A New Experience

Friday morning was not so very different, a few sirens, the constant booming, email, news and, of course, house cleaning in preparation for Shabbat.

As I thought through the preparation for the meal I realised that my daughter would probably not eat much as all I had left were chicken pieces but no breast. The accompaniment didn’t take much thinking about rice, of course, and the only fresh vegetables I had left – some carrots and a cabbage. Also I realised I had no challah and no yeast to make any.

My daughter seemed to have lost interest in her favourite cottage cheese so before it went bad I made it into a cheesecake. Cheesecake was no use as a dessert for a meat meal and I hadn’t enough enthusiasm to make another cake but I remembered there was sorbet in the freezer. Unfortunately I didn’t check to see how much.

Arranging the table felt very strange as that is normally my husband’s job but the children helped and then we all showered and dressed.

We lit the candles said the blessing. I set extra candles out so both of the children could light them and say the blessing with me.

At the meal I sat at the head of the table and took on all my husbands duties: serving the wine, breaking the bread and leading my children in the blessings. It was all very quiet and strange.

They enjoyed the meal but when I came to serve the sorbet there was only a spoonful each.
Luckily in the afternoon my daughter had decided she wanted to make chocolate shapes using a sun shaped mould. She had wanted to use milk chocolate but it contained nuts, which I guessed would ruin the shape. Instead I directed her to the bittersweet (parve) chocolate I use for cooking.
So along with a sorbet we nibbled on a chocolate sun, which had set successfully and looked lovely, for a few moments at least.

After the meal I sat with the children on the sofa chatting and watching some TV. When they had gone to bed I found some enjoyably mindless films to watch and actually managed to stay awake. In fact by 3 am I had got my second wind and had trouble convincing myself that I really must go to sleep.

ES