Dinner for Eight

Years ago Mark bought a kosher cookbook called Dinner for Eight. All the recipes serve eight, and at the back there are full menus for dinner parties, including Jewish holidays. That's what he made for Wednesday night's Succoth dinner: Cincinnati chili over pasta (five way includes chopped onion, shredded pareve cheese, kidney beans, and crackers as toppings), broccoli soup, salad, honey cake, mini cupcakes, fresh honeydew melon and other fruits. Somehow this dinner for eight served eleven!! Mark and I just finished the chili (no pasta or beans left) and the salad for dinner tonight. Those are very generous portions in that book. We ate the same meal four nights in a row and did not mind at all. Yummy!

Going to services three days in a row is always tough, but we made it. Mark read Haftarah today and did a great job. We also thought we would have no other guests in our succah, but today a young couple that we had invited who originally declined for work reasons changed their minds. She isn't working as late on Sunday as she usually does, so they are coming tomorrow night. It will be fun to have them join us for the final night of our succah. Mark has to take it down Monday morning in preparation for our trip to Maryland. We leave Tuesday morning.

My weight is steadily climbing. All those chili on pasta dinners and way too much delicious raisin challah, coupled with absolutely no exercise, is not conducive to losing weight. LOL!!

One other thing that we've noticed down here is that no bees have bothered us in the shul succah or our own. I always remember lots of yellow jackets in Maryland buzzing around our food in the succah. I can't say the same for the mosquitos. Despite spraying Yard Guard out there every night before dinner, I came back in tonight with about 8 new bites on my legs. Not fun. These mosquitoes bite right through my clothes. Nasty little bugs!

I finished reading The Help today. It was excellent, and now I'd like to see the movie again. I'm sure it will come to the Solivita Thursday night movie sooner or later. I hope we are in town when it does.

Finally, tomorrow Mark and I are going to audition for the synagogue talent show in December. This is the one where potential performers had to PAY to audition. What a concept! Why did Mishkan Torah never think of that?? LOL!! I hope we don't get too nervous and do a good job. Last we heard there are only 6 people who signed up for the auditions, and Mark and I are two of them. Maybe the whole thing will fall apart. Also our new rebbitzin spoke to me today about choirs. Hm....I should have just walked away, but NOOOOO, I stood there and had a conversation about a small choir for Rosh Hashana next year. What was I thinking??