The hell? Sandra Lee makes a Kwanzaa cake: [link]

Oh, that is easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. Why is this woman on television again?

I am at work. yay.

SnowSleetOccasionalDrizzleAndRainThenScatteredFlurriespocalypse

Crap. My sister and BiL have to be driving through this to get to Wisconsin for Christmas here at our house.

Ok, the letters in that "new take latkes" article are hysterical... particularly since the author feels the need to comment on them repeatedly. My favorite response?

This whole notion that there is no risk to pigging out once a year isn’t really true.

And she's going to blog about it!

I finally get to go back home today. My parents have been getting the floors in our house refinished, so we've been staying at a hotel the past two nights. Really not my idea of a relaxing vacation.

Ok, the letters in that "new take latkes" article are hysterical... particularly since the author feels the need to comment on them repeatedly.

The idea of baked latkes is ridiculous. The entire point of latkes is that they're fried in oil! The potatoes are just there because they were a convenient thing to fry. In places that don't have many potatoes, Jews fry other things for Chanukah. (And even in places that do have potatoes, we still make sufganiyot, which are kind of like jelly donuts. Yum. Haven't had any yet this year, because I'm with my parents, and my mom is on a diet, which means everybody's on a diet.)

I think it's funny that Wisconsin has such a large German, Polish, eastern European contingent that one of the first things they taught us how to cook in Home Ec was latkes. You must know how to make these if you're going to be a good housewife!

The idea of baked latkes is ridiculous. The entire point of latkes is that they're fried in oil!

Word.

Huh. [link]

Overwhelmingly, the consensus was this: Jewish kids of my generation were permitted to watch one or all of: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and The Year Without Santa Claus. Therefore, their children are also allowed to watch them. But ask them why these movies pass muster and prepare for whomping exhibitions of illogic as only the People of the Book can practice it.

...

A fair point, perhaps, but why do Jewish parents want to be pushing this peculiarly self-loathing vision of the bitter old Jewish man on their kids? Do we drag our kids to see The Merchant of Venice? If anything, the weird Grinch-as-old-Jew notion would seem to suggest that of all things Jewish kids should not be watching at Christmastime, the Seussian classic tops the list. But perhaps my colleague Emily Bazelon is right, and Jewish kids like the Grinch because "Without the ending, the movie is the ultimate fantasy for a Jewish kid with a case of Santa/tree/carols envy—Christmas, canceled."

Interesting.

We always watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, White Christmas, and Miracle on 34th Street. Frosty was grudgingly accepted; Rudolf was allowed, but with a definite disclaimer of "You know that we don't believe in that stuff." It's A Wonderful Life was definitely not something we watched.

Willow's line about having to go to Xander's house to watch Charlie Brown Christmas never made sense to me -- most of the Jewish kids I knew were allowed to watch that one. The ones that got more scrutiny were the ones about Santa and presents and reindeer and stuff like that.

I think it's funny that Wisconsin has such a large German, Polish, eastern European contingent that one of the first things they taught us how to cook in Home Ec was latkes.

Huh. I don't think I ever had latkes until I moved to Chicago. (And I grew up in a very German part of Wisconsin.)