Family

Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing

/ Hilary Mandel / 1 Comment

I love these candles.

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These candles that are almost all burnt, off to the side of me on the kitchen table, on this first Friday night since we moved the clocks forward. It’s 7:47 and almost dark, three stars in the sky, if ya know what I mean. And the Sabbath lights are lit in my kitchen window.

I lit ‘em, yep, I did.

And I said a little prayer. And then it was Shabbat. The Sabbath. Or Shabbos if you prefer. As in Good Shabbos.

The two candles are sitting in ceramic holders I bought in Jerusalem during my junior year of college at Hebrew University over thirty years ago. (Geez, that’s crazy. OVER thirty years.) Candlestick holders were a relatively easy relic for a naïve American 19-year-old girl with limited Hebrew skills to purchase from vendors in the Old City. Continue reading →

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Gratitude 2015

/ Hilary Mandel / 6 Comments

Thanksgiving almost didn’t happen this year. Even though, since moving to Canada, I have two annual opportunities to celebrate, it felt like the holiday might pass me by entirely. Still, there’s always time to be thankful. And right now, I’m blasting with gratitude.

Alas, my honey and I were both sick in the days leading up to “Canadian Thanksgiving” weekend in mid-October. The week before, we had invited a small group of friends over for dinner that Sunday night. Even though we were still sneezing and coughing Saturday morning, we were optimistic that the tide would turn, so we  did a big grocery shop — a big chicken and all the fixings. [Gratitude blast: I’m thankful for Thanksgiving!] Continue reading →

Remembering Nana

/ Hilary Mandel / 4 Comments

Nana_RunawaysToday, I honor the grandmothers.

As I write, a yahrzeit candle burns on my desk. A yahrzeit (Yiddish for “a year’s time”) is the anniversary of the death of a loved one, in this case my Nana, who died 23 years ago today.

This morning, I found the words I shared at her funeral the next day. They ring as true today as they did then.

February 5, 1992

Dear Nana,

I guess the biggest thing on my mind right now is just how much I’m going to miss you. You have been such an incredibly big part of my life – for all of my life. I have such vivid memories of you as part of my childhood —  always with your delicious “Nana cookies” and your streudel (which I’m so glad you taught me how to bake — I think it’s about time I tried that recipe out again!). I remember what a treat it was to stay over at your house on weekend nights, and how you always made Matzo Meal pancakes for breakfast for Eric and me. Continue reading →

Insta-Seder

/ Hilary Mandel / 7 Comments

photoIt all started so innocently.  Yesterday, I casually mentioned to My Beloved, who is not Jewish, that tonight was the start to Passover, which meant that we’d have a good use for the chicken stock she’d made the other night… we could eat it with matzah balls!  You see, last year, for the first time in the 2-1/2 years we’ve lived together, we hosted a seder for some friends, and among other Jewish delicacies, MB made the most delicious matzah balls — a total hit, especially considering she’d never done it before!  (“Chicken soup and dumplings,” she said tonight. “No biggie.”)

We’ve been invited to a large seder tomorrow night, so I wasn’t planning on doing anything special at home tonight, besides eating matzah ball soup.  I’d said I’d bring charoset to tomorrow night’s gathering, but haven’t seen kosher wine anywhere (no booze in supermarkets here, and the nearby liquor stores wouldn’t carry much), so figured I’d deal with making it tomorrow. At least this weekend I’d had enough forethought to pick up a box of matzah when I was at the only nearby supermarket that I know carries Jewish food, but that was as far as I’d gotten.

Continue reading →

Oscar Night: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

/ Hilary Mandel / 5 Comments

Somewhere in one of my parents’ homes, buried deep in a pile of old relics, there’s a photograph of my mother and father, circa 1972, my dad looking awfully dapper in a tuxedo and my mom donning an elegant low-cut black dress with a string of pearls, sitting at a dinner table at the Emmy Awards.  Perhaps for obvious reasons, it’s an image that always comes to mind when Oscar night approaches.  Continue reading →

Home for the Holidays

/ Hilary Mandel / 2 Comments

Make yourself at home.  There’s no place like home.  Home is where the heart is.

As I approach the fourth anniversary of my return to Vancouver, I am comforted knowing that I have found a home here.  It wasn’t always clear to me where my home was, especially during my decade of moving up and down and back and forth across the western part of the continent (LA – Oakland – Vancouver – Sedona – Berkeley – LA – Vancouver). That question — where is my home? – weighed heavily on me at times.

Of course, old adages are usually right.  Continue reading →