Shabbos

I had six friends over for dinner on Friday night.

I made a kugel and a challah. One of my friends brought a beet-and-carrot salad. Then we teamed up to make quinoa sir fry.

It was a cultural experience for every one.

First, no one else had ever had kugel before.

Only one of them had challah (and obviously, it was not my mom’s recipe, so they haven’t really had challah before).

And two Ecuadorians at the table had only had quinoa in creamy soup form.

The work-week was over. And this was an opportunity to spend quality time with friends. There are no other worries. There is nowhere else to be. Just the good food, friends, and conversation.

And it was exactly what I needed.

Technically, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, we do not get weekends off. So to have a Friday night dinner where I don’t worry about anything (except whether I put enough sugar in the kugel) is perfect

The Shabbat dinner prep here is a bit different than what I am used to.

Now, because I needed to cook two behemoth challahs and two kugels and don’t have an oven in my house don’t have an oven in my house. I ended up going to the local bakery and using their oven. But I don’t think their temperature gauge was too accurate because the challah was a little overdone, and the kugel a bit dry.



The good thing was that they ate all of the kugel and most of the challah and said it was delicious. This just left me thinking “you just wait until next time.”

Then, there was the question of where to put everybody. I only have one small table and two chairs in my house. I went to the ceviche restaurant across the street and borrowed two big tables and seven chairs.

Then there was the question of how we would eat. I only have four plates, spoons, knives, cups, and forks (I didn’t have any forks until Thursday when I big the bullet and bought them). And this includes serving utensils. So I borrowed that as well.

It all came together. We lit the candles (My friend didn’t know any better and blew them out), did Kiddush, and enjoyed the challah.

Just a great Shabbat dinner. I can’t wait until the next one.