2.72 A Lunch to Remember

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72. Clara’s Kosher Cooking

Jefferson tells us to go around back in order to hose and dry our feet before entering kitchen where Clara assigns us clean slippers.

After washing and relaxing upstairs, we come downstairs for lunch on the pink-cloth table, seating six along lengths and one each at ends. Standing by the oven/gas range, Clara in brown apron and white head cover is seeing to the roast beef and ladling matzo ball soup. I face Mrs. Lifshutz across table and Ali faces Mr. L. while Jefferson sits at end opposite Clara’s seat. Apropos the Jewish approach to race relations in America, what I see here today may be singular but it seems admirable to me. Both Jefferson and Mr. Lifshutz wear the black skullcaps called Yarmulke and, seeing I do not, Clara signals Jefferson who steps and fetches a yarmulke for me.

The first food is pink half-grapefruit with maraschino cherry on top. Before eating, Mr. Lifshutz, as oldest Jewish man, gives blessing in Hebrew. The Jewish elder has three languages: English for daily converse; Yiddish, a German dialect with Russian & Hebrew words and written in Hebrew alphabet for talk within tribe, and Hebrew for blessing or prayer. Religion is taken care of by the men while the women run Jewish daily life.

Clara starts the eating off by saying in loud voice “Essen!” which I understand from the German, "Eat!" We start on the grapefruit. Meanwhile Clara puts saucers on table with gefilte fish, chopped liver, pickled herring, chicken-fat fried-shreds, and rectangles of a Jewish biscuit called Matzo, which is so crunchy you must eat it carefully over your table plate else you will get it all over everything. Then Clara serves chicken soup with small round dumplings.
   Mr. & Mrs. Lifshutz look on with obvious interest: Mrs. is especially pleased to see me a Japanese enjoying Jewish cooking. “Ya like, huh? Oi Moishe! See how he like da zoop!” Clara is also pleased at my evident enjoyment.

   Jewish women tend toward overweight but not gross. Clara and Mrs. Lifshutz are well padded. The Jewish homemaker does not sit during dinner but goes back and forth between cooking and is constantly sampling her cooking.

   The main food is braised roast beef cooked in pot with chicken fat. It is juicy red at its cut midsection. Jefferson slices the roast beef, and he puts two on each plate plus baked potato, string beans and cooked carrots; then he ladles the brown gravy over them. Also served are side dishes of potato pancakes they call latkes in cinnamon-spiced apple sauce. As a Japanese I am not used to so much food but this being the crème de la crème of Jewish cooking, my empty stomach finds space.   
   Dessert is strudel (They say "Shtruhdel"), a spicy apple roll and we take it with lemon tea.

   My little Ali eats like tomorrow will start biblical Joseph’s seven lean years, as Clara and Mrs. Lifshutz look on approvingly. They are not believers in dieting; young women in their view need fat. The lunch takes an hour and leaves me sluggish. Ali offers to clean and wash dishes but Clara says No, and Jefferson takes over the kitchen work as Clara sits to eat. I must say that Clara and Jefferson mesh like smoothly greased lightnings.

   At end, Clara suggests we rest upstairs.
To read next, click 2.(73-74) The Moment/That Look

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