Holiday Traditions

Happy Christmas to my goyim out there! While you've been having family dinners and whatnot I've been having a fabulous fourth night of Chanukah. We went to Chinatown for dinner in order to fulfill Jewish stereotypes and man was it good! Sadly, we did not see a film (another part of said stereotype for the uninformed). I did, however, just watch about three hours of Ghost Hunters on SciFi and began contemplating whether I thought it was all BS or if it had an iota of truth to it. Still not sure where I fall.

Tomorrow (well, today...it is 2 AM afterall) we're having a Jew party where we will be making koeksisters, which rock. Ours look better than the ones pictured on that website, fyi. It's part of our family's Chanukah tradition. Every year we get a ton of people to come over and we put them to work braiding dough we've already made and then Mum puts them in the boiling oil and fries 'em. Since the oil is dangerous only Mummy is allowed to do it because she's a grown up. I do the syrup. Our syrup is made up of a shitton of sugar, some honey and some ginger and water. Syrup, of course, is the most important part of the process. You need to make sure that the entire koeksister is covered head to toe in syrup and you leave it in the pot for a bit to let it absorb the syrup. There's always that period of time when the koeksisters are being made faster than I can get them in and out of the syrup so there's a backup and I stay in the kitchen longer, playing catch up. It's a very fun time and a wonderful party!

You may ask me, "why do you guys make koeksiters? Obviously I have read the wikipedia article you have linked to and know what they are now, but it says they have a South African origin and if I've paid attention to your previous posts on the board, aren't you from the US?" To this I would reply, "Why yes, kind friend, I am a US citizen. But my mother is originally from South Africa. She brought/found the recipe and we've been making them for Channukah ever since I can remember." You might then ask, "Why for Chanukah specifically?" And I would explain, "Because one of the traditions for Chanukah is to eat food that is cooked in oil. It has to do with how long the oil in the Temple lasted."

So Happy Christmas/Chanukah/Saturnalia/Festivus/Kwanzaa/Unbirthday/Whatnot!!!

Love,
Adri