So let's talk for a moment about my upbringing, and maybe a little about my family, since this time of year is usually full of the Religious Celebrations and such, and for alot of people, for better or for worse, that means Family.
wait shit how do i do a read more on this website again?
anyway I started rambling incoherently behind the cut. good luck everybody!
I, as I've spoken about elsewhere before, am the product of a mixed religion marriage. My dad's jewish and my mom is catholic. Except neither one of them seem to like their religions very much. Or at least they aren't interested in them. It's an afterthought. My mom once tried to explain "Oh well God created all the plants and animals and all that" and I thought she was saying Madonna because I was two years old. Since I was born in '87 Madonna would've been at the height of her career, to the point where even two year old me couldn't escape it. But after that she put in basically no effort. We never went to church, and my mom told me a story a while ago about how everyone hated passing around the collection plate at the Newark church she used to go to with my grandparents because everyone knew the bishops were just gonna take it for themselves. If the boy scout troop I was in didn't meet in a church's upstairs event room every week, I definitely could've gone most of my childhood dodging being in a church. (Given that we live in a world where many of my queer friends are not on speaking terms with their parents this may explain why I have a decent relationship with my mom & dad still)
My dad is even LESS interested in Judaism than my mom is in Catholicism. I don't really have any fancy words for this other than it is simply not a part of his life. Except for one, very key thing. Food. Weirdly enough, and this is something I will get into a bit later, this was something my mother's life lacked in a way that seems comical now.
Sometime before I was born, my paternal grandmother got very sick. She had a condition that caused her blood to clot more easily than most other people, and she was at a high risk for stroke, and as I understand she was on alot of blood thinners. I should, uh, probably ask if that's genetic when I see Dad next. Well anyway, at some point my dad asked my grandmother, "Hey, you're not going to be around forever, what if you taught me how to cook?" and imparted upon him, and later by extension ME, a love of cooking. She taught him all sorts of jewish foods that my mother then learned how to make as well. Latkes and Matzo Ball Soup and Hamentashen (Prune and Apricot, mostly) and all that fun stuff.
But here's where it gets a little weird - my maternal grandmother? She could not cook to save her life. This is not an exaggeration. I think she might've been the worst cook of all time, if only there were a reality tv show she could have gone on with Chef Anne Burrell to prove it. My mother has often said, verbatim, to me and my siblings, "I didn't know food could taste good until I met your dad" and I believe her. For a few years in my childhood my grandmother would host thanksgiving and at the time, I was too young to understand why I was doing it but the only thing I would ever eat at thanksgiving was a buttered roll from the Foodtown Bakery and some sliced pepperoni and cheddar cheese. Eventually, my mom and dad took over Thanksgiving duty much to the delight of our ENTIRE extended family on my mom's side.
So anyway, as the years go on, my sister and brother are born and throughout our upbringings, it's abundantly clear that food means alot in the house. If I was having a bad day at school because I was being bullied, or because I was struggling with math or something, I could look forward to dinner and that would elevate my mood. In addition to being delicious, food was the thing that let us just sit down and fucking relax for a fucking minute jesus christ has society always been this fucked up. But it's also more than that. It's a weird indirect link to both of my grandmothers in VERY different ways, and the food means something to my parents, so they, either intentionally or accidentally, imparted that importance into me as well. Also, in addition to all this, throughout most of my childhood my metabolism was running in turbo mode. For years I was going back for more servings to the point where I might have four full plates of spaghetti with italian sausage, or five hamburgers before I put my plate in the dishwasher. I was basically a rail thin twink until I was like 26 when my metabolism FINALLY showed signs of slowing.
Throughout November and December, if you are at my parents house, you will never, ever feel hungry. For a few years after I moved out, they were cooking like The Revenge of Garfield's Appetite was still living with them. I was constantly hearing about how "oh its a leftovers night dad made too much Goulash" whenever I would call. But in November and December it's basically double that. They're finally, now that me my brother and my sister are all out of the house for a few years now, starting to dial it in for holidays. But, gamers, I don't think they should. I like walking away with a crate of leftovers every time I come over. I've started bringing empty containers with me for whatever my mom tries to stick me with before I walk out the door at the end of the night.
Jewish Christmas is the time in which the ███████ family secularly celebrates Christmas, but with some Jewish Seasoning sprinkled on top. My mother would go into a baking frenzy and make so many cookies. You know those giant christmas popcorn tins? She has like 5 of them and every year they'd be filled to the brim with, in no particular order, Hamentashen, Scottish Shortbread, and Chocolate Chip cookies. We would have Latkes occasionally. My dad would buy Knishes pretty frequently. Brisket was a regular fixture around the dinner table if there happened to be a sale down at the ShopRite. Hell, ShopRites in Jersey just sell babka, at least the ones that have bakery departments do, and if you want a jewish bagel, it's almost as easy as pissing out your front door and hitting a pizzeria that's worth it's salt. Additionally, my sister, who was living in Somerville MA at the time with her now-husband, complained she couldn't find babka anywhere and I have also been told there's no way that was possible unless she wasn't looking. Or maybe all the queer furries in the neighborhood were hiding it from her.
But the most ridiculous, absolutely absurd part of Jewish Christmas is that every year, we would get little driedels in our christmas stocking and nobody really knew how to play anyway so we just treated them like tops.
ANYWAY I just typed out several paragraphs that boil down to "I made Latkes tonight and it was a pain in the ass and it was messy but sometimes it's worth it *cronch*"
