Weekend fooding and Chez Panisse

I went to my market today, only to find rows and rows of parked cars where tents and vendors should be. "Ok," I thought, attempting not to freak out, "maybe they are in the next parking lot over."

I checked the next parking lot over.

More cars. No vegetables. Much trauma.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one standing around with an empty canvas bag and a woeful expression. After thinking a bit and realizing that people were still walking by with full bags of fresh produce, we turned around to notice a six-foot-long, rather helpful sign that proclaimed "Farmers' Market Now in New Transit Center Location!"

"Ahhhhh!" said the lot of us, as we trekked our way over to the new place.

Then I had my second freak out of the day, as I realized.... I had no idea where my pea vendor was! Trauma! Woe! I walked around the entire market very slowly, getting a little calmer as I saw familiar stalls in a different context. Mushroom guys, check. Honey guys, check. Cheese guys, check. Acme Bread, check. Finally, I made it to the peas, and the guy still had some. I also grabbed a pound of cranberry beans, which I have no idea what to do with. Joy tells me that they can be steamed or boiled, and I figure steaming will be less damaging to the structural integrity of the beans, which is good, since I was planning some sort of bean salad. Since I did not plan ahead and was constrained in grocery shopping (I am going to go to NYC next weekend!), I have very few ingredients. I was thinking champagne vinaigrette (as I handily have champagne vinegar), cooked beans, diced tomatoes (heirloom, of course), and... uh. Some dried herbs, since I am sorely lacking in anything else.

Plus, fresh heirlooms make everything better.

Obviously, I got more heirlooms (yellow-green little stripey ones and the really ugly red-green ones; I don't know any variety names, woe!). I also got more peaches, some yellow raspberries that I saw the lemon vendor eating, lemons, a blackberry galette (tasty!), and some very fresh goat cheese. Oooh! I will put goat cheese in the salad as well!

( Chez Panisse )

I have decided I very much like Berkeley and wish I could spend more time there; it actually reminds me a great deal of Madison. Very indie college towns, and of course, Berkeley endeared itself to me with the scads of restaurants everywhere, several used and indie bookstores, several used and indie music stores, and assorted randomness and lots of dogs on the street.

Aside from Berkeley, I also watched Laura at the old-fashioned theatre here that has an organ (sadly, my friends and I missed Gilda, which I adore, because... Rita Hayworth! Rita Hayworth taking off her gloves!). And I ventured out to check out the art and wine festival going around, except I got distracted and randomly found a library sale going on and got around 12 books for $7.50. Er, book embargo? What book embargo? I will not even mention the piles of Heyers that I found at the used bookstore on Friday, or the very bad yaoi manga I bought for the heck of it (used).

Truly, I cannot get shelves soon enough.

Kertzer, Morris, and Lawrence Hoffman - What Is a Jew?

(subtitle: A Guide to the Beliefs, Traditions, and Practices of Judaism That Answers Questions for Both Jew and Non-Jew)

To clarify, I am in the non-Jew category.

I feel incredibly stupid reading this book, since I feel like I should know more about this topic. But after several completely random anti-Semitic comments that sprung up during the PotC2 debate and IBARW, I realized that I knew pretty much nothing about Judaism the religion, and even less about Jewishness (is that the proper term?) as a culture.

I've learned more about Passover and the seder from LJ and from books, but most of what I know about Judaism is from the Bible, from the extremely obscure Kabbalistic references that anime and manga so loves to use, pop culture Yiddish, and the Holocaust. In fact, I feel extremely stupid just typing all that out and exposing the depths of my ignorance.

Anyhow. I learned quite a bit from the book, from how the Torah is different from the Bible to the importance of Israel, which I hadn't really understood before. I understood it intellectually, but never quite got why emotionally. I'm not saying that I do now, but it's more understandable now.

But I'm leaving the book with more questions than answers, including questions on how accurate the book is. I have no doubt that the rabbis who wrote it are factually accurate, but it's the emotional accuracy that I'm not sure about and that probably no one can answer, as the emotional accuracy will differ with each individual. At least now, I have the terms to think about things in, and a broad framework for questions, which is much more than I had before this.

But I find that I want to know more; I want to know what the culture is like when lived in, what it means when you're half in it and half out of it, what it means for a strict Orthodox, what it means for a Reform Jew, what it means for a non-religious Jew. And I'm sure all these things aren't something that can be answered by anyone, just like questions on Chinese culture will have a broad framework but vary on the individual level.

I'm glad I read it, and that I know more now about Jewishness as a living culture, as opposed to the oft-frozen-in-time culture that it felt like to me in books (probably because most books on Jewishness that I have read have been about the Holocaust).

Need to find more books now.