Hannukah

How To Be The Absolutely Most Perfect Holiday Guest There Ever Was!

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Over at Wirecutter, there’s advice about what you should and shouldn’t do when you’re a holiday dinner guest. Don’t bring flowers, do bring ice, and if you arrive with a dish, make sure it’s hot because the oven will be busy.

So you may be wondering, What’s wrong with flowers?  Well, apparently you’d be bothering your hosts who would have to interrupt their frantic activity to go to all the trouble of finding you a vase and filling it with water.  But if that’s the only problem, and you have your heart set on a bouquet, why not bring your own vase and a bottle of distilled water?  Easy-peasy.

As for bringing food when you’re invited to dinner, I have to disagree.  If you haven’t been expressly invited to do so, it seems pretty rude.  It implies that you have a back-up plan in case your hosts are bad cooks.

And ice?  Really?  Are you dining out in some desert land where people have minimal refrigeration?  Maybe the Wirecutter author was troubled by climate change melting the icebergs in Greenland, got a little confused, thinks that the world is facing an ice shortage.  The holiday season does that to people.

But back to those pesky flowers.  If you really do believe the Wirecutter author is right, skip flowers and do something much grander: bring a Christmas tree, something artificial that’s already decorated.  You’ll be praised for your thoughtfulness.  Just forget the tinsel since it’s apparently destroying the planet.

Of course, you might be headed to a Jewish household, in which case you should bring extra Hanukkah candles because sometimes they break or get scarfed by a dog. If your hosts have enough, no matter: it shows that you care.  And while you’re at it, some potato pancakes wouldn’t hurt, since everyone argues about whose bubbeh makes the best ones.

Don’t debate, just stop by Whole Foods for their version and stay above the fray.  And yes, bring your own olive oil and counter portable countertop stove so you don’t have to bug you hosts.  Get there early so you’ll be ready for the other guests.  Now I know I advised against bringing food, but latkehs are more than food, they’re an institution.

Oh, and finally Wirecutter suggests that if you bring something like a bottle of whiskey, hide it so you don’t have to share it with the other guests.  Whatever happened to wine that joined other bottles on the table?  Did Scrooge write that column?

And do people really need to be reminded to at the very least send an email thanking their hosts?  Were the readers of Wirecutter raised by wolves?  Maybe the subtext of this article is a dinner party that went horribly wrong, a version of the B-52’s song “Party Out of Bounds.”

Lev Raphael is the author of 26 books in genres from memoir to mystery.

Remembering My Father’s Times In The Kitchen

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Even though Father’s Day is about six months off from Hannukah, it always makes me think of my father’s rare times in the kitchen making potato pancakes.

Fried in a large, battered cast iron pan, these latkes were always perfect: crisp outside, juicy inside, delicious whether served with sour cream, sugar, apple sauce–or just plain. My brother and I tried them every way.

I loved to watch my father cook.  He was as patient as a scientist, as skilled as a musician playing a piece he’s performed more times than he can remember. Sometimes he even made what he called a potato babka: pouring the batter into a large loaf pan and baking it. The word itself still makes my mouth water decades later, though my own kitchen will never be filled with that aroma.

I’ve used all kinds of pans, potatoes, and onions over the years, but have never been able to duplicate his latkes, not even with his advice. I’m not just being nostalgic and romanticizing the past. Back then, my mother said her latkes were never as good as his, and she was a gifted cook.

Did he consult a cookbook or was he remembering a recipe he had learned at home in eastern Czechoslovakia before the Holocaust? No, he just worked instinctively with the onions and potatoes, the flour, eggs, salt and pepper.

Years later, in a college course where we read Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, I learned a wonderful Italian word: sprezzatura. It was the art that concealed all art, the ability to do things flawlessly without betraying any effort. While my father was no Renaissance man — I don’t remember him ever cooking much of anything else — perhaps sprezzatura was a secret ingredient of those latkes.

And perhaps I tried too hard to equal him, longed too deeply to recreate a moment in time that looked like magic and felt like a feast. These days, I don’t worry about equaling what he did, I just enjoy the memory of the love and dedication, the patience, and the sights and smells of my taciturn father loving his sons without words.

Lev Raphael is the prize-winning author of The Vampyre of Gotham and 24 other books in genres from memoir to mystery. You can study creative writing with him on line at writewithoutborders.com