My story is about one fun Chanukkah. My mom and I were making jelly doughnuts. We tried to decide how to put the jelly in and when. We decided to put the jelly in before we deep fried the doughnuts. This was somewhat of a mistake. The jelly burst out of about half of the jelly doughnuts we made. Here is the voice over that is going to serve as the basis of the film I am making about this experience.
I was born and raised in California, but in the comfort of my own home I have grown up in a slightly different world, filled with phrases and customs that would probably confuse the average American. It’s not just that my family is Jewish; that on the doorpost of my house we have a mezuzah, that we light candles every Friday night, and that we celebrate all the Jewish holidays. My dad is Israeli and my mom lived in Israel for 10 years, and so Israeli language and culture has been a big part of my upbringing. In my house, we call zucchini kishuim, I guess just because the Hebrew word for zucchini has stuck. Mashina and Yehuda Poliker CDs have a permanent spot in the CD player. Sometimes my dad even forces me to eat salad for breakfast.
And when Chanukah comes around, in my house, we don’t eat “jelly donuts,” we eat sufganiot. And even better, my mom makes sufganiot from scratch. She says that when she lived in Israel, all the moms would make sufganiot from scratch, it’s just part of the job description. What kind of Ima would she be if she didn’t?
When I was in kindergarten, I brought home my own recipe for sufganiot, so my mom put her time-tested recipe back on the shelf and told me that this year we would try something new. I remember putting all the ingredients out on the counter, mixing first all the wet ingredients, and then in a separate bowl mixing all the dry ingredients, just as my mom had instructed me. Finally we mixed all the ingredients together – wet and dry – to produce that great big glob of goo, the sufganiot dough, which would actually only be ready the next day, after we would give it time to rise. I watched as my mother covered our creation with a towel and explained to me that we would leave it out overnight. My heart pounded with anticipation. How big would the dough get by tomorrow? Exactly how much longer would I have to eagerly wait? I remember that I even sneaked a peak; after my mom had tucked me into bed, I waited a bit until I was sure that she had gone off to bed herself, and then tip-toed to the kitchen, lifted the towel that had covered our concoction, and watched, as I was sure that the dough was growing before my very eyes.
The next day my mom and I retrieved from the cupboard the last ingredient we needed for the sufganiot: jelly. Mom showed me how I needed to take a glob of dough in my hand, roll it and round it, open up the ball of dough into a cup-like shape, and put a dab of jelly in the middle with a teaspoon. Then I needed to close up the little ball with the jelly inside, and plop it into the hot, oil-filled pot on the stove. I have to say, it’s no easy task: putting the jelly in a sufgania and making sure that the jelly stays inside. I followed my mom’s instructions exactly, but when I plopped the jelly-filled dough ball in the pot, my sufgania fried for a bit, and then to my dismay I watched as my sweet little creation popped! The jelly oozed from the dough, apparently not tucked well enough into the dough. I tried again, and again the jelly escaped from its doughy captivity. I let my mom take it from there.
Today, I’m still not an expert, but nevertheless, it’s fun to cook sufganiot with my family. It’s even more fun to eat them.
THE BREAKFAST BURRITO by Andrew Herwitz
Hi, I’m Andrew. My film will focus on Yom Kippur. Last year I decided to get more involved with Yom Kippur. I went to an orthodox service. Strangely, instead of being more observant, it was less. We ditched temple, played Monopoly, loitered in the Richmond and broke our fast at a Taqueria.
PASSOVER AT THE PLOTNICK’S by Danny Plotnick
We had Passover this week at my house. 17 people. I made the best brisket ever. The soup was damn good as well, though one batch of Matzo Balls ended up in the trash. No comment. We had to rearrange the house. I got kind of huffy with my mother-in-law once. A chair rearrangement kerfuffle was to blame. I tried to make the Afikomen easy to find. Owen found it. There was only one prize for the taking so fortunately the kids didn’t search as a group. I would have been sunk. Nobody hit anybody with green onions. Only 2 glasses of wine got spilled on the floor. I wore a tuxedo shirt. It was classy.
