Sweet Options – Day 803

Posted on January 23, 2021January 23, 2021 by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment

Bark + Bee Honey – Photo: L. Weikel

Sweet Options

I’ve written about it before, and I’ll admit, the challenge continues. It’s real. I’m cautiously optimistic that this week’s inauguration will provide at least some respite to the nearly insatiable desire to self-soothe through comfort food. That said, we are still in the midst of a pandemic, and from the sound of things, everything could be on the brink of getting dramatically worse. All of which is to say: The stress of daily living appears in no hurry to diminish. Therefore, I need options. Preferably sweet options.

Why? Because the last kiffel disappeared today – as stealthily as DT did on Wednesday morning. And while I’m paying the price for the stress of the election and its aftermath (and feeling it when I put on my clothes), I must admit: I need to distract myself from ingesting the last remaining vestiges of holiday mischief still lurking about. These evil tempters are especially insidious at night, waiting to taunt and cajole me when I’m up late at night writing my 1111 Devotion.

Andy to the Rescue!

Yesterday, our postman, Andy, brought us an exciting delivery: a jar of Bark + Bee honey. Talk about sweet options! The prospect of this golden gift of the bees drizzled over a smattering of walnuts and topping a cup of plain Icelandic yogurt is even more tantalizing than an ice cream sundae. That’s because it satisfies my as-yet-unsated (if that’s not a word, it should be) urge for the dopamine effects of comfort and knowledge that all is well. And it’s good for me!

The cool thing is, beyond the universally known benefits of honey and plain, low fat yogurt, the addition of Bark + Bee honey, in particular, benefits both – you guessed it – dogs and bees!

Just…yum – Photo: L. Weikel

Bark + Bee Honey Company

The brainchild of two young women entrepreneurs in Princeton, NJ, cousins Laila Palmer and Gabby Issa, Bark + Bee Honey Company was created to both support their neighboring bee populations and provide much-needed funds (100% of their profits) to local dog shelters.

Sweet options abound! From choosing honey from local beekeepers whose bees work to pollinate the myriad crops of the Garden State to supporting facilities that foster pups for adoption rather than those offered by breeders for profit, what’s not to love?

Kiffel Christmas – Day 775

Posted on December 26, 2020December 26, 2020 by Lisa Weikel 4 Comments

Partial Plate of Kiffels – Photo: L. Weikel

Kiffel Christmas

Yuletide 2020 will forever be remembered as Kiffel Christmas. I know, I know. I wrote about my intention to bake kiffels how many days ago? Eleven?

Well, I’m relieved to report that I’ve finally managed to get those babies baked. Today – of all days. And given the length of time it ended up taking me to roll out those little balls, fill them, and bake them, I realize the unconscious wisdom I exercised in saving the endeavor for a day when I basically had no other obligations.

In my defense, I rolled the dough into little balls and had them resting in the refrigerator, contemplating their destiny a good four days or so ago. It was finding the time and dedication to completing the task that took some juggling.

Of course, because I commandeered the oven for this long-slog of a task, we decided to wait a day to roast our yuletide turkey. I have to admit, I’m looking forward to our last wave of turkey sandwiches for the year. We only roast two turkeys a year: one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. Hence we only indulge in turkey sandwiches twice a year as well.

Eye Roll

I have to say, I’m rolling my eyes at the fact that I’ve obviously ceded access to my keyboard to my gastric senses. But they’re primal. I’m incredibly grateful for the roof over my head, the heat emanating from our fireplace, and the comfort in my tummy.

I guess I’m especially appreciative of our good fortune right now. I’m acutely aware of the blessing it is to be able to bake kiffels, roast a turkey, and contemplate having enough leftovers to feed ourselves for a week (and even share some, to boot).

My heart goes out to the millions of people who are facing staggering hardships right now. Sickness, hunger, sadness and fear – and perhaps worst of all, the dark jaws of hopelessness. There’s nothing I can say or do or write that will ease their burdens. And it almost feels obscene for me to engage in the banter I do.

Love and Gratitude

But all I know is that the overriding feelings I want to convey today are love and gratitude. Love for the people and opportunities that fill my life. Love for the efforts of so many in my world to make a difference in people’s lives. Love and appreciation for the smiles and kindness I see in the eyes and on the faces of so many, even though I know for a fact their hearts are heavy with burdens.

There’s so much goodness in the world.

We may be pushed in the next several days and weeks especially to buy into the proposition that we can’t trust anyone who doesn’t look like or think exactly the way we do. We may be exhorted to think the worst of everyone we encounter.

It’s in times like these that we need to focus on those smallest of blessing around us. A cookie baked by a neighbor. The warmth of our blankets and the softness of our socks. The kindness and respect shown by people we don’t even know when they stand more than six feet away from us and wear a mask – the twinkle of a smile still visible in their eyes – just because they care about you as much as they care about themselves.

We need to focus on the littlest things right now because they are, in truth, gigantic and life-affirming.

Be well, my friends. Sending you all a virtual kiffel and a hug.

(T-336)

Peeps – Day 412

Posted on December 29, 2019December 14, 2020 by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment

Bright and Shining Moments (Wm Penn Inn) – Photo: L. Weikel

Peeps

There are just some people in the world whom you consider your ‘peeps’ and there are others you don’t. It doesn’t really mean anything, other than you’ve found your tribe.

There are, if you’re lucky, a lot of people you feel close enough to who can always (or could) cushion your fall. But there are the precious few who are always there. Just…always. No matter how many blood relatives you or they have. No matter how many months have gone by without an opportunity to sit down and have a really good, long chat. Without them having any idea what you may have been encountering in your life (and concomitantly, you having no idea what they’ve been encountering in theirs, either)…you just pick up.

Precious

Those are the precious ones.

Of course, I’m not dissing the others. Not by any means. It’s just that the ones I’m describing are in a category all their own. And the cool thing is, they can come from other subsets: meaning, they can actually be members of their own alpha pack, and yet be so genuine and so real that their energies transcend the other connections to forge meaningful bonds of their own. They can even be members of your bloodline – which is, in my estimation, a most extraordinary home run or stroke of luck on everyone’s part.

I’m probably blathering, and you are mostly wondering what in the world I’m talking about, because – key question weighing most heavily on all our minds is (if we’re honest) – what does this have to do with kiffels?

And did I discover the secret recipe for the nut confection that goes into the aforementioned kiffels?!

I think I may have hit pay dirt in that arena, but I have to wait until tomorrow to test out my theory In the meantime, and while this may indeed be a precious discovery, it is the celebration of friendship that I wanted to highlight.

But you know what? I’m reaching that point of sleepy appreciation that makes words sometimes sound like puffy clouds instead of the stalwart descriptors of some of the most important aspects of our lives.

Burdens

For whatever reason, as I sit here in the semi darkness, I’m realizing more acutely in the moment how friends are truly ‘sharers of burdens.’ That’s a rather cumbersome title, but it’s true. A true friend does really and truly share our burdens and – not to be cliché but, darn, it does sound it – double our joys.

Yes, I’m waxing rhapsodic over friendship this evening. It’s because in the last several hours, days, weeks, and months, I’ve found myself experiencing such profound levels of love and friendship that those relationships demand recognition. They demand to be honored. And they demand to be appreciated for the unique lessons, joys, realizations, and astonishing insights they can bring us – if we just pay attention and listen.

I am being vague – and I both mean to be and wish I weren’t.

The truth is, I need to go to bed. I need to dream into being the recipe for nut filling in kiffels. And if I do, perhaps I’ll share them with those true friends I mentioned above. Then again, I may be a total undisciplined kiffel hoarder.

No promises. I must sleep. That said…let this be a short but sincere homage to true friendship. I’m so grateful to experience it! And I wish it for each and every one of us. Because that’s what life is all about: Relationships. Love. Friendships. Kiffels.

And perhaps most important of all: a sense of humor.

(T-699)

Kiffel Debrief #1 – Day 411

Posted on December 28, 2019December 15, 2020 by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment

First kiffel display – Photo: L. Weikel

Kiffel Debrief #1

Yes! I finally managed to make my first-ever batch of Hungarian kiffels, aka “Aunt Grace’s Kiffels.”

I’m totally puzzled by this experience. The recipe, first of all, is decidedly incomplete at written. There is no mention of adding flour gradually – and by hand, nonetheless. This potentially game-changing detail was only conveyed orally. (OK, in a text message from one person and an email from another – but the salient point remains, nonetheless, that this detail was not included in the recipe itself!)

First Impression

My primary hope as I jumped right into Phase Two of this effort was that this should be fairly straightforward. Phase One entailed creaming the butter and cream cheese, adding flour, rolling that mixture into little balls, and then “chilling them overnight.”

Surely Phase Two, which only consisted of rolling out the little balls on a powdered sugared board, filling each with ½ tsp. of filling, baking them the requisite minutes, and then dusting each with another coat of powdered sugar sounded, again, pretty darn straightforward and, dare I say, easy.

Wrong!

I couldn’t have been more wrong. First of all, the little balls of dough essentially became pellets of iron as they chilled innocently in my refrigerator. Good grief. I could’ve more easily loaded them into my old neighbor’s musket (thinking of you, Earl) and done serious damage to intruders than I could effortlessly roll them out and fill them with filling.

So here I was. I’d set up my living room as a miniature assembly line, with tray tables set up where I would roll, fill, and load onto the cookie sheets. This enabled me to create the kiffels while watching a sci-fi series with Karl (The Expanse on Amazon Prime – it’s good!) instead of being relegated to the kitchen, where I have no counter space anyway.

I know I’m going to be sore tomorrow from stooping over the tray tables. It took a considerable amount of weight and pressure to roll out those iron balls! And I just never seemed to get the knack of creating a rolled out ball of any consistency. Each and every one was a study in avant-garde artistic expression.

They may have effused artistry (if you looked at them with only one eye, perhaps) – but I assure you, they were irritatingly labor intensive and actually, in a word, ugly.

They did not harken back even remotely to the kiffels I remember of my youth. Nor did they resemble my youngest sister and her husband’s efforts over the years to produce kiffels just before Christmas.

In fulfillment of my commitment to full frontal honesty with my wonderful readers, I offer you this photo of the very first batch’s arrival from the oven. Not a pretty sight:

First ever batch of kiffels (poppyseed filling) – Photo: L. Weikel

Christmas Cat

As can also be seen in my main photo at the top of this post, I did reach a point where they at least looked somewhat remotely like kiffels. They don’t look half bad adorning the Christmas Cat plate.

But I assure you, due to the shocking labor intensity required of me, I only ended up baking about three dozen. And I only used poppy seed and sour cherry preserves as fillings. I’m feeling a major yearning for the sugar/cinnamon/crushed walnut topping that goes into them as well – but have to date found no one who definitively maintains that part of the recipe.

I may have to improvise.

Why Puzzled?

You may be wondering why I stated early on in this post that this experience has me puzzled. That’s because the recipe is literally only one simple paragraph long. I assumed it was easy – and therein lay my folly.

I’ve felt an unspoken intimidation whenever I considered baking anything of Aunt Grace’s. I believed with all my heart that my baking could never be as good as hers. So when I started challenging myself a couple years ago with baking “Aunt Grace’s cake” – and discovering that, with just a little practice I could make a pretty terrifically yummy cake – I got cocky. I thought the kiffels would naturally be easier than that magnificent cake.

But I was wrong. The kiffels are crafty. And I will not rest until I figure out how to fill them with that elusive nut mixture.

Until then, it’s Lisa vs. kiffels.

(T-700)