Jewish Penicillin

As the High Holidays approach, the local Chabad's Jewish Calendar and my parents appear.  I'm in the backyard, bickering with my siblings as Daddooooo takes family pictures - stills and movies - under the pin oak tree. I'm in the kitchen as G'ma takes the navy Kosher cookbook off the shelf over her sink, opening to the same stained pages as always.

I am certain that the Revere Ware pot is 72 years old;  G'ma and Daddooooo received the set as a wedding present in 1952.  I'm almost positive that the Tupperware with the white lid also began life in their kitchen, as did my lifelong love of the matzoh ball.  

I like them all the ways G'ma made them, the fluffy ones and the dense ones, the ones she served at Seders and the ones I could cajole her into serving me for lunch just because.  Consistency was never her strong suit, but I didn't care.  I, the pickiest eater in a family of picky eaters, was delighted with every iteration.  

That is fortunate, because I, too, have a consistency problem with the consistency of my matzoh balls.  TBG claims not to notice anything beyond the Yum Quotient, which is very high.  I notice every difference and consume each of them - the Manischewitz and the Streits; the boiled quickly and the frozen; the golf balls and the baseballs - with reckless abandon.

The liquid itself deserves its own post.  Suffice it to say that its role is to enhance the matzoh balls, rather than take center stage.

Jewish Penicillin - it cures physical aches and pains, and soothes the soul.

As I typed that I remembered the series saying the same thing.  I can see G'ma smiling, with love, at my hubris.  

I told you they were with me.