I left you last time with us having just arrived home from the supermarket, laden with a comprehensive range of food items. Since it felt pretty much like winter (even in the house…but that’s another story, for a later post), we were able to leave most of the fruit and some of the vegetables out of the fridge, and we found that we had enough cupboard space to pack away all the dry goods, though not necessarily enough brain space to remember where we had put everything. There was certainly an awkward transition period of a couple of days during which Bernice and I kept looking for items in the equivalent cupboard to the one where we keep them in Israel, but by the end of our four weeks we felt so much at home that, when we returned to Maale Adumim, we kept looking for items in the equivalent cupboard to the one where we keep them in Portugal. Thank goodness they drive on the right in Portugal and at least we don’t have that adjustment to look forward to six times a year.

We were now completely up to speed, and ready to cook for shabbat. The oven had no timer, which meant that we (let’s be honest, it meant that Bernice) would not be able to use it on shabbat. Fortunately, among the recipes she had photocopied and brought from Israel were several that could be cooked in advance and then kept hot on the shabbat hot plate (which was the one really useful item we had ordered and bought in the kosher shop in Lisbon). So, she rolled up her sleeves and started peeling and chopping vegetables.

A little background. About 7 years ago, Bernice decided to stop eating meat (but not, I hasten to add, fish). We now do not eat meat at home – which, in a kosher kitchen, makes life so much easier. I still occasionally eat meat when we are out, but less and less. I have long argued that if I had to give up meat or fish I would give up meat. Incidentally, if I were cast away on a desert island and could only take one fish with me (as it were), the lucky (or perhaps that should be unlucky) winner would be herring; partly, no doubt, this is because my late father z”l owned a delicatessen shop. Herring is a magnificent and incredibly versatile fish, to be relished pickled, shmaltz (or should that be shmaltzed), which is preserved packed in salt and oil, chopped (a mixture of shmaltz and pickled, blended with onion, apple, hard-boiled egg, white pepper, and a little stale bread), fried, soused, smoked as a kipper or a bloater…but I digress).

(Yet another aside: The company I used to work for gave its employees gifts at Pesach and Rosh Hashana, as is usual in large companies in Israel. One year, the choice of gifts included one or two that we had chosen previously, another couple that we had no use for, and a set of Arcosteel kitchen knives and block, endorsed by Israeli celebrity chef Meir Adoni. Both Bernice and I felt that such expensive branded knives were almost certainly an affectation, but there was nothing else we wanted and, after all, we weren’t paying, so we chose the knives…and our lives changed overnight. A set of perfectly balanced, hollow-handled, lightweight knives, each formed from a single piece of metal, that sit beautifully in the hand, stay sharp longer, and sharpen wonderfully well. Among the things they cut in half with ease is prep time in the kitchen!)

Meanwhile, I was baking challah. This has been my job since Bernice decided, several years ago, that kneading the dough was too exhausting. Having come to the same conclusion some time later, I now use the electric mixer to knead the dough, and, although purists will be horrified, I believe I get a better result. From challah, I have gradually moved (with subtle but effective nudging from various members of the family) to baking all of our bread. The full story of what that means will have to wait for another post; for the moment, what matters is that the smell of challah wafting from the oven and filling the house made us all realise shabbat was almost here. Rather too much of the smell wafted, by the way, because the oven, we discovered, had a very poor seal at the top, and copious clouds of steam escaped into the kitchen. In addition, the oven had only one tray, which presented quite a challenge.

These accumulated woes led to us deciding that we would buy a new oven. In addition, by this time Tao’s nappies had been hanging on the clothes horse for 3 days, and still weren’t dry. This was largely because the washing machine seemed to feel that the essence of spinning lay in the noise and the shaking, rather than the rotation of the drum, so that the clothes came out of the machine at the end of the cycle fairly wet. So, we decided we needed a new washing machine as well, and, given how cold and wet the Penamacor winter is (you can see where this is going), a tumble dryer as well. At this point, Tslil pointed out that the controls for the gas hob were on the oven, so, of course, we needed to replace the hob as well.

Fortunately, we had noticed, on our trip to the supermarket, a large electrical goods store in the same mall, that seemed to be offering some substantial discounts. I went online, and found that the store was part of a large Portuguese chain that had good customer reviews and sold a lot of own-brand appliances that scored very well in review, as well as many from better-known companies. The icing on the cake was that their excellent website used one Portuguese phrase that we understood – Black Friday. A couple of hours of online research later, we had chosen and ordered all four items. How did we ever manage in a pre-Internet world? (The story of the delivery of these white goods is so good it will have to wait for a post all to itself.)

Having showered and dressed for shabbat, we all gathered in the salon for candle-lighting, in front of the window in full view of the street. (I remember reading about one Sephardi family who had retained some traditions while losing their awareness that they were Jewish. The grandmother, apparently, would go down to the basement to light candles on Friday evening. She did not realise why; she only knew that was what her mother had done.)

Later, around the kitchen table, I was able to give our son, daughter-in-law and grandson the traditional Friday night blessing. Those of you who know me well will appreciate Bernice’s stunned admiration that I got through the whole thing without once crying. Then came kiddush, the sanctification over wine that marks the beginning of the shabbat meal. This rather confused Tao. He already seems to be aware of the difference between English and Hebrew, and to know that his Daddy speaks to him in English, while his Ima (Mummy) speaks to him in Hebrew. Daddy, he realises, speaks to Ima in Hebrew – and even speaks to strangers in another language that Tao doesn’t yet recognise very well. Ima speaks to many visitors in English. However, until that first Friday night, Tao thought he was on safe ground with Nana and Grandpa. He had only heard us speak English. And now, suddenly, here I was, speaking, and here we both were, singing(!) in, Hebrew. Tao certainly looked a little disconcerted, although he seemed to have adjusted to it by the time we left to come back to Israel.

That first shabbat evening, as Bernice and I reflected on the past week, we felt very pleased with what we had managed to achieve; that the five of us were enjoying shabbat together made us feel that all of our hard work had been well worth it.

Clarification: All of these posts are being written in retrospect. Bernice and I arrived back in Israel from our first stay in our house in Portugal in late November. I reckon that I have at least enough material to support a weekly post until our next trip, scheduled for early February, again for a month. So, at the moment, this is less of a blog, and more of a memoir. Not that there’s much difference, I think….but that’s a subject for another post.