The World's Easiest Chocolate Icing

 

Cupcake Iced and Decorated With Chocolate Icing

I was trying to think of an easy and enjoyable activity for my younger grandchildren when it occurred to me that they could decorate some cupcakes I had baked.

This "icing recipe" is so simple, it can hardly be called a recipe. The "hardest" thing was adding bittersweet chocolate to the Friday shopping list.

Ingredients:

    bittersweet chocolate

    a little cooking oil

    spoon of sugar

    colored sprinkles or whatever

Preparation:

    melt all ingredients together either in pan on low heat, or in microwave

    mix

    spoon on cake/cupcake

    Optional: sprinkle with colored sprinkles, coconut flakes or "whatever"

Let cool and enjoy

Now tell me the truth. Isn't this 

The World's Easiest Chocolate Icing

Drumming Up Fun in Katamon

The other day just after I picked up one of my young grandchildren from day care, I got a message from my daughter-in-law that there was going to be a "musical activity" for children in a park near their home.

I had just walked a few minutes in the wrong direction when I decided to go. That meant I'd be walking up hill pushing the stroller, wearing my backpack. Once I clarified the location, I consulted with Google Maps, which warned me that it would be a half hour walk. Yes, the shortest route was uphill. But should that frighten this intrepid savta (grandmother)? Gd forbid!

With both hands firmly on the stroller, the toddler who refused to wear a jacket "NO!" sitting and observing, my phone in my fanny pack loudly broadcasting Google Maps' directions, "turn left," then "take the second exit on the roundabout..." I must have looked like quite a nutty old lady.

Finally, after over half an hour of trekking through hilly Jerusalem, consulting with my daughter-in-law for the exact location I found the "musical activity" in a lovely park hidden away behind a grocery store and parking lot. Lots of children and parents, probably grandparents too, were sitting mesmerized watching the show.

I skillfully wheeled my grandchild next to the front row to get a birds eye view and hear the music and explanations. I covered him up with his jacket and blanket, no refusals this time. Within seconds someone gave me a chair, so I could sit, too.

We enjoyed the show, even though we had missed most of it. The "musical activity"  was perfectly geared to young children and didn't seem to bore the adults with them.

When it was over, a short walk to my son's apartment. The fun of grannyhood.

New Mug From My Granddaughter

At our big family Chanukah Party last week, I brought presents for absolutely everyone. I've continued with the custom I began when I was working in Yafiz clothing store, buying pajamas for all of the children. I managed to find them all in one big shopping session in the Pisgat Zeev Mall a few weeks before Chanukah. Sales had already begun, and there were all sizes. I had to get adult sizes for the oldest ones, who are all taller than I am. And in one of the big children's chain stores, Kiwi, I found cute sweatsuits for the younger ones. So far, reports are that they all fit.

For the grownups, I went to my favorite store, FOX Home, and I wasn't disappointed. They had a wonderful selection of mugs at discounted prices. To make life easier for myself, I got all the kids identical mugs and something else useful for my husband.

I was surprised at the party by a personal gift for me. One of my younger granddaughters bought everyone presents with her own money. This mug has praises written all over:

"My Grandma is THE BEST"
"My Grandma is Young at Heart"
"Beloved Dear Grandma"
"Grandma #1"
"Perfect Grandma"

and more wonderful words💖💝💟

Yes, she's a very special granddaughter!

Babysitting Help

One of our grandchildren is being raised with two rather hairy "older siblings," aka dogs. We have other grandchildren who get rather "nervous" around them, but they accept that visiting their cute little cousin requires that they accept the dogs in the bargain. Considering that I was rather phobic/terrified of dogs and cats as a child, I like the idea that there are now dogs in our family.

The other evening I was asked to babysit for the adorable little boy as he slept, and I had company to do it, too. Yes, they seemed pretty bored. No television, and I didn't share my phone with them.

Finally Wore My Hand-Painted Shirt

Months ago I did a project with my older grandchildren, or more accurately, I planned one. I came with a bunch of shirts and sweatshirts for myself* and their whole family. Some were even specially bought the occasion. I decided that we would paint/decorate them.

Photo taken by my husband just before I went to bed when I remembered that there was no photo of me in the shirt.

Well, it was a good idea, but only the youngest, age seven 7, was interested or willing to participate. I just came home with one shirt, which wasn't suitable to the winter weather. Yesterday, before getting dressed, I finally took out my iron, which I hadn't touched for at least a decade, and ironed the shirt to "set the paint." Then I wore it. I hope that is got hot enough, or it will wash out when laundered.

I don't know if my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter have ever worn theirs. But I had always liked this shirt and am happy to have hidden the store logo so creatively. There's still some paint for more fabric projects.

*The idea came to me when I was trying to figure out what to do with all the shirts and sweatshirts I had with the "Yafiz" logo from my six years working there. I had returned the one shirt that I had signed for, but nobody wanted or would wear the others.

Granny/Savta/Grandma Project With The Kids

I'm one of those annoying grandmothers who tries to keep the kids "busy" and "productive. The idea of just hanging around the house drives me crazy. 

You may remember some of my other "projects," some successfully done when they come to me, like soap-making and jewelry making.

As you can see in the pictures, I decided that painting on sweatshirts would be a great idea. I got the idea, because I have all these "souvenirs" from my time working at Yafiz, where I had to wear shirts and sweatshirts with the logo. Since I'm not the most talented in the artistic realm I thought that I could get my grandchildren to paint over the logo, so I could wear some of the clothes.

There ended up being just a couple of problems with it.

1. It's not cheap.
2. Only the youngest one out of the four grandchildren I was visiting even bothered trying to decorate/paint their new clothes.

At least she was enthusiastic, as you can see. She painted my old shirt, her mother's, father's and her own.

I left the special fabric markers with her and hope that she has fun decorating more clothes. Why not? She's named after an aunt of mine, an artist who had studied textile design.

Too bad the older kids weren't interested. Maybe they'll paint their clothes when I'm not around...

"Handmade*" Cake

When I found myself with the grandkids on a Thursday afternoon, I decided to "kill two birds with one stone" and do some of my Shabbat preparations with them. I also loved the idea of baking in my daughter's nice big oven. So we made cakes.

I used my fantastically easy no-fail basic cake recipe to which I added chocolate chips.

The youngest of that crew was very enthusiastic about helping, so I took advantage of the opportunity. We also did some basic math in English, since there are lots of numbers when baking cakes:

"We need 10 half-cups of flour. Two were from the now finished bag of flour, so how many more do we add from the full bag of flour?"

Even though the Second Grade had started barely a week before, she could calculate it all in her head. NO FINGERS!

We made 4 1/2 cakes. And I guessed the temperature correctly. If there's a dial, cakes generally do well when the dial almost points directly down, just slightly cooler. The "display" showed it as 270 degrees centigrade. Then I double-checked by googling on my phone. The numbers on my oven haven't been visible for years.

When the cakes were finished, we served the small one as a treat to all the kids. I just had a couple of "crumbs" to sample. Calories! Even though, rather inexplicably, most of those grandkids aren't noshers, it's hard to resist a cake straight out of the oven.

Once the cakes had cooled sufficiently, I packed up three, leaving my daughter one for Shabbat. The grandkids reported that the visit was fun.

Why is this post titled "Handmade*" Cake? Very simple. My granddaughter had never heard of mixing a cake by hand before. She called it "handmade." My daughter uses a mixer, and I don't. Of course, you can certainly mix the cake batter with an electric mixer, but I haven't had a functioning mixer for decades. It's just another thing to wash after baking, so I'm not interested. This one-bowl cake comes out perfectly fine when mixed by hand.

Craft Kit Rip-off

 You may have read my post from a few days ago about the lovely work, design and assembling, my not yet seven year old granddaughter had done with the beading supplies I had picked up in a Jerusalem Hobby supply store.  Not only had she chosen the beads I had bought for her teenage sisters, but I had looked forward to making necklaces from them, too. There was nothing at all childish in her taste and designs.

When I went over yesterday to spend time with the kids, I thought of bringing the bag of beads and clasps along with me, but since they have an arts & crafts supply closet at home, so I didn't.

I found a "necklace" kit, which had never been opened/used.

It wasn't quite as creative as the variety of beads I had purchased, but it looked interesting. So we opened it and checked the possibilities. We carefully followed instructions, and she used up all the usable* supplies making necklaces. We pasted what needed to be pasted with the enclosed glue and left everything to dry.

No surprise of course the glue didn't stick, and everything just fell apart. It did keep her busy for awhile, but that is all the kit accomplished. I just have to get more supplies from the regular hobby places. And while I'm there, I'll look for projects to suit her cousin, the young manicurist, too.

*One necklace clasp didn't work, glitter glue had dried out, and there weren't enough backings for the tiles.

Beading and More at "Camp Saba-Savta"

As my friend Debbie wrote, here in Israel it's very common for grandparents to conduct what are known as Kaytanat Savta, Camp Grandma to help entertain the grandchildren over the summer. When we do it, my husband also helps, so I'll call our camp "Camp Saba-Savta," Camp Grandpa-Grandma."

Even before my husband was retired from work, he had been working part-time and has been going weekly to be with the grandkids in Ofra, which is more than I'd managed the past few years while I was working in Yafiz and then teaching in Yeshiva Tichonit Ahavat Chaim. When they come to us in Shiloh for our "Camp Saba-Savta" both of us do things with the kids.

Of course, one of the big reasons is that our pool has separate swimming hours, male and female. That means that I take our granddaughters, and my husband takes our grandson. And when the females are at the pool, the "men" have to figure out something fun to do. I always look for a nice craft to do with the girls when the "men" are enjoying the pool. I must say that the three girls all swim well and absolutely love the water.

Two years ago my next door neighbor gave me soap molds to use, so we grated bars of soap and made fancy gift soaps. They remember it well.

This year I decided to do a beading project with them. That's how I ended up buying the nice red, black and white beads to make myself a new necklace. I set all the equipment up on the dining room table with a lot of plastic plates so the beads wouldn't roll all over the place. And the plates were also used for planning the necklaces.

I must admit that I was impressed at the speed, design-making abilities and how quickly the going to the 2nd grader caught on to the instructions. She ended up making two necklaces! My oldest granddaughter, who's about to enter high school, also had fun with the beading, though I think that I didn't buy the right style beads for her. None of the beads inspired the second one to even try. I have so many beads leftover... I guess I'll be doing more beading. Stay tuned.

Visiting The Grandkiddies After Their Trip to NY

I don't get to see my grandkids all that often. Until the end of June I had been working, and it was very hard to find the right time. Remember that I also study in Matan, and I have my "senior citizen arts & crafts club." And then as soon as I finished working, the four who live the closest went abroad with their parents for a few weeks.

Now they're all back, so I went over yesterday afternoon. They were doing their usual, school vacation plus jetlag relaxing... So, I did a little "testing."

"I presume that now after three weeks in New York your English is perfect."

That's what I said to the three younger ones. The eldest already understands everything and speaks beautifully. From the "you must be crazy" looks the two middle ones gave me, it was clear that they understood exactly what I had said. And the youngest, reacted with her usual question to her siblings:

"What did savta say?"

She'll catch on. Actually, she does understand most of what I say. And the others know more English than they would have if I hadn't been speaking only English to them all their lives.

Actually, I had a nice conversation with the second one. I spoke in English, and she answered in Hebrew. She understood everything without even once asking me to repeat or explain. The eldest speaks to me in English rarely trying to sneak in Hebrew.

Once the weather cooled down a bit, I was able to bribe the youngest with a trip to the grocers to buy ice cream. And then we went to the playground. I'm looking forward to seeing more of them... And then maybe I'll convince the younger ones to speak English, even just a few words...

Another Reader!

Our 1st Grader granddaughter has joined us as a reader.

Yes, it's nice to know that she's on the right track.

Celebrating Six 6!

The other day my daughter finally got to make her six year old a birthday party. When the actual birthday is during the super busy Jewish Holiday Season, celebrations get postponed. But since the princess got to "plan" the party, which included all that she wanted, she didn't care that it was actually over a month after the date.

Being just the grandmother, I had no real role other than glorified "gofer" and photographer, which meant that I could just enjoy myself and kvell. I especially enjoyed seeing my older granddaughters take over all sorts of important roles and responsibilities, very much like their mother did when she was their ages.

I even set the table! As you can see, the birthday girl likes pink.

The gorgeous cake was baked and decorated by the family, meaning that a few of us, including the birthday girl, took part.

Thank Gd a good time was had by all, Baruch Hashem, ken yirbu; may there be many more smachot, happy occasions for all the family.

A Day With The Grandkids

Yesterday I spent the day with most of my grandkids going to museums in Jerusalem. The older ones spent the entire day in the Israel Museum with their aunt, my eldest. And for a few hours I took a couple of younger ones to the Bloomfield Science Museum, which they had enjoyed last year. It's a short walk from there. It was a good choice. They loved it and specifically looked for the exhibits and sections they remembered from the earlier visit. This time they had more confidence and knew how to get to "play" with the exhibits and games. It was good that the teen and preteen stayed at the Israel Museum. I saw other kids their age looking as bored and miserable as they had been last year when I had them all in that children's museum.

Here are a few photos, specifically chosen as not to make the kids recognizable.

Busy With Arts & Crafts

It's nice to see that my young granddaughter, Kindergarten age, still does old fashioned Arts & Crafts wielding a stapler and scissors with great skill and creativity. 

homemade "pop-up book"

adding staples to the stapler

There was a time I had to tempt her away from the computer screen, but now she has been going straight to her Arts & Crafts supplies, thank Gd.

Creating is much more fun than staring a screen and moving a "mouse."

Bragging, The Piano Recital and More

final practice
before recital

Now, for the second year, I had the privilege and pleasure to attend the piano recital of my granddaughter. Now that she has two years of piano study under her belt, I see such a great improvement over last year. Unlike her older sister, she didn't try a number of instruments before the piano. There's something about the piano and her innate drive for perfectionism that suits her nature very well.

Her older sister has settled on the guitar after trying the chalilit, recorder and the electric organ. And her younger brother loves his electric drums. Electric drums? I had no idea there was such a device/instrument until one was bought for him. Yesterday he performed for me, having more fun changing the sounds and effects even more than doing the Ringo Starr thing. It's a new world out there. And my younger grandchildren aren't yet up to learning a musical instrument.

Solo

Duet

P.S. "Icing on the Cake," she's wearing the sweater I bought her in NY!!

The Grandkids Visited

OK, I must apologize for not posting a picture that shows how gorgeous my grandchildren are. I'm not supposed to, so here's a picture that shows some of them sort of. Even this shot shows them to be adorable, right?

One thing for sure is that they love the playgrounds near my house!!

A Day With The Grandkids

We had grandkids over the other day. It was a very busy one. First I took the girls to the pool, and in the afternoon, when my husband had the grandson at the pool, the girls made fancy soaps.

My neighbor lent me a kit for the soaps. All we needed to buy were bars of soap in different colors. 

I hope that they had as much fun as I did.

A Day Home

lovely swimming pool water, Shiloh

Today I'm home in Shiloh. OK, it's not a quiet day. We're having most of the grandkids over. We'll go to the pool. Females in the morning and males in the afternoon.

And there are activities for kids that we can go to, also. But I wonder if we'll be able to drag them away from the tv/dvd and their books.

At night there's a meeting of the local book club. I haven't finished reading the book, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, but I've been enjoying it and promised the organizer I'd make an effort to come.

Yes, one doesn't have to leave home to be busy.

Why is This Blog Now "A Jewish Grandmother?"

Right now in most contexts the blog no longer calls itself me-ander a name I made up when I was trying to figure out how to start it and what to call it. I had really wanted "meanderings," but blogger said it was taken. The same happened with "meander." So since I hadn't put enough thought into naming my blog, who would have thought that so many years later I'd still be blogging, I just hyphenated meander and invented "me-ander."

I haven't made any real changes in my blogs for a few years already. Shiloh Musings is doing fine, I think. The title says what it needs to say. It connects me to Shiloh, and the word "musings" is used to connote thoughts, random mostly. This blog is also rather random in focus, which is why I thought of using the name "everything but the kitchen sink." I liked it, but friends who responded to my request for advice thought that a title connected to "Jewish Grandmother" would be the best.

Actually  I could have used this title then, because I was already a grandmother.  One of my very first posts here was a picture of my eldest grandchild right after she had gotten her first shoes.

She looked so amazed as she gazed at her reflection on the shiny floor. I had gone with my son-in-law to buy them. She had been walking well for awhile, and my daughter didn't have time. so I was asked to be part of the grand occasion.

But just in case you were wondering, I'm not changing the focus of this blog to family rather than the miscellaneous it has always been. Kosher food and cooking and health, life in Israel and whatever I feel like writing about will still be the main content here.

If you have any requests or questions, just please let me know in the comments, thanks.

My Newest Granddaughter and My Mother's Gifts

Mother's Day

My mother holding me when I was about a year old in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York.

We never celebrated Mother's Day in our house, most probably because my mother's birthday was May 14, which is around Mother's Day, and my parents weren't very big on celebrating even our birthdays.

It's almost two years now since my mother, Shirley Shankman Spiegelman, passed away, and there's already a great-granddaughter of hers named after her. Her middle name is Li-Shir (sing to me,) and she and her parents visited the other day.

I really got a kick watching her play with the same toys my mother had bought my eldest over forty years ago. All my children had played with these classic wooden blocks. All sorts of kids who visited my house have played with them, too. And now so have all the grandchildren, may there be many more, G-d willing.

No doubt that my mother enjoys watching her namesake from Olam Haba, the Next World.