winter

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.

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. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

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]