:: Thursday, January 16, 2003 ::

A couple nights ago I went dumpster diving, looking for some bread/carbohydrate type thing. Usually this is a snap, i know lots of good bakeries that keep me supplied with day-old yummies. That night, no dice. No bread, bagels, brownies, nothing. Then I hit the motherlode, except I wasn't quite sure what to make of it at the time. I found an entire dumpster full of matzos. I was like "What the fuck are matzos?" I knew they are Jewish but that's it. There were fifty boxes, srinkwrapped together into bales. Bales of matzos. I broke open a bale and took a few boxes home with me. If you are as ignorant as I was, you might have been kind of suprised to open the box and find nothing but huge square saltine crackers, minus the salt. I did some research and found out that matzoh is unleaved bread (this is apparent apon opening the box) which is eaten during Passover to avoid "Chometz." Chometz is the fermentation process that makes bread rise and gives it taste. It is forbidden to eat bread with Chometz durring the Passover holiday if one is to fullfil Jewish religious requirements. Passover is the 8 day observance commemorating the freedom and exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, where they were enslaved during the reign of the Pharaoh Ramses II. In 2003 it begins on April 16th. Why no Chometz, I do not know. Although my first name is of Hebrew origin, do not be fooled, I have very little knowledge of Judaism. Further more I still have no idea why all of that matzoh was in the dumpster. Regardless, I decided to eat it. I got a nice vegan cookbook for Xmas (thanx Newberry family) that suprisingly has 6 different recipes involving matzoh. Here is the strangest, and probably least traditional.

Matzo Pizza.

4 matzos
1 cup tomato sauce
toppings (e.g., mushrooms, spinach)
seasonings(e.g., garlic oregano, basil)
soy cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Lay matzos on cookie sheet. Add 1/4 cup sauce to each matzo. Add toppings, seasonings, cheese. Bake 10-12 minutes or until cheese has melted.

:: Ira 3:29 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
...

When I was a little kid, I thought for the longest time that the back of our house was actually the front. I played in the backyard all of the time so that was the door that I used most often. Our house was so far back in the woods that I couldn't see the road from either side, and I was oblivious to the existence of cars, other than the fact that they could be climbed on when my parents wern't looking. It came as a shock to me when my dad fixed up the front doorway (he was working on our house throughout my entire childhood) and then my parents began refering to it as such. For years after I was confusing the two in speech.

"Wait, go around the _back_ door with your muddy shoes," my frustrated mother would say.

"This is the back door," I would begin to respond before noticing my error, and procede to leave waffle prints of mud all over.

At this point in my life the backdoor/frontdoor confusion could be construed into all sorts of humorous inuendos. However, that would be missing the deeper issue: I have absolutely no sense of direction! It is a good thing that city streets run in grids, follow cardinal directions, and have signs, because otherwise I would never find my way anywhere.

I was thinking while walking around Andrea's parents' house near Flint, that it would be very worthwhile to learn compass orienteering. If anyone out there in internet land wants to send me a gift, a compass is what I want. I also would like to tell direction by the sun and stars, the way pioneers, vikings, and everybody else did it before compass was invented. Also, my GPS hates the city. I think the buildings fuxor it up.

:: Ira 7:36 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
...