L'Shana Tova!
Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) began September 22 this year and lasted two days. For the first night, Matt and I invited about 18 of our friends over to our house for dinner. We wanted to make it a special night since it was both a holiday and Shabbat, so I worked for a week and half preparing for it. :)
There were two difficult parts about planning a dinner for twenty in our Jerusalem apartment. The first was how on earth to seat twenty people when we only have a table that sits six. The second was where to buy all the little extras that transform a regular dinner into a party.
Unlike the usual me, I decided that in some way we could seat all twenty and thus invited them before I had figured it out logistically. Luckily for me, on Monday before the dinner I figured out the seating arrangements. I could seat ten people on the couches and chairs by transforming my coffee table and ottoman in to a makeshift "table." I could fit another ten around an elongated table if I could find a card-table to extend my current table.
The only problem with the card-table idea was that it was already Monday and I yet to see a card-table in Israel. I was super-duper lucky in the fact that I happened to go shopping for said card-table with two friends, one of whom actually had a very nice folding table at home that he said I could borrow! What luck!
Then we needed eleven extra chairs. Instead of buying any, we borrowed chairs from three friends. The only down-side to that is that we don't have a car here so we spent all Thursday night walking all eleven chairs to our house (we had to return them all the same way).
Then I wanted to make fun signs. Unlike in the States, I haven't seen any huge stores such as Michael's that are one-stop-shopping stores of craft supplies. I did find a small stationary store not too far away and really lucked out because they had yellow poster paper among their only five colors of paper. I found Crayola colored markers at an office supply store in the mall. Balloons I also found at the mall in a small fun store that has greeting cards and strange knick-knacks.
I also wanted the tables to look festive so I wanted to create centerpieces and/or favors. Again, Michael's is my favorite store to get ideas for such things and so I had no place to begin for inspiration. After shopping at every store in the city (ok, it just felt like it :), I decided to go with mugs filled with candy. The mugs and candy were easy to find at the shuk (had to make sure to get parve candy though because we were serving a meat meal). However, where to buy cellophane?
Once again I became the luckiest girl on the planet because my friend Jean and I found a little "dollar" type store which had some cool stuff and some junk. Jean noticed a bin of yellow and red colored cellophane; what a find!
After getting all the decorations taken care of, I had to decide on a meal plan and start cooking. Since our oven is small and has only one rack, I started cooking at 6 a.m. and had something in the oven the entire day, with about a max of 5 minutes between items being cooked.
I ended up making honey-mustard chicken, stuffed bell peppers, yerushalami kugel, spicy potatoes, apple-kugel muffins, layered salad, honeyed carrots, and green beans with shallots. Plus, of course, we had apples and challot for dipping in honey. For dessert I made a sunken-apple tort and got some scrumptious chocolate cake from Marzipan (the best bakery ever!).
Matt asked our friend Matt to teach us all a new song, our friend Steve to give a drash, and Eve to say Kiddush (the blessing over wine/grape juice). We noshed, learned, and sang all night. Personally, I had a fabulous time!
Since it was Shabbat and a holiday, I couldn't take pictures when people were actually here, but here are some photos of it all set up.
"L'Shana Tova!" (Happy New Year!)
Our regular table plus borrowed folding table combined with favors in center.
Comfy seating around makeshift table.
All the food prepared and sitting on hot plates ready for everyone to come back from services to devour it.
Favors of mugs with parve candy encased in the precious and hard-to-find cellophane.
There were two difficult parts about planning a dinner for twenty in our Jerusalem apartment. The first was how on earth to seat twenty people when we only have a table that sits six. The second was where to buy all the little extras that transform a regular dinner into a party.
Unlike the usual me, I decided that in some way we could seat all twenty and thus invited them before I had figured it out logistically. Luckily for me, on Monday before the dinner I figured out the seating arrangements. I could seat ten people on the couches and chairs by transforming my coffee table and ottoman in to a makeshift "table." I could fit another ten around an elongated table if I could find a card-table to extend my current table.
The only problem with the card-table idea was that it was already Monday and I yet to see a card-table in Israel. I was super-duper lucky in the fact that I happened to go shopping for said card-table with two friends, one of whom actually had a very nice folding table at home that he said I could borrow! What luck!
Then we needed eleven extra chairs. Instead of buying any, we borrowed chairs from three friends. The only down-side to that is that we don't have a car here so we spent all Thursday night walking all eleven chairs to our house (we had to return them all the same way).
Then I wanted to make fun signs. Unlike in the States, I haven't seen any huge stores such as Michael's that are one-stop-shopping stores of craft supplies. I did find a small stationary store not too far away and really lucked out because they had yellow poster paper among their only five colors of paper. I found Crayola colored markers at an office supply store in the mall. Balloons I also found at the mall in a small fun store that has greeting cards and strange knick-knacks.
I also wanted the tables to look festive so I wanted to create centerpieces and/or favors. Again, Michael's is my favorite store to get ideas for such things and so I had no place to begin for inspiration. After shopping at every store in the city (ok, it just felt like it :), I decided to go with mugs filled with candy. The mugs and candy were easy to find at the shuk (had to make sure to get parve candy though because we were serving a meat meal). However, where to buy cellophane?
Once again I became the luckiest girl on the planet because my friend Jean and I found a little "dollar" type store which had some cool stuff and some junk. Jean noticed a bin of yellow and red colored cellophane; what a find!
After getting all the decorations taken care of, I had to decide on a meal plan and start cooking. Since our oven is small and has only one rack, I started cooking at 6 a.m. and had something in the oven the entire day, with about a max of 5 minutes between items being cooked.
I ended up making honey-mustard chicken, stuffed bell peppers, yerushalami kugel, spicy potatoes, apple-kugel muffins, layered salad, honeyed carrots, and green beans with shallots. Plus, of course, we had apples and challot for dipping in honey. For dessert I made a sunken-apple tort and got some scrumptious chocolate cake from Marzipan (the best bakery ever!).
Matt asked our friend Matt to teach us all a new song, our friend Steve to give a drash, and Eve to say Kiddush (the blessing over wine/grape juice). We noshed, learned, and sang all night. Personally, I had a fabulous time!
Since it was Shabbat and a holiday, I couldn't take pictures when people were actually here, but here are some photos of it all set up.
"L'Shana Tova!" (Happy New Year!)
Our regular table plus borrowed folding table combined with favors in center.
Comfy seating around makeshift table.
All the food prepared and sitting on hot plates ready for everyone to come back from services to devour it.
Favors of mugs with parve candy encased in the precious and hard-to-find cellophane.
posted by Jen | 9:10 AM
1 Comments:
The dinner was yummy yummy in my tummy!! You guys are great, and I love you! Also, you forgot the best part of the whole night... walking the chairs over to my house and sitting in the middle of the road... doesnt' everyone always carry a chair with them?!?!?!
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