Got Celery?

My friend Eta sent me an e-mail foward with "inspirational artwork" and this was one of them. I love it, so I thought I'd share with everyone.

I cannot find American celery in this country and it's so unbelievably frustrating. At this point, I think we're having 6 people for Friday night dinner, and I want to make my Aunt's bread pudding and I need celery for that. Worse comes to worse, I'll just buy a lot more of the "regular" celery and use that, but I'd really prefer the American kind. See, the difference in celery is as follows:



I'm used to big, beautiful, robust celery. The ones you can fill with peanut butter and chomp on as a good, nutritious snack. Where one stalk of celery is enough for most onion/celery stir frys.

But, here in Israel, what they sell is this: celery root



And I can't fill this with peanut butter! Plus, I have to buy at least 2 of these to equal 1 cup of finely chopped celery for my onion/celery stir fry. Now, it's not the end of the world to do it this way, it's just more annoying. Especially when it comes to making chicken soup. A lot of Israelis put the celery leaves into the chicken soup, in addition to the stalks. But, I miss having a nice piece of cooked celery in my chicken soup sometimes, so I always ask my fruit and vegetable store if they carry the American kind.

I called them yesterday and walked over two days ago to see if they had any, and of course they were out. Since I want to do a lot of my cooking for Shabbos today and tomorrow, it seems like I'm going to have to suck it up and just use what they sell here in this country. It shouldn't be too bad - hopefully.

It was stinkin hot the past two days and I was so happy to wake up this morning to an 8 degree drop in temperature. It's gloriously crisp and cool outside today and, once I get myself out of bed, I'm going to make me some diet hot chocolate that I brought from New York. I went looking for some more in Jerusalem the other day, and I hit the Moshava on Emek Refaim and all I could find was Hershey's hot chocolate. It had more than 400 calories a package. I put it back on the shelf and walked away, it was hard, but I walked away.

Buggy is B"H much, much better than the other day. He stayed home from school yesterday because his back was a bit stiff and he wanted to do a lot of his work from home, which was good. He got a lot accomplished, as did I. I decided to do some of the things I've been putting off for a while now. I made my appointment with the American Consulate in East Jerusalem to change my name on my passport and then I printed out all the forms that I need to bring with me. Fortunately, we're going to go to the appointment after we get back from London, so hopefully all will work out and I won't be without my American passport for too long.

Since yesterday was election day in the USA, I also registered online as an official overseas voter. Woohoo! Now, they will be sending me the ballot in the big election - which I predict will be between Rudy and Hillary. And if I could, I would start a group of Jerusalem Anglos for Rudy! I sincerely hope Big Rudy will be the next President of the United States of America.

I guess y'all know who I'm voting for next year :)

All I have to do now is mail in the forms to the election office in Queens, New York, and I should be good to go.

I also found 2 more thank you notes that I missed and so I quickly wrote those out, filled in the addresses and dropped them off at the post office. I then made my way to Falcon, the Supermarket on Derech Beit Lechem that has a really great meat and poultry counter, and proceeded to have the funniest conversation in broken Hebrew and English with the man behind the counter.

Me: I need to order three turkeys. I know that my Mother in law already called to give you the heads up that I was going to be ordering them, so I need one turkey for Thursday and another 2 for November 21st.
Mr. Falcon: OK, you need turkey for mama?
Me: Ummm, sure. It can be in my mother in law's name, no problem. But I need the other two to be big enough to feed 24 people. ok?
Mr. Falcon: OK, no problem. You tell me name and I write down.
Me: Sure. My name is HolylandHipster Buggy and we need 2 turkeys for November 21st
Mr. Falcon: OK no problem.
Me: Are you sure 2 turkeys will be enough for 24 people?
Mr. Falcon: Oh yeah, yeah. It will be good. We call those that you want Nekayvah (which is Hebrew for female). No problem. All good. All good. No problem.

Some lady is standing by and smirking as we banter. I thank Mr. Falcon and continue shopping. 5 Minutes later, Mr. Falcon starts calling my name.
Mr. Falcon: Holylandhipster, when does your Mama want her turkey? November 21st - right?
Me: No, no, my mama wants her turkey on Thursday. This Thurdsay
Mr. Falcon: Oh, okay
Me: And the other two turkeys are for November 21st
Mr. Falcon: ok, ok, now I understand.

At this point, I am seriously concerned that I'll be going to Falcon on Thursday (at 10:00, which is when he said it would be ready for pick up) and there won't be any turkey for me. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make chicken if that happens. Next time, I bring Buggy and he speaks to everyone in Hebrew. Much, much simpler.

I did some work for a client yesterday morning, and then I spent the rest of the day just thinking about Thanksgiving. I called Aunt Amy and she gave me some great tips on how to make the dinner, and she told me a some funny stories about her own first Thanksgiving. And how, that first year as a married woman, she went out and bought a completely cooked turkey and served it to her guests as if she made it herself. People, if I could find a completely cooked turkey in this country - on Thanksgiving day no less - believe me, I would probably do the same.

I also spoke to Cousin Neil last night, who caught me up on some UWS gossip, which was fun but extremely lacking in information. Cousin Neil, I've discovered, is not exactly the person to talk to when I need some UWS gossip. I know who to call and I'm thinking I'll give her a buzz in a few hours just to catch up. Hehehe, I know, I know, I'm a bad Jew - but this girl needs some gossip.

Today is going to be very quiet. Buggy was up early and went to school for his 9:40 a.m. meeting with his final project advisor. I got up with him to make him some breakfast and then left all of the dishes in the sink and crawled back to bed before he could even get out the door. I'm tired, so I like trying to catch up on some sleep when the bed is empty. It's not easy being a light sleeper married to a snorer. That, and the kids downstairs wake up screaming every single morning at 5:30 a.m. and I feel like they're in the room with us. They are that loud. I can't wait until my family comes to visit - they too will be up at 5:30 a.m. with our neighbors!

Today, I'm going to make the bread pudding and the pecan pie for Shabbos. Buggy promised to take me to the supermarket so I can do my big Thanksgiving shopping, which I really want to do before we leave for London. Since we get back from London really early on Monday morning, I want all the stuff in the house so I can cook from Monday evening straight until Thursday before our guests arrive! I also have to go to my green grocer to see about that American celery, for the bread pudding, and then I'm hoping to do some writing on my thesis project.

I'm finally ready to get back to my thesis project and I've been doing a lot of thinking about my stories. I really think I have a good handle on what I'm writing for my third story in the collection, while I also have to continue editing my previous two stories. I have 2 written, 1 in the works, and at least 8 to go. Wish me luck people! Oh, and happy writing!
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Product of the Day




My apartment is pretty nasty and, since we're hoping to have company for Friday night dinner, I need to get moving on cleaning this place up. I don't bother washing my kitchen floor until after I finish cooking, but everything else could use a good scrub. I'm seriously missing Windex and wish the folks over at SC Johnson would start importing some to this Country. For a year now, I've been using the Israeli brand of glass cleaner and its been leaving streaks all over the place. I don't like that at all. Plus, I have a really hard time getting off the toothpaste splatters from our bathroom mirror, and that just grosses me out a bit, so I went searching the other day for stronger glass cleaner. I actually found 409 glass and surface cleaner at Falcon and I was jubilant with the find. It's not my beloved Windex, but at least it's a step up from the Israeli brand. Today, I'm going to clean all of our glass tables, windows and mirrors with the 409. Here's hoping it won't be streaky!