Yukon Gold Potato Latkes
1½ pounds onions, peeled and quartered
3 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 large eggs, beaten
¼ c. flour
3 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
2¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground black pepper
Vegetable oil (for frying)
Place onions in food processor. Using On/Off switch, chop. Transfer onions to large bowl. Using the grating blade, grate the potatoes coarsely. Mix the potatoes with the onions to prevent discoloration.
Fill the bowl with water and rinse out some of the starch. You may want to do this a few times.
Drain the onions and potatoes in the colander. Then wrap in a cloth towel and squeeze out the excess moisture.
Return the potato mixture to the large bowl, and mix together with the eggs, flour, parsley, salt, pepper, and baking powder. Stir until mixture is well-blended and sticks together slightly.
Put enough oil in a heavy skillet to cover the bottom generously. Heat over medium high heat.
Working in batches, drop potato mixture into the oil. Use a spatula to flatten into latke shapes. Fry until crisp and brown. Flip and do the same on the other side. Re-heat the oil between batches, adding more oil as necessary.
When they are cooked, place the latkes on a baking sheet in a 250° oven.
Latkes can be made 4 hours ahead and reheated in a 350° oven.
Serve with applesauce and sour cream or crème fraiche.
Once upon a very long time ago (roughly 2200 years ago) a Greek king ruled over the land of Judea and over all the Jews living there. As you can imagine, this went over as well as, say the British ruling over the colonies, or the U.S. ruling over... wait. We won't go there.
One of these Greek kings ~ Antiochus Epiphanes, to be exact ~ told the Jews that they could no longer pray to their God or practice their customs or study the Torah. Instead they needed to worship the Greek gods. As a reminder, a statue of Zeus was installed on the altar in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
The Jews were very unhappy about this. So Judah Maccabee and his four brothers organized a group of rebels who became known as the Maccabees. Because they believed so strongly in their cause, the Maccabees were steadfast and took on armies who were bigger and stronger than themselves. (Another recurring theme in history...)
At one point, when they faced huge battle near Beit Horon, Judah told his army to have faith: God was on their side. (This is a rationale that has been used by many and should, perhaps, be a reason for unity rather than divisiveness between different groups... but we won't go there now.)
It took a long time ~ 3 years ~ but finally the Maccabees drove the Greco-Syrians out of Judea. At last they could reclaim their temple in Jerusalem. They scrubbed it and removed all the Greek statues and symbols. When they finished, on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, in 164 BCE, Judah and the Maccabees rededicated the temple.
There was just one problem. It seems that, when the Greco-Syrians were there, they had ruined the special oil used to light the menorah. There was just one vat of the oil left, and that was only enough for one day. It would take a week to make more purified olive oil.
That's when the miracle occurred, if the Maccabees succeeding against huge armies didn't count as a miracle. When the Maccabees lit the menorah, it didn't burn for just one day, or even two days, or three days. It burned for eight days, which was enough time for the newly purified oil to be ready.
And that is why the Hanukkah Menorah has eight candles, plus the shamash, or helper candle that is used to light the other candles.
And that is one reason why Jews celebrate Hanukkah for eight days.
If you're wondering about the dreidel (sevivon in Hebrew), it's a toy but it's about miracles, too. The dreidel is a four-sided spinning top. Each side is printed with a Hebrew letter. These letters are an acronym for the Hebrew words נס גדול היה שם (Nes Gadol Haya Sham, which means "A great miracle happened there." This refers to the miracle of the oil that took place in the temple in Jerusalem.
The Chai symbol seen on the bracelet is the symbol for life. In Hebrew, the word chai (חַי) spelled by these two letters means "living." It is related to the term for "life," chaim, and also appears in the slogan "`am yisrael chai!" (עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי, "The people of Israel live!").
The Hamsa, or hand, is often used as a protective amulet by both Jews and Muslims. There's surely a lesson in there.
I lost a lot of stuff last week. I lost my gold Swarovski crystals. I lost my bag of things I was going to ship. I lost the bag of pieces I was going to blog about. It all got lost in a great big Christmahannukwanzadan chaos.
Finally I found the gold Swarovski crystals. They were in my box of angel parts. (Bet you didn't know angels had parts.) And then I found the BLOG bag, which was tucked in with the various earrings bags, right behind the CHRISTMAS bag, and in front of the WINTER BAG. And finally I found the SOLD bag. I had tucked it into the box of bracelets. But when I started going through the bracelets, I realized that a lot of their listings were gone.
Vanished! POOF! Gone! Not on ebay. Not on etsy. Not anywhere. So I went through my box of bracelets (which, I guess, is my inventory of bracelets, but I'm trying not to get too technical here). And I made a BIG pile of bracelets that were no longer listed and were, therefore, lost.
Happily I could find photos of most of them. So I relisted all of them (except the ones I need to re-photograph) and here they are, so you can see how lost I really was. All of them are now in my eBay store. At least, they'd better be, or I'll know that even more mysterious forces are at work.
And the snowman bracelet that was in last week's blog post. It was lost, I found it and re-photographed and re-listed it, did the post, and promply lost it again.
My mother used to tell me I'd lose my head if it weren't attached to my body.
In earlier posts, I've described the history of Hanukkah and some Hanukkah traditions, as well as providing the lyrics to Adam Sandler's first Hanukkah song. Here are the lyrics to his second Hanukkah song, with notes from Wikipedia, and a bookmark and extra verse from me. Enjoy!
Put on your yarmulke,
It's time for Chanukah.
So much funnaka
To celebrate Chanukah.
Chanukah is the festival of lights.
Instead of one day of presents,
We get eight crazy nights.
When you feel like the only kid in town
Without a Christmas tree,
Here's a new list of people who are Jewish,
Just like you and me.
Winona Ryder,
Drinks Manischewitz wine,
Then spins a dreidel
With Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein,
Guess who gives and receives
Loads of Chanukah toys:
The girls from Veruca Salt
And all three Beastie Boys.
Lenny Kravitz is half Jewish,
Courtney Love is half, too.
Put them together--
What a funky bad ass Jew!
We got Harvey Keitel,
And flash dancer Jennifer Beals. (This is an error. Beals says she once wanted to be Jewish, but is not.)
Yasmine Bleeth from Baywatch is Jewish,
And yes, her boobs are real.
Put on that yarmulke,
It's time for Chanukah.
Two- time Ocsar winning Dustin Hoffmanaka
Celebrates Chanukah.
O.J. Simpson?
Still not a Jew.
But guess who is:
The guy who does the voice for Scooby Doo. (That would be Don Messick.)
Bob Dylan was born a Jew,
Then he wasn't, but now he's back.
Mary Tyler Moore's husband is Jewish
'Cause we're pretty good in the sack.
Guess who got bar-mitzvahed
On the PGA tour:
No, I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.
I'm talkin' about Mr. Happy Gilmore.
So many Jews
Are in the show biz.
Bruce Springsteen isn't Jewish
But my mother thinks he is.
Tell the world-amanaka
It's time to celebrate Chanukah.
It's not pronounced Chanakah
The C is silent in Chanukah.
So read your hooked on phonica,
Get drunk in Tijuanaka
If you really really wannaka
Have a happy happy happy happy Chanukah!
If you want to have funnaka, read books on the runnaka, Check out this bookmark and then we will be done-aka.
The symbol on it, by the way, is the Chai, which is the Hebrew hai ( חַי) meaning "living." The Chai is a symbol that figures prominently in jewish culture. It consists of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet Chet (ח) and Yod (י). The Hebrew word ḥaiחַי "living" is releated to the term for life, (" chaim; hayyim.) This appears in the slogan "`am yisrael chai!" (עַם יִשְרָאֵל חַי, "The people of Israel live!"). It's also what you hear in the song from "Fiddler on the Roof": To life, to life, l'chaim. L'chaim, l'chaim, to life..."
