Kids Food Allergies Blog

I spent the past few days leading up to the Jewish New Year cooking like a maniac.  I prepared all the traditional foods that my family and other Jewish families have served for generations: brisket, noodle kugel, and honey cake.

Five years ago when I had a newborn at the high holidays, our special holiday meal consisted of sloppy joes.  Yes, sloppy joes was all I could manage to prepare that year.  I would have been well served to remember 5764 last week when ambition and adrenaline beat out common sense.   I don’t mind admitting that under normal circumstances, I am quite a good cook.  Not this year.  Brisket was tough.  Kugel was the wrong consistency.  Honey cake spilled over in the oven and fell apart.  I don’t know why any of that surprises me.  The baby is waking up every hour and a half at night to nurse.  When I put her down during the day, she cries.  I’m running on fumes.  Not an ideal circumstance for preparing traditional dishes I make but once a year.  My family was polite and appreciative, but I was pretty down about it.

Holidays are hard.  Especially since the cultural component (food) is such a big part of how I celebrated holidays with my family growing up.  Celebrating with others can be difficult.  Since we cannot eat the same food that they do, our “special” food always isolates my daughter from others.  Likewise, celebrating alone can be difficult: she misses the festive atmosphere of celebrating with extended family and friends.  Whether we celebrate with others or alone, I feel compelled to provide for her the same special holiday foods (that others can so easily buy) that are her cultural birthright.  Even if she doesn’t like them.  Which she doesn’t.

The only part of the Rosh Hashana meal she enjoyed was the apples and honey.

Next year, I’m tempted to start a new tradition: sloppy joes (or some equivalent comfort food of her choosing) and apples & honey.

I wish you and your family a sweet New Year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under Jewish recipes, food allergies, parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.