Relative Bearing Gifts of Food

So I have this relative... let's keep her anonymous. This person is in the midst of many changes this year and is also in the process of reconfiguring the home she's lived in for many years.

What this seems to means to us is the arrival of GIFTS. Graciously-offered food gifts of seriously questionable age, provenance and quality which this person determines that she can no longer use - but that she's sure we will snatch up gratefully.

Like the big jar of brown rice that a quick sniff confirmed was rancid.

The two bags of last-year-expired popcorn.

And when I went to use the breadcrumbs, well, those are rancid also.

Am I the only one who can - even with this never-ending cold - smell the sharp off-notes of aged oil?

It is getting to the point when I want to run the other way when I see this person approaching with a plastic bag of goodies.

She gets very offended if we say no. I turned down some perfectly good powdered coconut a couple of weeks ago. Ironically, the following week I wanted coconut for something - and didn't have any! (I have since discovered a freezer full of it)

I'm sure she pictures us starving in the streets for want of a bag of bran.

Is this part of a worrisome trend towards battiness? Or simply a misguided attempt to bless our home with spare food she can no longer use?

We shall see. Maybe a bit of both.

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful. Three pages are included: one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad. She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel. She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.” I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community. Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos. Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach . Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog