STEP ONE: THE PROBLEM OF FOOD

Food is a problem because if you don’t have it around, you have a crisis on your hands. If you’re not prepared with food for the Sabbath, it is likely you will go out to get it. Once you’re out for food, you are out there doing all sorts of chores. Very soon, you have lost the Sabbath and serenity @home. Not good. So unless you have prepared a set of meals beforehand, the very fact of hunger and your family whining about it will kill the peace you are trying to achieve. Here are some down-and-dirty meal ideas that you should always have on-hand. Remember – the idea of serenity @home is slowing down, relaxing and taking it easy one day a week. Battling traffic to get a burger is not consistent with this idea. Here’s a list of foods you should always have on-hand in case a home prepared meal was not possible. You may begin to suspect that I’m the front for some food company, but I’m not. The ideal would indeed be a home-prepared meal, but since not all of us are perfect, I’m sharing with you what has come to work for my family.

(1)    Heinz baked beans and hot dogs. Cut the uncooked hot dogs into half-inch slices. Lightly fry them in a non-stick frying pan for about 5 minutes (no need to add oil or anything). Pour the Heinz baked beans on top of that. Simmer under low heat. Voila, a meal without going out. I’m not giving you quantities here, because you know best how much your family eats, not me.

(2)    Cheddar cheese sandwiches. I always have a big hunk of cheddar cheese in the fridge. Thinly slice the cheese with a cheese slicer. Have a sesame bun handy, or some whole wheat toast. Thinly slice some tomatoes and mix in with the sliced cheese. Add a few drops (and I mean: drops, not gobs) of ketchup and voila – a meal.

(3)    Boca Original Meatless Chicken Patties are also great. Have those in your freezer. They’re great.

(4)    Boboli Pizza crust. This works exceptionally well in a house with small kids. The disadvantage is that the product is shelf stable for only a few days before you have to use it. Nonetheless, the product is superior and worth the small trouble of having it handy and using it relatively quickly. If you have a jar of regular spaghetti sauce around, you’re all set (you don’t need pizza sauce, that’s just a marketing ploy to get you to buy more of the same).  Have a packet of shredded mozzarella cheese handy, and you’re set. Kids love to ‘help’ you ‘make’ the pizza. You will love how easy it all is.

(5)    Lastly – this is not a meal – it is an accompaniment to all the dishes above. You need lots of frozen green peas in your freezer. Cook according to package instructions and then drain. Before they’re cool – you need a large plate to doctor as follows: add a tablespoon of vegetable oil (don’t use olive oil), half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a teaspoon pepper. Add in the warm green peas last on top. Mix and serve.

I hope these ideas help. Serenity @home is very important and you can’t let the procuring of food get in the way of rest and relaxation. I’m not crazy about the amount of carbs and processed food in these suggestions, but nutritionally, these recipes are OK and it’s a tradeoff I can live with.

So now we’ve tackled the problem of food. In the next few blogs, I’ll address a few other elements of daily life that you must simply make ‘go away’ in order to reclaim serenity @home.

RECLAIMING THE SABBATH

I used to be very critical of those opposed to letting businesses open on Saturdays and Sundays. So backward! So Stone Age! Of course, as one grows older, one learns to appreciate nuance and with it, the ways of old… It is astonishing that eons before the Blackberry, shepherds baking in the hard clay of Middle East hills saw the wisdom, nay, the necessity to shut off every seventh day. What could THEY have been possibly stressing over?!?! The need to shut down is human. Regardless of your religion, discounting whether you believe in the Good Book, I’ll urge you in this column to reclaim that Seventh Day. (Don’t you think that ‘Seventh Day’ sounds rather apocalyptic? Behold the bad movie with aliens and maybe even – fangs! So – instead of seventh day, I’ll use ‘Sabbath.’ I understand that the tradeoff is sounding  like a fundamentalist nut. But never mind.) The Sabbath is essentially about rest. Religion and Politics and all that crap came after it. For the Modern Man, the introduction of the Sabbath in your life should be viewed as reclaiming sanity. It’s the answer to the loss of control in your world. Think of the Sabbath as checking your compass on that first, long hike. Or for those of you who have not hiked lately – checking the GPS as you’re trying a new route. Over the next few posts, I’ll go over step-by-step instructions on how to reclaim the Sabbath day. Sad that we need instructions to reclaim a day of rest. But so it goes.

THOUGHTS ON SMELL

Her son is 5. He is watching a children’s movie on tape. She smells his hair. It smells of skin and sweat but in a sweet way, the way that only children’s hair can smell. He is conscious of her sniffing his head but he does not complain. This will stop soon. He will become too big. He will be more demanding in becoming separate from her. That is fine. That is good. For now, she keeps parting his hair this way and that. Smelling his scalp. Being conscious of the moment. Trying to encode the moment. Package it. So that one day when they’re sitting across from each other, and he has become a completely separate being, she can unwrap this moment. Carefully. So the smell of memory does not evaporate. She can sit there, across from him and listen to the platitudes of the day. And remember the 5 year-old on this weekend day.

This is Me: Autumn 2007

Hello world!

My name is Sara Laor. I wanted to share my thoughts and emotions about work, family and achieving Serenity @ Home. It seems to me we have lost both (… lost both the concept of Serenity and the concept of Home). Hopefully over time this will bring some insights from my life to yours. And from your comments and reactions, some insights back to me. Thank you.