Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-01-20
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
The cholent turns out OK. Not bad, not perfect. A couple of things have gone wrong: the barley retained its shape, rather than turning into the right kind of oatmeal-like mush. The beans on top didn't soak completely, so they ended up half crunchy.
When I tell my family, they suggest that I need more water in the crockpot, so it doesn't gather uselessly as steam in the gap at the top. I probably should have put in much more barley, and perhaps some other things, to fill the gap.
I'll probably make it again a year from now. I eat it for lunch on Shabbat. After eating one serving today, I package up seven more and freeze them. At one a week, that should take me to just before Passover. After that's over, we'll be into spring, when it will quickly get too warm for such a hot and heavy lunch to be appealing.
Fortunately, the crockpot has cleaned out well. My family had told me one secret, which I follow: put a layer of potatoes at the bottom. Those don't stick, and keep what's on top of them from sticking there.
They learned about that, as it happens, from the woman who had all the questions at the clothing shop. She came here from Persia a long time ago, and was raised to do that while cooking rice.
I take a long nap after eating and cleaning up from lunch. Once awake again, I catch messages and news.
Another soldier from our town has died in battle across the border.1 He was buried in the cemetery next to my office, so quickly, as is the custom, that it was over before I read the announcement.
Our old post office is being converted into a center for soldiers. Banners on it read, "A warm home will open here for soldiers of our Army. Lodging - Food - Clothing." I'm not entirely sure of the last word. Discussions on Facebook say that it's being funded by a rich person who is running for mayor here.
Another Facebook discussion informs me that the amazing ice cream cone that I had (and the shop at which I got it) is called "kiortosh," or possibly "kiortush." It's a Hungarian word, and no two commenters seem to agree on how it's spelled in English. The vowel marking in Hebrew is ambiguous. In Hungarian, it's "Kürtőskalács." Good luck with that.
As a friend mentioned in a comment, it is somewhat like a cannoli. The recipes that I see generally make it as a straight tube, not a cone. It appears that the mothership of the chain that I found in the capital is actually in the city next to mine.2 Uh-oh.
I visit my family in the afternoon. They tell me about studying the theology of Mordecai Kaplan, and how it resonates with, among other things, the writings of Emerson. I tell them about the commentary on Wings of Desire, and the way that that film came together, quickly and without much of a plan.
I head home after the Havdalah ceremony. I have a lot to do. Tomorrow, once again, the work week begins.
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You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me at that Las Vegas address, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)
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L'hitraot.