Monday, January 22, 2007

Big Fun Mah-Jongg Sunday

While many Chicagoans were basking in the glow of a Bears playoff victory, I was feeling the true joy of having played 4+ hours of mah-jongg yesterday.

Some friends accosted me on my way to minyan after dropping my son at his Hebrew class. Given the choice between minyan with the altekockers and mah-jongg, I made a choice to pray another day. And God seemed like he was going to withhold victory, as I had bad hand after bad hand. But then at the end, I played and won a closed hand. Oh bliss, oh rapture!

Then, my regular mah-jongg group convened at 7:30 last night, and I had no compunction about going out in semi-blizzard conditions and icy roads. Again with the bad hands most of the night, but, then, joy of joys, I managed to win on a closed hand.

Wow, two closed hand victories in one day. True big fun.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Make All Happiness Joy: MAHJ!

I started playing mahjong about 9 months ago. I was pulled into the game by some friends (well, at that point they were acquaintances) at my synagogue. After a few lessons, I was off and running.

I know I really like a game when after I play it, I think about it, dream about it (literally, at night, dreams), and want to learn everything there is to know about it. That was me with mahjong. I couldn't wait to play the next time, and since that day, I think I've played almost every week.

I couldn't wait to tell my mother, who had a regular afternoon mahjong game when I was a youngster. I can remember the ladies mixing the tiles and calling out "crack...bam...dragon." But I never learned the game, and eventually she stopped playing. Bless her heart, we recovered two old sets, one of which belonged to my grandmother. I use it now, and it's wonderful to play with.

Mahjong American Style is a tricky game -- there is a lot of luck involved, and a decent amount of skill in choosing a hand, and it can be painful and beautiful. Even today on my Shabbat afternoon game, I went for a pairs hand that was a long shot. But it looked so pretty on my rack, I had to go for it.

A great part of the fun has been a newfound camaraderie with my mahjong ladies. Yes, I have turned into my mother! It's been a long time since I have had close girlfriends. As a work-at-home (not stay-at-home) mom, I've been out of regular social circles for a long time. And here I found a group of women who have been a lifeline for me; people I can call for advice, talk about our kids, our husbands, gossip, schmooze, laugh, and cry when our hands go dead.

I'll probably have a lot more entries on mahjong. Along the lines of "mahjong, it is so like life..." Gack!

Friday, January 12, 2007

Bad pundits...bad, bad pundits

This great article on how well the pundits who were WRONG about Iraq are doing; by comparison those who were RIGHT are still struggling on the outskirts of mainstream media outlets.

Can't we fire pundits? I'm so weary of these bobbleheaded babblers who are paid millions of dollars to discuss their empty useless hypotheses.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Half Birthday Cake

Made a 1/2 layer peanut butter with choco frosting 1/2 cake for my dear son's 7.5 birthday today.

It was a doctored white cake-mix with about 3/4 cup peanut butter added, a bit of extra vanilla and a reduced amount of oil. The cakes really rose up in the pan, so I probably could have cut the eggs.

The frosting was a 1/2 cup of melted chocolate chips, a few tablespoons of cream and 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, a dash of vanilla, with the added bonus of a cloud of powdered sugar that blew all over my kitchen when I picked up the handmixer.

Not my best effort, but the happy smile I got from the kid made it all worth while.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Love the Reese's Big Cup

You can keep your regular Reese's, your minis, even your Easter Egg and pumpkin incarnations. (Lalalala, I pay no attention to white chocolate and Nutrageous options.) Don't even bring me the fancy Long Grove Confectionary giant p.b cups, as enticing as they may seem. Sometimes the best quality chocolate and the creamiest richest peanut butter filling is just overkill. (Not to mention $3.00 each.)

Keep all those tasty but inadequate peanut butter chocolate candies, and serve me up a delicious Reese's Big Cup! It's got a thick slab of that tasty peanut butter filling, enrobed with just the right amount of creamy Hershey's chocolate. The downside? Only one per package. But at the tasty price of 79¢ (look for the BOGOs at your local grocery store), it's a bargain.

I should add that I have no objections to mini Reese's when used to make this delicious treat.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Parve Duncan Hines on the Jewel shelves

Yes, it was announced back in October 2006 that Duncan Hines, which had previously reformulated their parve cake mixes to dairy, were going back to parve. Ever since that announcement, I've scanned the boxes every couple weeks to see if the new parve products were out.

But tonight in my local Jewel in Skokie, I saw that the DH Deluxe Classic Yellow was marked parve. All the other mixes were still marked kosher dairy. I'm not a huge fan of cake mixes, but they are nice to have in the house in a pinch. And kosher parve is just that much better, as I can't imagine what dairy would be in a cake mix that would make any difference to the flavor or texture of the finished product.

As long as I talking about my local Jewel, they just switched their entire store around. It's still taking me 10-15 minutes longer to shop. But they have added a much bigger kosher food section. It does not yet rival the Howard Jewel in Evanston, but it is expanded signficantly. If only they had more kosher meat options. Trader Joes has a better selection of fresh kosher meat than the Skokie Jewel. Hint, hint.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Caution: Brain in Training

After reading "My 4-Week Quest: Be Smarter" in Wired 15.01, I succumbed to the siren call of My Brain Trainer. It is strangely addictive. I don't quite know my brain age, and one of the things I'm getting smarter about is knowing that my spatial visual memory is pretty bad.

I am doing well training myself to remember long sequences of letters, and then recognizing whether this is a match in the next sequence of letters. But doing that same thing with black and white shapes - very hard.

I'm hoping to become a Brain Master some day. Don't ask.

What is with kosher restaurants?

As a preface, It's no secret to my close family and friends that I took a giant leap into kosher eating and cooking about 6 months ago. Even though I had not cooked traif (pork, shellfish, etc.) for several years in my house, I still ate it out, and even would carry it in. I always felt funny about keeping any kind of kosher, because it seems so hard to right and fully. And if you're going to do it, can you do some of it, but not all?

After a lot of encouragement from my clergy and kosher friends, I gave up on cooking with milk and any kind of meat, so now we have either dairy meals or meat meals. I buy only kosher meat. I eat fish or vegetarian dairy when we go out. (Although I've been known to slip "off the wagon" and eat non-kosher meat. So sue me.)

This has led me to explore of the great world of kosher dining. I personally don't care for kosher dairy restaurants, as I will eat vegetarian out, but we have friends who prefer to eat kosher when they go out, so we go too. Suffice to say, we have been less than thrilled with the kosher dining options we have, and we have a good number to choose from.

The problem is Captive Audience syndrome. Kosher places know that they will always have a certain number of customers who have to eat kosher. Does this inspire them to serve the best possible food to this group in the most pleasant and helpful way? No, not really. The food at most kosher restaurants is mediocre, at best, and the service is just slightly worse. Put that on top of paying for kosher, which is always a little more (to a lot more) money than an equivalent non kosher place. But the mediocre places pack 'em in, so maybe I'm the idiot!

The one exception we've found is Taboun Grill, located on California near Devon in Chicago. The service is good, the food is delicious, and not outrageously priced, either. So that's a keeper.