winter

Welcoming guests again

There may not be magic at hand to prepare dinner or clean up afterwards, but the Weasleys’ home in the Harry Potter series, the Burrow, is a good model for how to welcome guests, with Mrs. Weasley’s always sharing her love, food, home, and even her motherly reprimands with others. (photo by Karen Roe / flickr)

This winter, I felt our household was in hibernation. Between endless viruses brought home from middle school and -30˚C temperatures in Winnipeg, I doubted we’d ever emerge. Then, our household caught a break. We’ve had a few weeks now where all four of us seem mostly healthy. Also, there has been a rare moment of “early spring,” where temperatures are around freezing, the sun is out and everyone seems cheerful about the deep, goopy slush.

We have started to dig ourselves out. Not from the snow, but from all the activities we piled up during the coldest time of year. One kid removed his slot car racers and a 3D printer project from the dining room. Another kid tidied up a huge set he’s building for his video production class. There are still too many books and knitting projects on the coffee table (my fault). My husband even cleaned up his piles of paper. Why all the hurry? Well, suddenly people are coming over again to visit. We’re hopefully emerging from our long retreat.

During our hibernation, we stayed home, went to work and school, and to synagogue. That was mostly it. But then I got an email out of the blue. When I walk my setter-mix dog, we often encounter a tiny dog, Lulu, and her human, and we chat. Deep into our winter sojourn, we weren’t seeing Lulu or her people much, it was just too cold. Yet Lulu’s people, thoughtful neighbours, invited us over for cheese fondue, wine and a warm chat. After a great night out a block from home, I realized how small our world had become. I decided we owed them a dinner invitation. They’re coming (probably without Lulu) for Shabbat dinner this week.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking big Shabbat and holiday dinners for friends and having great conversations at the table. I was raised with this kind of hospitality. My parents’ home was always open to my friends, who timed their visits to enjoy their favourite foods or discuss things with my parents or siblings, and their friends, too. However, over the years, I’d really cut back on these dinners. First, because my twins still go to bed early. Then, because of the pandemic. After Oct. 7, I felt wary about the outside world and wanted to feel safe at home. About a year ago, I stopped inviting people. I could say it was because I was concentrating on my twins’ b’nai mitzvah preparations or the event itself, with friends and family visiting, but that was last June. This winter, we’ve been sick and it’s been so cold.

On one Shabbat at synagogue, I heard an impromptu talk from a young adult visiting home. He was serving in the Israel Defence Forces as a lone soldier and spent part of his time at home talking to groups about what was happening in Israel, and we discussed how to combat antisemitism in Canada. At this event, a community member suggested that inviting friends and allies over, perhaps to Shabbat dinner, could help others learn about who we are and gather more support.

What happened afterwards, along with the warmer, slushy weather, is that some of our friends began to seek us out.

Last week, an amazing acquaintance, who used to run a gallery we loved, asked me to sign one of my books for her friend’s birthday. Of course, I said, come on over. I showed her our “new” historic house and she brought me tulips.

Then, a longtime artist friend in her 80s contacted me and decided she was coming over the next morning for muffins and coffee, so she could show off her newest marbled paper experiments.

Last week, a retired newspaper columnist that I really respect happened to spot my husband outdoors with the dog. He started to text with my husband and asked to come see how we’d renovated things. My husband said yes. Our neighbourhood’s full of old houses with interesting quirks, so visiting each other’s homes is always fun. They’re coming for coffee and cake on Sunday. It seemed like high time to pick up the dog toys from the living room carpet.

All of these encounters with warm people who sought us out and wanted to get back in touch? None of them is Jewish. All of them are people who want us to know they are safe, they care about us, and they value our company. This was an important realization, well worth the effort it takes to clean up the messy paw prints and kid fingerprints for a visit.

When I imagine how I want my home to appear to friends, or even strangers, I think of the Burrow, the Weasleys’ home in the Harry Potter series. Well, that’s not quite right. Our house doesn’t use magic to knit sweaters or stir pots of soup. Those are my hands, my knitting and my cooking, instead. However, whenever I think of the Burrow, I think of a warm, welcoming place where Mrs. Weasley feeds everybody and makes everyone feel welcome and loved, despite the normal clutter and chaos of family life.

My notion of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests) comes from Jewish tradition, a much older playbook than the Harry Potter series. However, the meaning feels the same, even if my household menu includes hamantashen and chicken soup. Mrs. Weasley’s always sharing her love, food, home, and even her motherly reprimands with others, and it goes beyond her family. Her home, the Burrow, sounds like a retreat, but it’s not a hibernation. It’s an enthusiastic embrace.

I am hoping to get back to that safe and cheerful place, where our home is full again with fascinating friends, good food, stimulating conversation and an open heart. Our gardens are still under dirty snow here. It sometimes takes a heroic effort to rise above winter weather and the residual sadness of the war, but good things await. Things are warming up at my house in Manitoba. I’m hoping for happier days ahead.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Puddle splashing and balance

If you’ve ever slogged through a spring melt in a place, like, say, Winnipeg, you know about the odd balance … the one where it’s best if the snow melts slowly, even painfully, with a freeze at night. Why? Too fast a melt and everything is flooded.

On the prairies – or, frankly, any place without good drainage – basements, wellies and everything else can be in trouble if a big pile of snow hits a too-warm sunny spring. In these places, and I’ve lived in three, now that I think of it: Buffalo and Ithaca, New York, and also Winnipeg … spring is both desperately, sorely anticipated and, well, sometimes gross. It’s full of dirty snow, big puddles and treacherous ice.

Yet we continue, every winter, to long for spring and better weather to come. It’s like we have amnesia and forget this long dirty shoulder season. Years ago, I told myself that, obviously, the snowbirds had it wrong. The best time to travel, if it could ever be managed, would be during the puddle period.

I was thinking about the puddles, Passover and, also, the talmudic tractate I am currently studying as part of Daf Yomi, a page of Talmud a day. From now until the summer, that tractate is Yevamot – the tractate that deals with the notion of levirate marriage. What’s that, you say? It’s the ancient obligation for a childless widow to either marry her husband’s brother to produce a child after her husband’s death, or perform a ceremony called halitzah, in which she is freed from this obligation.

This is probably the first time in more than two years of doing this Daf Yomi study when I seriously just wanted to quit. Yes, studying an ancient text, no matter how holy or intellectually stimulating, can sometimes feel irrelevant. Yevamot goes way beyond “slightly boring” or irrelevant. It wanders into the gross, mucky puddles for me. It’s right up there in the news articles that come with trigger warnings because of issues containing abuse. For a modern person, particularly a woman, some of these rabbis’ discussions in Yevamot really wear me down – because rape, child marriage and other issues really unacceptable to the modern reader arise frequently.

I was proceeding, reading late at night out of duty, and using an approach I perfected in graduate school. This involves skimming the thing as fast as possible so that, if one day I am ever asked about this in a weekly seminar, I can nod somewhat knowingly and bring up the one or two points I can remember. This worked when the professor assigned three academic tomes a week and expected us all to discuss them. (Later, I learned he did this in hopes we would drop the course due to the workload. He felt guilty when we all took it anyway and bought us coffees while we soldiered onwards.)

Of course, I’m learning for the sake of learning now, not because I expect to be tested or, heaven forbid, asked to lead the seminar at a moment’s notice.

This is one of those few times when I was saved by social media. I was on Twitter and, because I follow others who are also learning this way, I started seeing their comments. Several of them summed up, in 280 characters or less (or a TikTok), that they too were struggling. Eye-rolling and other more disgusting noises may have come out of their mouths at some of this. I had a huge sense of relief. I wasn’t alone. Others felt exactly the way I felt. We were part of some internet club I’d forgotten I’d joined. Whew.

There’s a reason why, traditionally, Talmud is studied in a hevruta, a pair or group setting. Some of the topics are hard to understand, for all sorts of reasons. I don’t have a physical study group. Heck, that’s OK, I’ve done nearly this entire thing during a pandemic. I’m a busy mom who stays up too late to read this stuff. I’m lucky to have access to it at all, as a woman, and also for free, online at Sefaria. There’s a lot of support online now that got me to this point, since this kind of study was traditionally dominated by men.

However, I know that feeling a sense of camaraderie and the insights that come from studying with others are important. They certainly helped spur me to continue when I thought the subject matter of Yevamot wasn’t for me and I wanted to quit.

To bring this back to those dirty spring puddles, well, this time of year, while it can be a slog, is also prime time to prep for Passover. This, too, can feel like a struggle. However much preparation you take on for this holiday, it can feel too hard. Cleaning up and scrubbing and eating down your chametz (bread products) can get to be too much.

For many, there’s pressure from those more traditional. Have you cleaned between the sofa cushions thoroughly? How about the stroller?

Those who are secular or less involved pressure me in another way, asking why I make myself “crazy” with any of this.

Passover preparations can feel like one long walk through Winnipeg’s springtime: navigating endless icy puddles, black ice and snow mold.

What helps me continue? It’s that whiff of spring air, or maybe the matzah ball soup, cooked in advance of the holiday. It’s the photo or long ago trip to a warmer climate, where the flowers were already in bloom. Also, it’s taking myself back to the Babylonian Talmud, in Yevamot 13. That’s the page with the reminder that the rabbis teach us not to divide ourselves into factions. That is, we are to value our diversity, our various customs, rather than let our disagreements divide us.

Some people love Passover. Some people love splashing in puddles. Life is a balancing act, and we’re lucky that we’re all unique and different. There’s sometimes a huge sense of shame that rises up when we admit that, actually, no, this text/season/holiday might not be the best thing since, say, sliced bread. Finding out, via a study partner, a friend or even a stranger online that we’re not alone can be so reassuring.

We’re not all the same, but the rabbis encouraged us not to create factions or separate ourselves unnecessarily, either. This is useful wisdom because, after Passover, Shavuot’s not far behind. Pesach’s cold in Winnipeg, and even Lag b’Omer picnics can be snowed or rained out. But Shavuot? That’s a holiday I love. It takes all kinds, as we teeter totter our way through the Jewish year, balancing between seasons. That balance is what makes our holiday observances, and even the talmudic tractates I struggle through, rich indeed.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Making home a sanctuary

My kids love a song called “Make me a sanctuary.” The Hebrew comes directly from Exodus 25:8. It’s based on a Shaker hymn (much of the Jewish musical liturgy comes from outside sources) and it’s in Hebrew and English. The English lyrics say: “Lord, prepare me, to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true, with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.” In Hebrew transliteration: “V’asu li mikdash, v’shochanti b’tocham,va’anachnu n’varech yah, me-ata v’ad olam.” Translation: “Make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them, and we will bless Hashem, now and forever.”

This comes from the Torah portion Terumah, and describes how the people will make an exquisite ark so that they can worship together. I’m a “maker” and love creating things. I spin, knit, weave and sew. I write knitting patterns. I love to build and create. Today, I just finished making some cloth napkins. However, a home (or a congregation) can’t be an inspirational sanctuary without the basics. In Canada, that includes heat.

Recently, I noticed our house seemed cool. I perched on the stairs to check the thermostat. Someone installed it decades ago in a way that makes it hard for shorter adults, like me, to see. (My partner, whose ancestors spent time in Eastern Europe, didn’t seem cold.)

The next morning, the boiler wasn’t working. After checking the thermostat battery and shrugging, my partner went to work. As the work-from-home adult, I called repair places. Although it was warm outside for winter, the forecast predicted plummeting temperatures. I worried.

The busy repair places offered an appointment for the next day. We have two gas fireplaces, which pumped out heat valiantly while I called Manitoba Hydro. Hydro scheduled someone to come out to check our boiler’s pilot light. As the temperatures dropped, the boiler kept cycling, but no heat came up, so I shut it off.

At lunchtime, a chirping alarm went off in the basement. Something else was wrong, but I couldn’t even tell what was beeping. We have an old house. Its antiquated systems can be confusing. (Smart house upgrades circa 1918, 1952, etc.) I was also tired when this started from a busy weekend. I was so befuddled by what was going on with the boiler that I wondered if I was confused due to some kind of gas leak.

Once I shut it off the boiler, I was no longer confused but so tired from the cold that I wanted to take a nap. I was wearing a toque, a heavy Icelandic wool sweater and a shawl, but part of me was like, “Don’t take a nap! People die this way! How will the Hydro guys get in if you fall asleep?!”

Here’s the stupid coincidence. The beeping was an older fire alarm with a failing battery, which had nothing to do with the boiler. Installed in 2004, it was guaranteed to last 10 years. It gave up the ghost 15 years later, on the same day as the boiler troubles. We’ve had new, hardwired fire, carbon and radon alarms installed, but missed removing this one. I was freaking out over nothing. I’d call it irrational stupidity, possibly caused by a tired “freeze” brain.

The Hydro guys came, cheerfully disconnected the old fire alarm, relit the pilot light and told me to get the boiler fully serviced. When the tradesperson serviced the boiler, it was black, dirty and not burning cleanly. It needed attention. I also got the boiler chimney cleaned. It took awhile for the house to heat up, but there was good news. We were warm again! Bad news? I lost the better part of a work week to this drama, and I was cold.

Once I was warm, I thought beyond the basics – but many people can’t. If you’re stuck with challenges like staying warm, you can’t think clearly. In the midst of a Canadian winter, we’re so lucky to have heat. Taking a moment to remember this, and recognize that there are many who are cold this winter, and how it affects us, is very important.

I was incredibly grateful to hear the boiler cycling as everything became toasty. It made me very aware of how hard it is for those among us who cannot afford to keep their houses warm or who are homeless. I was so anxious that I woke up the next morning at 5:30 a.m., panicked that the boiler might stop working again as temperatures plummeted to -30 outside.

For those of us who find something’s wrong, there are ways to fix it. This is a kind of “adulting.” Grown-ups should keep up with home maintenance, whether it’s the fire alarms or getting their boilers serviced and chimneys cleaned regularly. I couldn’t remember the last time this was done at our house.

When I had twins, life got busy. We did the best we could, but forgot a lot of important details. We all need heat during the winter. Aside from being grateful, do something that I didn’t do – be proactive. Getting your heat in order before the cold temperatures and cold freeze brain hit is wise. I wish I’d known better, but you can still get it serviced in the wintertime.

Here’s wishing you a well-maintained warm, cozy home, with up-to-date fire alarms, during all the cold snaps. It’s much better to be safe and warm than sorry.

Trio of favourite potato soups

Everyone has their favourite soup when the fall weather turns into winter. Mine is potato soup. I don’t remember who made this for me, whether it was my grandmother or my mother, or when or how it became my favourite. In sharing these recipes with readers, I hope to share some of the warmth and comfort they have given me over the years.

The first mention of potatoes in the Americas seems to be in the journals of Magellan and Columbus, where they are called “batatas.” They were brought to southern and central America when Pizarro conquered Peru, and spread via Spanish forts and ships.

In Ireland, the potato was introduced in 1565, and it quickly became the main element of the Irish diet – to the extent that, when the Irish potato crop failed in 1847, one-and-a-half million Irish died, with another million emigrating, mostly to America.

The potato also helped feed the starving masses of Europe when famine struck in 1770. The French leader Parmentier set up potato soup kitchens to feed people and, to this day, potato soup bears his name in the French language. Here are some recipes from my files.

POTAGE FERMIÈRE (FARMERS SOUP)
makes three to four servings

1 small finely chopped onion
1 1/2 tsp butter or margarine
1 diced potato
3 cups water
3 tsp pareve chicken powder
1 sliced leek
1/4 tsp dry tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp non dairy creamer or milk
1 1/2 tsp finely chopped parsley
grated Parmesan cheese

Sauté onion in butter or margarine in a soup pot.
Add potato, water and chicken soup powder; cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.
Add leek, tarragon, salt and pepper and pareve cream or milk. Cover and simmer 10 minutes longer or until leeks are tender.
Mash with potato masher or puree in blender. Garnish with parsley. Have Parmesan cheese in a bowl for each person to sprinkle over soup.

CREAMY POTATO SOUP
This recipe comes from The Kosher Palette (Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy), edited by Susie Fishbein and Sandra Blank. It makes 24 servings.

3 tbsp oil
8 peeled, cubed potatoes
6 peeled, thinly sliced carrots
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
8 cups water
1 cup non-dairy creamer
1 peeled onion
2 ribs sliced celery
2-3 bay leaves
finely chopped parsley

Heat oil in a soup pot. Add potatoes and sauté three to five minutes, stirring constantly.
Add carrots and stir. Stir in flour, salt and paprika. Add water, creamer, onion, celery and bay leaves. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer one-and-a-half hours, stirring occasionally. Remove onion, celery and bay leaves.
Serve with warm, crusty bread. Garnish with parsley. Soup may be served chunky or smooth processed in a blender.

POTATO CUCUMBER SOUP
This recipe is adapted from a magazine but I don’t know which one or when. Its origins are Polish, Russian or Ukrainian. It makes nine servings.

6 peeled, quartered potatoes
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp chicken soup powder
1 tbsp minced onion
2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 cups pareve creamer or milk
2 1/2 cups peeled cucumbers
1 tsp dill weed

In soup pot, heat potatoes, water, chicken soup powder, onion, salt and pepper. Reduce, cover and simmer 15 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.
Mash potatoes. Add creamer or milk and cucumbers. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in dill.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, author, compiler/editor of nine kosher cookbooks and a food writer for North American Jewish publications, who lives in Jerusalem where she leads weekly walks of the Jewish food market, Machaneh Yehudah, in English.

Exploring winter landscapes

Ian Penn’s exhibit Winter Paintings: The Figure in and on the Landscape opened March 10 at Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

The theme of Ian Penn’s solo show at Zack Gallery is winter. The artist’s love for winter, for the mountains of British Columbia and for skiing reverberates through the gallery.

“I’m affected by the seasons, by my surroundings,” said Penn in an interview with the Independent. “I only paint current seasons. In summer, I paint summer; in the fall, I paint its rioting colors. In winter, I paint snow and skiing.”

Penn spends lots of his free time in the mountains. “Our whole family likes to ski,” he said. “When we first moved to B.C., we bought our first place in the mountains before we settled in Vancouver.”

Penn has been skiing since his youth in Australia, but it was cross-country skiing until he immigrated to Canada and saw the mountains. At the age of 35, he started alpine skiing – and loved it.

Around 2000, he went a step further. He joined the ski patrol in Whistler, volunteering part-time his professional skills as a doctor. He still does that. “I like the ski patrol community. They are nice people,” he said.

About the same time, he also became seriously interested in painting, which eventually led to a degree from Emily Carr.

Penn has a general fascination with landscapes, especially mountain scenes, as an art form. He has painted dozens of landscapes, in every season, and some of his favorite areas to paint are around Whistler and the Callaghan Valley.

“I was always interested in mapping a territory, but a map and a territory are not the same,” he explained. “The painting of a landscape is not the same as if you stand in that place, experience it with all your senses. Or with devices – photo cameras and cellphones. I wanted to capture that difference in my paintings. That’s why I started a series of diptychs. My diptychs are like a single painting in two parts.”

There are several diptychs on display in the gallery. One is a landscape, a vista with the majestic mountains and forest, with tiny human figures. The second affords a closer look. The human figure is larger, the artist’s focus has narrowed, and the people in these paintings are doing something, engaging with the mountains. They whip down the slopes on their skis. They stop to take photos. They enjoy the invigorating exercise and the beauty around them. They laugh and horse around.

Penn captures their movement in his paintings. His objects are not static. They don’t pose. They are just going about their business, and the artist is going about his.

“Initially, I wanted to paint on location,” he said. “I want to paint everywhere I go, but I couldn’t do that in winter. It’s too cold both for my hands and for the paints. Or it might snow. What I do when I’m in the mountains skiing, I take photos and make quick drawings.”

The drawings provide him with the first impression, the emotional subtext. The photographs he uses for details.

“All the details in my landscapes are accurate. The precision is important to me. I want to be able to navigate by them. I want the ski patrol to be able to use my paintings when they have to rescue someone,” he said, only half-joking.

Many of his paintings have personal stories attached, some of which are more obvious than others. In one painting, there was to have been a person but there isn’t; the close-up view is surprisingly empty of life. “He got erased. I erased him,” Penn said. “He was a vain fellow. He was dancing around, making selfies of himself with his cellphone, turning so he would get every possible angle. He didn’t notice anyone else, almost stepped on my ski. At first, I wanted to show it, as a portrait of self-absorption, but I disliked the fellow so much, I finally erased his figure from my painting. But, mostly, I want my paintings to tell your stories, not mine.”

The dominating color in all of the paintings is white, of course, overset by green forest and dark mountains. Only people provide splashes of color: a red jacket or a yellow parka.

“I use five different whites for the snow,” Penn said. “And then there are color patches reflecting the surroundings. Snow is never simply white. It’s complex and a challenge. It’s always different. And so is the sky: blue but different in each painting. But I never used black in any of these paintings. When I needed the dark, I mixed colors.”

Penn paints landscapes because they are endless. “Wherever I go, there is a new and amazing landscape waiting for me. Painting them, making drawings, photographing slows me down, allows me the time to look, to see the beauty around me.”

Winter Paintings: The Figure in and on the Landscape will be at the Zack until April 3. For more information about Penn and his work, visit ianpenn.com. An interview with Penn about his exhibit last year, called Pole, can be found at jewishindependent.ca/memorials-to-millions.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].