Happy Chanukah!

Fried potato pancakes. Doughnuts!

It’s a yearly treat. Has to be, because it takes all year to work off the calories. Is it worth the work and the smell in the house and the rising numbers on the bathroom scale?

Well, it is, if you value tradition. I love to see my family and friends  seated at the table on a Hannukah night, and how they smile as the first sizzling batch of  latkehs is set down. I know that my grandchildren will always remember Grandma’s latkehs as the best, the only latkehs in the world. I know that as years pass, more and more family memories will emerge, and the smell of grated, fried potatoes and onions will bring back the room and its furniture, the way the light fell on our faces, things we said, how old each one was.  I’ll always cherish memory a picture of a very little boy struggling out of his mom’s arms to stick his fingers in the applesauce, and his mom, my daughter, laughing and holding him back.

How will they remember me? I kind of hope they’ll remember me smiling and handing out those delicious fried foods, and that the taste memory will get all mixed up with the picture of our Hannukah party.

5  Hannuka Recipes:

• Traditional Potato Latkehs
• Applesauce
• Sfenj
• Curried Butternut Squash Latkehs
• Zuke Fritters