from a friend across the seas

Hi -

Right now I’m all covered with flour, waiting for a cake to come out of the oven and trying to decide whether to stay up to eat around 4:30 am or just take a bite now and go to sleep.

We’re taking our community to the local Chabad for Megilla tomorrow night,! then on Tues noon -- is reading again in our chapel, and Tues for the Seuda we’ve invited everyone to our house.......which means I have absolutely NO idea how many people are coming. What fun.

I’ve called it a “127-country menu”, and so far I’m planning:--
-Couscous (the whole works, soup w/ chickpeas, pumpkin, chicken)
- MoroccanBut served over Quinoa, which is South American;-
--Meatloaf with horseradish (I’m not sure what that represents really, but I found it in a Southern Living cookbook)-
--Indian “yellow” potatoes with cumin, turmeric, etc. (Indian as in Hodu)-
--Acorn squash (Indian as in Native Americans)
---Cauliflower with another Indian (Hodu) recipe
---Dips: Hummus (Middle East), Guacamole (Mexican), Caponata (Italian, I think), with vegetable-root chips which have a bunch of different colors and include beets, sweet potato and taro root (I think that’s Hawaiian)
Plus olives (Shiv’at haminim), and probably some other stuff I’ll think of

.......In the meantime I just checked my cake, rescued it from the oven, but when I tried to flip it over only the top half fell out of the bundt pan.....oh well. I guess I can always make a pineapple topping for it, and that will be more Hawaiian.

And, it’s poppy seed cake, so even before we’ve gotten to the hamentashen we have the mohn in the picture.

I don’t know what my plans are yet for the next trip. Here everything is just going one day at a time. It’s pretty intense — with all the Purim stuff, and already planning for a big community seder at the Community Center a few blocks from our house. By Pesach time, I might have a better idea of my next travelling plans. In the meantime, enjoy Purim and I hope it really makes people stop and think. It’s very frustrating being over here and not really getting the full impact of the election craziness. Doubly frustrating that there’s no absentee ballot. But reassuring that the polls are actually such nonsense

--- hopefully it’s only certain politicians who think they reflect any truth
.........Be’ezrat haShem, may the “right” man win! (If it sounds like something from a boxing ring, well, that’s how it feels sometimes, isn’t it?????

Kol tuv and Purim Sameach --