Yom Kippur

Friday night meant the start of Yom Kippur, the most depressing holiday in the Jewish faith. The word 'holiday' has come to mean something fun and filled with lots of fattening food, while Yom Kippur hearkens back to the original meaning of the word which is, as it sounds, 'a holy day'.

Yom Kippur is the day in the Jewish faith where you repent for all of your sins. In doing so, you fast from sundown to sundown, around 25 hours. No food, no water. For a full day. I'm not actually Jewish, but Dave is, and as I would feel bad eating in front of my fiance while he fasts, I fast too. And it sucks. That's probably why it is the only holiday I've written about so far, and I've done so twice.

Breaking fast, on the other hand, is a lot of fun.

This year we got together with a couple friends (some Jewish, some not) and had bagels with cream cheese and lox, and I made a noodle kugel. My thanks to a former library colleague for the recipe.

Amazing Noodle Kugel

1 lb medium egg noodles (16 oz)

1 stick butter

6 eggs (1 ½ C eggbeaters)

1 t vanilla

½ C sugar

½ pt sour cream (1 C)

½ pt cottage cheese (1 C)

¼ C milk

2 T lemon juice

½ C sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350º. Boil noodles (8-10 minutes, or until soft), drain and mix with butter, 3 eggs (3/4 C eggbeaters), vanilla, ½ C sugar. Pour into 9x13 pan.

Mix remaining eggs or eggbeaters, sour cream, cottage cheese, milk, lemon juice and remaining sugar, pour over noodles.

Top with cinnamon, bake for 1 hour.

Yom Kippur

Now, I'm not in the least Jewish, but my boyfriend is half (the half that doesn't count, but he follows some of the rules anyway), so I thought I'd give fasting for Yom Kippur a try. Honestly, I've gone 24 hours without food before, so that isn't the hard part. The difficult thing is not drinking anything.

I had a major retard moment last night: I was at the library - my home away from home - and passed the drinking fountain and habitually went to get a drink of water. It wasn't until I had a mouthful that I remembered, and felt like a fool. I contemplated briefly just swallowing it (yea, I know how that sounded, get over it) but decided against it out of shame. So, unknowing of my audience, I spit the water back into the bowl and turned to leave. Behind me was a very confused looking guy who asked if something was wrong with the water. I said no, that I was just a bad Jew who couldn't remember to fast. I thought he was going to wet himself laughing, so I figured my momentary lapse was OK, as long as I was still able to make people laugh.

In conclusion, here I sit, starving and thirsty, while my Jew boyfriend snores in my bed attempting to sleep away his hunger. Silly Jews.