May 28, 2017

Sour Cherry Soup (for Shavuos or just because it's good)

We make a chilled sour cherry soup every year for Shavuos. If you haven't had it, it's basically dessert but part of dinner so then you get to cheat and have "real dessert" after.

1-1.5lbs of sour cherries, pitted
4 cups of water
1/2 cup of red wine
Pinch of salt
Lemon zest (some long pieces you can fish out of soup after its initial boil and simmer)
2tbsp-.5 cup of sugar (this is a taste thing. More sugar makes it sweeter obviously)
2 cinnamon sticks
1 cup of sour cream
2 tbsp flour

Put the cherries in a pot with the water, cinnamon sticks, red wine, salt, lemon zest, and the sugar and bring it to a boil. Simmer 10 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and remove and discard the cinnamon sticks and the zest pieces. Pull out 1/2 cup of the liquid and cool it just a tiny bit, maybe 3 minutes or so.

In a bowl whisk together the sour cream and the flour. Temper this with that very slightly cooled cherry juice you pulled from the pot. Whisk that 1/2 cup into your sour cream and flour mixture and then whisk it back into your soup. Now simmer that another 5 minutes. Don't let it boil, just a low simmer until it all thickens a bit. Stir it here and there.

Cool it quickly and then get it in the refrigerator and chill it 2-3 hours and then eat it all.

May 26, 2017

What A Progressive Society Can Learn From The Ultra-Chassidic Sect of Skver

https://www.momitating.com/single-post/2017/05/23/KimpaturinWhat-a-progressive-society-can-learn-from-the-ultraChasidic-sect-of-Skver


Kimpaturin; A Yiddish word for a woman who has just given birth.

I grew up hearing this term every time my mother referred to a post-partum woman, or in reference to herself after birthing a new child, which was often. Mom said and uttered “Kimpaturin” with awe and respect. If someone in the community recently gave birth, I would find her in the kitchen cooking, or on the phone arranging meals or cleaning help for the newest kimpurtin.

And then there was the kimpaturin home. After each baby my mother used to leave the hospital in New Jersey and head straight to New York for a week to recover in the kimpaturin home. We children didn't quite understand what this place was really about but we knew for our mother, this was a non-negotiable part of giving birth.

After I had my first child and with each additional one after, my mom would gently suggest that I consider recuperating in the kimpaturin home in New York. I live far away from family and as my responsibilities and family grew, I needed the rest more so. I also experienced post-partum anxiety after some of my births which left me emotionally and physically depleted.

But as daughters often do, I dismissed Mom’s suggestion. For several reasons. First, I thought it was ancient (after all, mom did it!). Also, as a woman with a Chabad background and identity, I wasn’t sure how I would be perceived and accepted in the very insular worlds of Satmar and Skver.

And finally, I figured if everyone else managed, I can too. This is where I was gravely mistaken.

Everyone else does not manage.

According to the CDC, up to twenty percent of women in the US get some form of postpartum depression- and that’s documenting live births. This does not include miscarriages etc. Additionally, the majority of these statistics are women who have reported themselves. Imagine the statistics if there was no stigma and shame attached to PPD?

Many factors contribute to PPD such as sleep deprivation that often leads to exhaustion, which most post-partum moms’ experience. But we simply can not ignore that postpartum and maternity health care and benefits in the US are some of the worst. Women are expected to spring back to work and assume normal responsibilities a mere few weeks and sometimes days after birth. The kimpaturin is not a concept in our progressive twenty seventeen society.

This is not so in the Chassidic communities such as Williamsburg and Boro Park. In their world, she's a superhero, this Mama Kimpaturin. We often say it takes a village to raise a child, and let me tell you, they have a village. This is due to many factors, some that as a modern society we simply can’t attain (such as living near our families) and some that we should embrace. In their village, after a baby is born, the siblings of the new baby are split between family members while mom takes a week or two to rest and recuperate. And many go to the kimpaturin homes.

This brings me to my own kimpatorin story after my recent birth of a baby boy.

Mother was finally successful in convincing me to let go of my “trepidations” and fears and with the encouragement of some friends and my supportive husband, I made the trip with my newborn to New York. I felt like a child going to overnight camp for the first time, but I knew I needed to try whatever it would take to get back to myself.

A beautiful state of the art building greeted us in New Square in the Skver section near Monsey, New York. A special entrance with a stunning lobby welcomed the new moms. The women at the reception desk greeted me with the most welcoming smiles. Asking me first when I had last eaten and offering to serve me cake and coffee. Two staff members whisked my suitcases to my private room while a nurse came to take the baby to the nursery. They led me to the a most elegant room with modern furnishing, and an attached bathroom. From the softest bed linen to the welcome bag on each bed and all the details so carefully thought of, it felt like I was on vacation in a five star hotel.

****rest of blog at link: https://www.momitating.com/single-post/2017/05/23/KimpaturinWhat-a-progressive-society-can-learn-from-the-ultraChasidic-sect-of-Skver