Queen Vic hospital which later relocated to Monash Medical Centre, under Dr Trudy Kennedy, dealing with patients who strongly felt that they were born into the 'wrong body' and were of the opposite sex. In the main, these were men who strongly felt that they were women. In their heads, they were women. They wanted to be rid of the accoutrements of masculinity and they wanted to live as women in an approximation of the body of a woman. Some of these people were mentally ill, and a sex-change operation was never going to fix that. But there were many who were not psychotic or crazy, but they were miserable in their bodies and only transitioning would help them.
Apart from that year at the coal-face, I worked for many years in General Practice in St Kilda which catered to the denizens of St Kilda including a fair number of trans-people. There were many who came from far away as well because the doctor who had worked there some years before was known to be tolerant and non-judgemental. So the transwomen came for their Oestrogen and Androcur prescriptions, but also for coughs and colds etc etc. During that time, I only saw one person who had changed his mind, i.e., was born a boy, started transitioning with hormones age 16 - all very shady, not through a clinic- but then realised that he was a 'normal gay male'- his words- and he wanted the breasts off. I referred him to the GD clinic at Monash but he never turned up, so goodness knows what happened to this poor kid. I only saw him once but this particular guy was no doubt a person who had been poorly parented, probably abused, and was confused about a lot of things.
I have a friend, a very conservative surgeon, who scoffs at the whole phenomenon. He said to me, 'If I had a patient who came to me and said, 'Doctor, I'm not a man, I'm really a giraffe', I wouldn't paint spots on him and teach him to eat leaves and stretch his neck. I would say that he was crazy and send him to a psychiatrist. Same thing if a man tells me he's really a woman.'
And yet.
It's a real thing. It's a source of much suffering. It's not a lifestyle choice. It's associated with a terrible rate of attempted suicide and suicide in young people. It's not good enough to 'giraffe' them.
It's not entirely clear, however, that hormonal and surgical treatment is going to fix these problems. Although there is some subjective satisfaction after gender reassignment surgery, the rates of suicide attempt and psychological distress is still very high.
It's not a simple problem. And I think that the field of paediatric GD is a minefield. I have never worked in this field. There is a GD clinic at the Royal Children's Hospital here which is run by a respected psychiatrist, Dr Campbell Paul, which treats children from as young as 5 to age 17, after which there is the Monash GD Clinic.
Now, I think this is even more vexed. If a 5 year old girl says that she hates being a girl and she wants to be a boy, what is she saying? Is she saying that she never wants to have babies? Is she saying she hates the idea of menstruation? No. She is usually saying that she wants to play with trucks and get muddy and wear boys' clothes, or she has been bullied by the mean girls, or perhaps worse. Does she really understand what it means to be a woman or not in the arc of life? Ditto for a boy. Surely in this day and age we can respond to this by saying, cool, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, wear ties and trousers, climb trees, that's alright, and it doesn't make you a boy. Instead we are seeing this stuff about how we have to accept the reality that 'some boys are born with vaginas and some girls are born with penises'. I know that people who are saying this think that they are being very liberal in their understanding and acceptance of gender fluidity, but in fact, I think it reflects the opposite. I think it reflects real rigidity in understanding gender roles. My mother never said that I was not a real girl because I would rather play in the mud than with dollies. GD is more intense and complex than this example, but the more interviews I hear from transgendered people, the more I hear how many grew up hearing that they couldn't do this or that because they were a boy or a girl. I wonder how things might have turned out differently with more blurring of what is acceptable gender conforming behaviour. It's not so long ago that an athletic girl was called a 'tomboy', but now that we accept athleticism in girls, we hardly hear the term.
So I'm not dismissing Gender Dysphoria, and I hope I don't come across as if I am. I think it is a thing that we are going to hear more about as our society becomes, for better or worse, more unstitched about matters of gender and sexuality. It's not that common, but it is a tremendous source of misery and it must be flagged and dealt with by trained professionals in the context of accepting families, or, in the absence of a supportive family, then a supportive community. We need to be less judgemental and more educated. Just as being accepting of gays doesn't make people more gay, accepting trans people won't make more people want to transition. The answer might not in the end be surgery and hormones; the answer might just be accepting that there are those who just don't fit into the gender binary of male and female (even the Talmud recognised 6 genders) and helping them get the help they need, which will be different in every case.
Good luck, Caitlyn, I hope you really have found what you were looking for.
Monday, 18 May 2015
The Cheesecake Festival
So Shavuos is coming nearer and nearer, and I'm still counting the Sefirah - with a brocha, yet. It took over 50 years before I managed that, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.
And with Shavuos, comes the cheesecake. I have non-Jewish friends that get excited about 'the cheesecake festival', in fact I don't know anyone who doesn't get excited about Shavuos. It's such a user-friendly festival! You can eat what you want (milchig or fleishig) where you want (IN the house and not in a hut) and it's only 2 days long. (yeah, OK, this year it tacks on to Shabbos, so 3 days. Another reason to live in Israel.)
My dad z"l, who was a classic Poilishe Vitzler, used to promise to give me whatever I asked for on Chol Hamoed Shavuos, and I used to get really excited about that, until I was about 7 when I worked it out. Haha.
Anyway, I want to focus on the cheesecake thing. The thing is, I am not what you, or anyone in their right mind, would call an accomplished baker. I have a few fool-proof cakes, believe me, nothing fancy. But for years, I used to be too scared to make cheesecake because it looked so complicated.
And then I thought, what terrible thing would happen if I DIDN'T separate the eggs? Or if I DIDN"T use cream cheese, which is not easy to get here if you keep Chalav Yisroel. Or if I used a crumb base and not a shortcrust pastry base or whatever?
So I fiddled with a recipe and I sort of stripped it down to an idea which I call 'The Philosophy of Cheesecake'. Basically you adapt it to whatever you can find locally. I have made this cake in Israel (which is easy because the dairy food is AMAZING there) and in New York, with what passes for sour cream there, and it still worked.
Now I make cheesecake every 2 weeks, for Shabbos (it lasts 2-3 weeks in the fridge) and I'm not saying that this is the best cheesecake that you will ever eat, because it isn't. I'm honest about that. But it's very nice and light and easy to make. And practice does make it a better cake, this is true.
So, dear readers, I present to you:
The Philosophy of Cheesecake.
So after the awe and majesty of receiving the Torah at Sinai, you can go home and enjoy your cheesecake.
I love being Jewish.
And with Shavuos, comes the cheesecake. I have non-Jewish friends that get excited about 'the cheesecake festival', in fact I don't know anyone who doesn't get excited about Shavuos. It's such a user-friendly festival! You can eat what you want (milchig or fleishig) where you want (IN the house and not in a hut) and it's only 2 days long. (yeah, OK, this year it tacks on to Shabbos, so 3 days. Another reason to live in Israel.)
My dad z"l, who was a classic Poilishe Vitzler, used to promise to give me whatever I asked for on Chol Hamoed Shavuos, and I used to get really excited about that, until I was about 7 when I worked it out. Haha.
Anyway, I want to focus on the cheesecake thing. The thing is, I am not what you, or anyone in their right mind, would call an accomplished baker. I have a few fool-proof cakes, believe me, nothing fancy. But for years, I used to be too scared to make cheesecake because it looked so complicated.
And then I thought, what terrible thing would happen if I DIDN'T separate the eggs? Or if I DIDN"T use cream cheese, which is not easy to get here if you keep Chalav Yisroel. Or if I used a crumb base and not a shortcrust pastry base or whatever?
So I fiddled with a recipe and I sort of stripped it down to an idea which I call 'The Philosophy of Cheesecake'. Basically you adapt it to whatever you can find locally. I have made this cake in Israel (which is easy because the dairy food is AMAZING there) and in New York, with what passes for sour cream there, and it still worked.
Now I make cheesecake every 2 weeks, for Shabbos (it lasts 2-3 weeks in the fridge) and I'm not saying that this is the best cheesecake that you will ever eat, because it isn't. I'm honest about that. But it's very nice and light and easy to make. And practice does make it a better cake, this is true.
So, dear readers, I present to you:
The Philosophy of Cheesecake.
I used to be
intimidated by cheesecake recipes calling for pastry bases, separation of eggs,
whipped whites yada yada. It doesn’t have to be that hard! Cheesecake is not an
exact science because cheese will vary in moisture content, texture and fat
content, so results will vary but the cheesecake will taste good no matter
what.
You will need:
For the cheese
filling:
- 400-500g/16oz white cheese, either
cottage cheese, continental-style, farmer cheese, quarg, ricotta,
whatever, as long as it is not
salty
- A jar, about 300ml/10oz sour cream,
the thicker the better
- 3-4 large eggs
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 tspn vanilla
- 100-200ml/ 1/2 -2/3 cup milk
- 2 Tb cornflour (cornstarch to the
Yanks)
For the crust:
- 1 packet plain sweet biscuits
(about 200g/8oz) like Marie biscuits, Petit Beurre or Grahams
- 120g/4 oz butter (unsalted is
best)
- Cinnamon, a few shakes
- A springform cake tin, 24cm/10”,
lined with baking paper, or lightly greased and floured on the sides
- A large bowl of electric mixer
- Small bowl to mix the butter and
crushed biscuits
Preheat oven
to 160C (150C fan forced)
Crush the
biscuits, either by pulsing in food processor or by placing in a plastic bag
and rolling with a rolling pin.
Melt the
butter, mix with the crumbs in a small bowl, then place in the prepared cake
tin. With your fingers, press out the crumbs in an even layer over the bottom
and up the sides of the tin. Don’t be anal about this, it doesn’t have to be
perfect. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Refrigerate while you make the filling.
In the large
bowl of the mixer, place the sugar and 3 eggs and beat well, 5 mins at least,
until the mixture is pale yellow and airy. Add the cheese spoon by spoon,
beating, then add the sour cream and vanilla.
Here’s where
you have to make some judgments. If the mixture is so stiff the beaters can’t
really get through it, add the milk, 100mls at a time, beating well. You are
aiming for a consistency like thick dollops of cream. If the cheese was very
soft and wet, you will not need to add the milk, but you may need the 4tth
egg to give the mix more setting power.
Then add the
cornflour, mix well.
Place the
batter in the prepared baking tin and bake for about 50-55 mins.
The top should
not get brown. The cake will rise in the tin a bit like a soufflé, but don’t
get too excited as it WILL settle. To test if it is done, give the tin a little
shake; the cake should just give a little jiggle, not slosh around.
Once the cake
seems done enough, turn off the oven and leave the cake in the oven to cool; it
will continue to set and won’t collapse as dramatically. The top might crack. Don't let it bother you. If it does, chuck some whipped cream on it before you serve it. Up to you.
Once cool,
refrigerate in the pan.
To serve,
remove from springform tin. Once the cake is cold, it shouldn’t be too hard to
peel off the paper and slide the cake onto a serving platter, or loosen the
crust off the bottom of the tin with a palette knife, if you didn't use paper. Decorate with fresh
berries and whipped cream if you like, but it’s not necessary.
Serve with
coffee, or as a dessert with berries. Or- special Shavuos treat- a scoop of ice-cream.
Variations:
·
This
can be gluten-free if you use either gluten-free biscuits or shredded coconut and almond meal as the base, and make sure that the cornflour is not wheat-based.
·
Use
crushed plain chocolate biscuits or gingersnaps if you prefer these to plain
biscuits. Or add desiccated coconut to the biscuit crumbs. By the way, if you
find you have no butter, use melted coconut oil, about 100g/3.5oz. It works.
·
Add
shredded lemon zest and/or the juice of a lemon to the cheese mixture for a
lemon cheesecake. Add the juice while the mixture is beating so it incorporates
well and doesn’t curdle it. Add the zest after all the beating is done, just
stir it in with a spoon, or else it will get stuck to the beaters.
·
Or
swirl chocolate syrup through the mixture, just a little swirled with the tip
of a skewer when the cheese mixture is already in the cake tin.
·
Or
swirl blueberries or raspberries through the mixture before baking.
·
You
can leave out the sour cream completely or you can use the sour cream as a
topping; beat it with ¼ cup sugar and pour this over the cheese filling halfway
through baking. You can add the berries into this sour cream-sugar mixture and
pour over the cheese mixture.
·
You
can do a lower fat version by using low fat cheese and milk and leaving out the
sour cream and the crust, but it won’t be the same. Still nice, but not the
same.
·
OR
you can go the other way and add MELTED WHITE CHOCOLATE, about 150g/5oz, or
more if you want. Melt in a bowl over boiling water in a saucepan, don’t let
the bowl touch the water. Let cool for a few minutes and then spoon in to the
mixture after the cheese, let it keep beating. PRETTY GOOD let me tell you.
Thursday, 14 May 2015
THE BITTER AND THE SWEET.
I was a bit surprised to see that my last post was from 2 months ago! My, how time flies.
It's not that nothing much was happening, it's that TOO much was happening; before I knew it, it was almost over.
So in the past few years, i.e., since I started blogging, I have written about what is, for me, the emotionally fraught time of year that basically goes from Pesach to Shavuot.
Well, this year, Pesach itself was wonderful because we all went away to a fantastic Pesach program at Whistler in Canada, and all my kids and their kids came and it was just magical. I didn't want to write about that because it would only sound like bragging about my privilege which it still does, so I'll stop.
The night that we returned was Yom HaShoa. The commemoration was respectful and well-organised and of course left me immeasurably saddened by the unfathomable tragedy of the Shoa. More later.
And then, a week later, Yom HaZikaron. I actually spoke at this year's commemoration, lighting a candle in the memory of my brother Julian (Yehuda) Pakula who fell in the Yom Kippur War. I was asked if it was hard for me to do, and I have to say that it was easier on the night at Robert Blackwood Hall, only because there had been a run-through on the Sunday just before that. Back in the day, it was more of a seat-of-the-pants operation, but it's bigger now so organisation is important. Anyway, they went through the videos and the poems and by the time we got to my bit I was a weeping mess - there is one poem in particular that cuts my heart, because it captures so well the grief and loss of a bereaved father- but I pulled myself together and said my speech. So on the night itself, I was more prepared emotionally (plus I remembered to bring tissues).
Then a few days later was the Shloshim for my husband's uncle, Reb Chaim Serebryanski zt"l, who had passed away in New York. I had known him since I was a child and he was a unique and wonderful person who embodied Chabad Chasidus and complete love of his fellow Jew. There really are no people like that anymore. So that was sad.
And then there was a bunch of stuff, work, entertaining etc, but that's all normal.
And then my daughter arrived for a week long visit, with her baby, who is ka'h adorable ptu ptu ptu, and that was wonderful BUT during that week was:
It's not that nothing much was happening, it's that TOO much was happening; before I knew it, it was almost over.
So in the past few years, i.e., since I started blogging, I have written about what is, for me, the emotionally fraught time of year that basically goes from Pesach to Shavuot.
Well, this year, Pesach itself was wonderful because we all went away to a fantastic Pesach program at Whistler in Canada, and all my kids and their kids came and it was just magical. I didn't want to write about that because it would only sound like bragging about my privilege which it still does, so I'll stop.
The night that we returned was Yom HaShoa. The commemoration was respectful and well-organised and of course left me immeasurably saddened by the unfathomable tragedy of the Shoa. More later.
And then, a week later, Yom HaZikaron. I actually spoke at this year's commemoration, lighting a candle in the memory of my brother Julian (Yehuda) Pakula who fell in the Yom Kippur War. I was asked if it was hard for me to do, and I have to say that it was easier on the night at Robert Blackwood Hall, only because there had been a run-through on the Sunday just before that. Back in the day, it was more of a seat-of-the-pants operation, but it's bigger now so organisation is important. Anyway, they went through the videos and the poems and by the time we got to my bit I was a weeping mess - there is one poem in particular that cuts my heart, because it captures so well the grief and loss of a bereaved father- but I pulled myself together and said my speech. So on the night itself, I was more prepared emotionally (plus I remembered to bring tissues).
Then a few days later was the Shloshim for my husband's uncle, Reb Chaim Serebryanski zt"l, who had passed away in New York. I had known him since I was a child and he was a unique and wonderful person who embodied Chabad Chasidus and complete love of his fellow Jew. There really are no people like that anymore. So that was sad.
And then there was a bunch of stuff, work, entertaining etc, but that's all normal.
And then my daughter arrived for a week long visit, with her baby, who is ka'h adorable ptu ptu ptu, and that was wonderful BUT during that week was:
- The annual Liberation dinner, commemorating 70 years since my father-in-law Nathan Werdiger was freed from Buchenwald (the actual date was April 11 but that fell on Pesach so it was postponed). These dinners have been going for 30 years or so, because for the first 40 years he was unable to talk about it. My mother-in-law Nechama puts together a dinner which could only have been dreamed of by a starving boy in a concentration camp; and my father-in-law gives testimony on whatever aspect of those years he wishes. His stories are recorded. He tries to talk about his family foremost, honouring the memories of the murdered, and it takes a tremendous toll on him, but he stands throughout and we are silent. This year there were 4 generations at the table, about 50 people representing a fraction of the family which lives in Israel, England and the US. Normally the youngest to attend has to be bat or bar mitzvah, but this year my 9 year old granddaughter was invited; too young, I think, but as she put it 'I didn't cry like my cousins did, but I was very sad.' So she heard what she could comprehend and didn't really hear about kapos and Musselmen.
- Lag B'Omer, and we hosted a function where 180 people turned up, and it was great except I kept worrying about the 2 firepits we had going and that the house would burn down or at least the grass would be destroyed or someone would catch fire. I'm happy to report that none of these things happened, Thank G-d. Bloody hell, Jews and fire, so much potential for disaster so many times a year. Anyway.
- Mother's (Mothers'?) Day brunch where my kids, who are now also mothers, get to make brunch for me for a change! Sorry, ladies! Maybe next year we'll have it catered. I don't think we can actually go out, the kids would TRASH any restaurant, bless them. And of course I think about my mother who has been gone nearly 30 years, more about that later.
- My mother-in-law Nechama's 80th birthday. She didn't want a party, she didn't want a present, she gave herself a birthday cake at the Liberation dinner and that was enough, all her friends were dead (they aren't, I think she was feeling a bit low when she told me this a week earlier, she is very sad at the passing of her brother Chaim), and we went ahead and did it anyway, and it was great. Jack Feldman, aka Bubbe Henya, was a riot and we were all in fits, and it was great to see Nechama and Nathan both cracking up. So thanks for that, Dr Jack.
So that was a busy week! Talk about 'Rozhinklech und mandelach', raisins and almonds, i.e. folksy Yiddish way of describing how life is bitter-sweet.
AND NOW, we are heading into Shavuot; my brother Marvin passed away 8 years ago a few days before Shavuot, and my mother Freda a few days after Shavuot, 30 years ago. So I'm planning on doing a kiddush in their honour after Shavuot. And I always do a big festive yom-tov meal which almost but not quite, pushes away the memory of that last, awful Shavuot with my mother.
There are times that I cannot believe that I am the last person standing in my immediate family. It is very sobering. I mean, of course, I have my kids and grandchildren b'h, and there are times I can't believe that either.
I can't even begin to imagine what goes on in my father-in-law's mind. He is a very special guy, ('til 120); relentlessly optimistic and positive despite his experiences in the camps, his losses and bereavement. But just as I find myself thinking more about my parents and continuing to miss them every year, he thinks about his murdered family. He is plagued by flashes of memories from the camps; of course he has what we now call PTSD, yet he and so many other survivors managed to make new lives for themselves; how, I don't know. What strength.
But as he was sitting near me at the Mothers' Day brunch, he picked up the jar of Three Berry Preserve that was to go with the brioche and said quietly to me, 'On Xmas day they gave us a spoonful of jam with our bread. Later on, some meat. Some people traded the jam for more bread.' He shook his head, smiling sadly. 'Everything reminds me of the camps.'
Loss and optimism. Missing loved ones and living life to honour them. Privilege and sorrow.
Raisins and almonds.
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