I like all the Jewish holidays but I especially like Chanukah because it reminds me of kick ass Jewish warriors, and is an excellent reminder that Jews always need brave fighters and lots and lots of powerful weapons.
Go Maccabees!
The other good thing about it is, of course, the 'light over darkness' theme but that can get a little schmaltzy, almost as schmaltzy as the foods we eat to celebrate.
To commemorate the miracle of the oil in the Temple lasting eight whole days, we eat oily foods. Greasy oily foods like LATKES and OMG are they good.
Here's my cousin Amy's recipe, she's a well-known foodie, and cook book author.
Also decadent and incredible are Israeli "sufganiyot" which are jelly donuts and have about 8 Gazillion Trillion Bazillion calories in them. I saw this picture on Facebook and I had to steal it...
The fight about sugar/apple sauce or sour cream on latkes is almost as heated as the poppy versus sesame seed bagels and pepper versus sweet gefilte fish, and Toronto versus Montreal bagels (Toronto wins, Montreal bagels ARE CAKE).
(And, if you missed the Jewish holiday primer it's always: they attacked us, we fought back, we won, let's eat...)
So, thank you for the holiday greeting sent to me thus far and here are a bunch of Chanukah links to consider.
Chag Sameach!
