A Simple Sunday

I'm not sure that anyone really cares, but I had a good day yesterday. I like to think it was a very "Denver" kind of day, and that makes me happy. In pictures, I give you, A Simple Sunday.

I started the day by sleeping until noon, because I've been ill with some kind of stomach ailment. Luckily, I woke up feeling a whole lot better and went on my way. First stop? The Denver Bicycle Cafe for Yelp Office Hours.

I told the bartendress that I wanted whatever she recommended.
So she suggested a delicious cup from Huckleberry Roasters.
This was probably the most delicious cup of coffee I've ever had. I drank it black! 

Yes, bike bells that advertise Yelp awesomeness. <3

Some of the Yelpers. I can't get over the vibrancy of that wall.

After sitting around the cafe for a while, a few of the Yelpers and I headed over to the Vegan Market, which unfortunately had slim pickens because we showed up too late. So I headed next door to the most awesome shop ever, Tellulah Jones, where I anticipated finding a cute gift to add to the growing package for my nephews' birthday.

Sophie! I spotted her, but didn't buy her. 

I went grocery shopping for dinner ingredients next, which was fun simply because I was busy listening to my favorite podcasts -- Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

Home with goods in hand, I got to cooking. The food? Snobby Joes (from Veganomicon) and Herbed Quinoa.

Everything prepped! Ready to go. 

I hated Sloppy Joes growing up. But this? This is amazing.

I wish I had taken a photo of us eating this because, well, it was unbelievable. The most delicious thing I've had in a long, long time. After we noshed, Taylor and I headed out to Scruffy Murphy's to meet up with a few of his film friends and to partake in some on-the-house beers.

I caught him blinking. D'oh.

It was dead, because it was Sunday, but we didn't mind. Good drinks with good friends. And then? Home, to bed, to sleep.

Happy Monday!

The Lucky Winner of Javaz Is ...

I am proud to announce that the winner of my Kosher.com/Javaz confections giveaway for a week's supply of Javaz confections is ....

MARK!

Mazal tov, Mark. I'll send your information on to the kind folks at Kosher.com, and your week's supply will be on its way to keep your buzz going during Shavuot! Enjoy!

Mad props to Random Line Picker for picking a random winner among the several entrants. More of you should have entered ... shame on you!

Mmm ... Coffee Sweets Giveaway!

Shavuot is coming up, and that means I need to prepare myself for all night study; after all, I'm giving a late-night (or early morning) shiur on "Rachav the Harlot: The Rabbis' Convert." Usually this means lots of coffee, not too much dairy, and plenty of sleep the day before. Traditionally, Jews the world over stay up all night on Shavuot, studying anything and everything involving Torah, and this means crafty ways of staying awake until morning davening. The interesting thing is that I remember reading -- somewhere, at some point -- that the Rabbis discuss, in the Midrashic Literature, the consumption of coffee in order to study into the late hours of the evening. In many cases, studying at night -- especially in the Middle Ages -- was the safest thing to do. Coffee, then, is in our bloods!

So here I am, partnered with the outstanding folks over at the world's largest online Kosher superstore, Kosher.com, to host a giveaway here on the blog for a special choco-coffee confectionary. Kosher.com, you see, recently became the newest East Coast reseller of Javaz's Dark and Milk Chocolate confectionaries. The most fascinating thing about this company? They select and roast coffee expressly for confectionary purposes! Oh, and it's kosher, which is always a plus!

So here's the deal: This giveaway is open for the next week (that is, I'll be drawing a winner at midnight on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 11:59 p.m.). What do you need to do?

1. Follow @kvetchingeditor AND @kosherdotcom on Twitter. 
2. Answer ONE of the following questions WITH a link to the product on the Kosher.com site. POST YOUR COMMENT HERE ON THE BLOG!
1. How do you take your coffee? 
2. What do you like to eat with your coffee?

Next Tuesday, I'll choose a winner at random, and that winner will receive a WEEK's SUPPLY of Javaz confectionary! Yes, that's right, a week's supply. That means one week where you can skip the Starbucks line, or better yet, save it all up for all-night Torah study! You can get a hefty dose of chocolate and a coffee buzz at the same time. That, to me, is besheirt! (That is, meant to be!)

Information about Javaz's chocolates: "The Dark is perfect for an afternoon pick-me-up or whenever you want to treat yourself. These artisan confections feature fair-trade organic Arabica coffee beans covered in exquisitely rich and luscious dark chocolate. The Milk, meanwhile, features fair-trade organic Arabica coffee beans smothered in melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate!" (Also: They're Kof-K Dairy.)

NOTE: Only open to U.S. residents. Sorry Canadians and Israelis! But if you DO win, you can always choose to have it shipped as a gift to someone in the U.S.!

Circumcised Comedian, Kosher Burgers, & Cafe!

After a tip from Aliza Hausman last month or a few months ago on her blog, I decided to buy tickets for today (also known as Valentine's Day in the secular world) for Tuvia and I to see the illustrious Yisrael Campbell in "Circumcise Me" at the Bleecker Street Theatre in New York City. We were down in Jersey for Shabbos in order to meet with our caterer and scope benschers and a ketubah earlier today, and we also happened to stop by Burgers Bar in Teaneck, which just opened recently. Talk about a busy, busy day. I'm finally back in my dorm and feeling a little overwhelmed about all I have to do, but there's always time for a little good press for others!

First for the show. Talk about a gut-buster! I'm a hard sell on a lot of comedy, but I was hopeful because comedy with a Jewish twist is always good. Add to this the fact that he's a convert and I was in. The room was packed, and the group varied from frum Jews in sheitels to little old ladies decked out like Sarah Jessica Parker might look in her 90s. The flow of the show was great, and I think I only checked my watch a few times -- I am, infamously, impatient. Yisrael Campbell's life story is, in a word, unique. He's seen a lot, been circumcised three times over his life (that's at birth and for his Conservative and Orthodox conversions), and watched friends die while living in Israel and experiencing the harder, more violent times there. He's also a father, a husband, and a hilarious comedian. How he juggles his show here while his family is in Israel amazes me, but I have no doubt that he has to be a great husband and father. Campbell also is a recovering alcoholic, which added an interesting and sobering (no pun intended) twist to his comedic narrative. The ups and downs of his life -- which I won't spoil for you here -- kept the audience captivated; there was laughing, some near-tears, and a feeling of peace and excitement for the comedian rocking a one-man show on the small black-box theatre-style stage. And for me, being a convert myself, it was especially surreal to hear him talk about meeting with rabbis and what it meant to convert and dip in the mikvah. I'll be honest in saying that his story was more than a typical conversion story -- it wasn't as emotional as I expected it to be. But overall? A great show, and I encourage you all to go see it. There are only a FEW showings left! If you can't make a show, seek out some of Campbell's work online. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Next? Tuvia and I found our ketubah. I'm so stoked about it -- it's very different, very artsy, and it integrates one of my favorite themes within Jewish art! Stay tuned for the wedding (a little more than 100 days left)!

Then, Burgers Bar. I happened to win a "Tweet for Meat" free burger coupon on Twitter from @BurgersBar, so we decided to head to the recently opened Teaneck joint. There are a few others open in the U.S., but the chain is known mostly in Israel, especially for its location just up the stairs from the Kotel in Jerusalem (where Tuvia and I happened to eat in December!). I'll admit, it was no Jerusalem experience. We stopped in at around 2 in the afternoon, so the joint was not jumping. We were probably one of three or four tables of people, so service was fast and very friendly. My biggest beef (once again, no pun intended!) with Burgers Bar in Teaneck was the quality of the veggies they had for the burgers. They had no problem throwing a bunch of brown, obviously bad lettuce on my burger. It was really disappointing, to say the least. I ordered a spicy burger and regular fries, and the fries weren't quite as crisp as I was looking for and the burger wasn't quite as spicy as I remembered my burger in Israel. The quantity of food was on par with the price, and it definitely made filled me up. Overall, it was probably a 2.5 out of 5 star experience. The restaurant just opened, so I'll give them some time. If you're heading over, don't look for a "BURGERS BAR" sign -- it still says Discount Liquidation! The ambiance will surprise you, as it's very clean, very crisp, and very hip. They're open amazingly late (2 a.m. most days and 3 a.m. on Saturdays) for the late-night crowd, but I've heard they can get quite busy, so plan accordingly. And, don't be like me -- let them know if the veggies are less than stellar. (Location: 1383 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ)

We topped our day off with some coffee before hitting the road, and I can't help but show off the fancy footwork of the folks at Think Coffee, just around the block from the theater where we saw "Circumcise Me."

And that, folks, was one busy and thrilling day, despite a hacking cough, stuffed up nose, and achy body. Now? Now I rest myself and rock some Hebrew. L'hitraot!

I'll Take the Tanker of Coffee Now, Please

I give you, the tanker truck of coffee, spotted on I-84 near Hartford.

I must apologize to my readers, friends, lurkers, and other blogging types for my lack of presence over the past week, especially when it comes to reading your blogs and responding with appropriately Chaviva-esque comments. What have I been up to? A lot. A whole lot.

Aside from my regular coursework -- which includes (for one class) reading a book or so a week plus various primary sources, in addition to (for a second class) lots of reading and more reading and some more reading of yummy things about the Samaritans and the Ptolemies, and, of course, Hebrew work and general office work of book inventorying -- I've been thrown the setup for our graduate exam, which is in and of itself wretched. Now, being an academic I'm secretly thrilled about the work and reading; I'm merely in shock and distress about the volume of it. Typically, students will receive the corpus of reading in their first semester, not their fourth. So I'm in "holy crap" mode right now. Pardon the ever-present kvetching.

Superbowl

Additionally, Tuvia and I decided it would be a most outstanding idea to invite over a ton of people for a Super Bowl viewing. Last year we had four or five friends over, and it was quiet and cozy and I really didn't pull out all my Jewish mother stops to feed the masses with thirty different types of chips and dips. This year, however, I went all out. After all, we were inviting over upwards of 20 people and expecting at least 14 to 16 to show up. So what did I do? Well, I made a big batch of pasta and threw it into the crock, I made a spicy veggie chili, I made a giant red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting with my new cake pan, I made a delicious batch of Chocolate Cheerio Marshmallow Bites, and then we bought a bunch of dips, sliced a bunch of cheese, put out gobs of veggies and fruit, and filled bowls full of a half-dozen varying types of chips. Yes, it was a ROYAL spread, fit for a Superbowl King. It just took a long time to put together and perfect -- I am, after all, a perfectionist OCD-aholic. I'll admit, it was loads of fun. Having all of our closest friends over to partake in food and a good game was honestly one of the best things we've done in a long time. I really felt like it gave us a chance to pay back the community, in the best way we know how, for the kindness they've shown us with food, lodging, and friendship. We seriously have the best friends on the planet.

Wedding Dresses

Oh, and then there was the pre-kickoff wedding dress viewing that actually ate up most of the first two quarters. I didn't realize we were upstairs that long, and the game truly was flying by. But this was the wedding dress that I purchased online. Yes, I bought a wedding dress ONLINE. I never saw it in person, I didn't know it's dimensions exactly, I had no idea how it would look or feel beyond the photo of the girl on the website, who, by the way, was about 50 sizes smaller than me. But I had an instinct. It was the first gown I found online when I started looking, and after perusing many other gowns, I was still stuck on this first one. I emailed my two best buddies up in the Great White North, and they agreed it was stunning. So I bought it. Then it came, about three days later (talk about quick shipping -- most wedding gown sites make you wait upwards of 20-40 days for the dress), and I had approximately three additional days to figure out whether it was right. Yes, the online wedding dress business is cut-throat, and they keep their claws in you as long as they can. So the Superbowl Sunday party was perfect as far as timing goes. We all crawled up the stairs, I stripped, and the dress was on and zipped in seconds. The reaction? Completely positive. And then? The "tuck this here!" and "tuck that there!" comments came. I am lucky to say that I am blessed, absolutely blessed, with seamstress-minded lady friends. These women, after expressing their love of the dress, were all ready to point me in the direction of a seamstress/tailor and get the job done -- there was no way I was returning this gown. I expressed my concerns to them -- Tzniut? Length? Fit? The answers were that the tzniut was perfectly modest, the length could be fixed (the dress was MADE to be tailored like a charm), and the fit was perfect for my figure.

So it's decided. I, Chaviva Edwards, purchased a wedding gown online, from a store out West where nary a Jew probably lives, and I am keeping it with utter and absolute pleasure. Yes, I am an online dress purchasing success story! You, too, can buy a wedding dress online and be satisfied!

My only beef? I returned a slip that I bought but definitely don't need (for poof's sake), and it cost me a whopping $30+ to ship back. Is that worth it? Probably not. I'll get back, in the end, about $30 for my troubles. My advice? Don't buy a slip online until you absolutely know that you'll need it.

So I'm pleased. I had a million friends over, fed them successfully, decided on a dress that I absolutely love, finished a bunch of editing that leaves me with only two more weeks of such editing, and I just submitted an application for a fellowship assuming I get into NYU or UMD for further studies. It has been a truly, truly productive three days. Oh! I also cleaned out my inbox. Thank heavens. I was about to lose my mind.

I guess, my point, then, is that everything is doable. It takes time management, sleeping about four hours a night, and a passion to have things just how you want them right when you want them. I'll take my little successes when I can get them. I couldn't ask for anything more. And when all else fails, there's always that tanker truck of coffee!

(For what it's worth, that tanker truck actually said "PILOT" on the side. It was a clever ploy by the popular roadside gas station chain! From a distance, it looks like it just says "COFFEE." Upclose, however, it mentioned something about them having the best roadside coffee. Clever!)

A Stream of Consciousness Post

My coat -- a fluffy, bright pink Lands End piece -- makes me feel like that kid in "A Christmas Story." I walk around, arms stiff, like a penguin, unable to move or rotate my head, but feeling quite warm nonetheless.

I'm not really sure what this revelation has to do with the bigger picture, namely that I'm feeling all out of sorts in a number of ways, but it seemed like a good segue from point A to point B, wherever point A might have been. And suddenly, as I write this, I realize I had no idea how to spell "segue" prior to now (why did I think it was segway?).

I've traded a relatively painless life for a life of uncertainty and difficulty. I went from schluffing around an economics department at one of the country's most prestigious schools, making good money and saving up, but being subjected to emotional and verbal assault on some ocassions, to academia, where I spend every day wondering when my fingers will find their way to the keys so that I might put something down on paper to impress the holy prophets -- that is, the professors. On winter days like this, I'm reminded of sitting for hours on end at the Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska, during my undergraduate years, studying biblical Hebrew and preparing editing marks for the school newspaper (which, it seems, is where most of the excitement I remember about school arose from). I'm also reminded of my time in Washington D.C. when I was working at the Washington Post, when I'd get out of work at midnight and schluff over in the cold to my favorite little coffee shop haunt in Dupont Circle to read the week's parshah and dish out a d'var Torah for the blog. I miss that kind of dedication where I provided the reader of this very blog with something Jewishly substantial as far as the Torah went.

It's something about this time of year makes me want to crawl into coffee shops for days and days, drinking mochas and running into old friends, conversing about tout le monde. Unfortunately, my university is devoid of any coffee shops like what I'm familiar with -- couches, dank corners, intellectuals waxing poetic over a chess board. The coffee shops on campus are all loud and filled with people and aren't really coffee shops at all, they're just places that sell coffee that happen to be inside various campus buildings. The ambiance, which I found so inspiring during my undergrad, just isn't here.

I called my little brother last night, to get peace of mind about how he was coping with the whole dad thing. He managed to brighten me up, like he always does, with his infinite wisdom and interesting outlook on life. When I asked him how he was feeling about things, he aptly responded, in the Edwards way, "There's always something bad happening around here, I'm just used to it." That, folks, is wisdom. 

I've signed up for classes next semester (though the large chunk of graded work for this semester still has yet to be penned), and I'm quite excited about them. I think they'll offer more intellectual stimulation than this semester managed to, though, I think it will be a much more difficult semester. My classes? Of course there will be Hebrew, there will also be a class on Holocaust cinema, but it will be focused on the cinema of the decade at the end and following the Shoah, specifically in Europe and Russia, and I think it'll provide some interesting insight into little-known film. And then, my third class will be Talmudic and Midrashic thought, which is a graduate seminar that should be advanced to the point of forcing me to get really damn good at my Hebrew really damn fast.

To be honest, I'm nervous about writing these two papers. It's sort of going to set the stage for the next three semesters, I think. Will I impress the professors with my Judaic studies prowess and mad writing skills? Will they be wowed with my punctuation and verbage? My choice of words (I'm anti-big words and anti-thesaurus, for what it's worth)? My rhythm and flow? I think, to be sure, that I'm far too worried about what people think of my writing. When I tell people I was a journalism major they always say "Oh, you like writing?" forgetting that there's a whole editing -- not to mention design and photographic -- component to journalism. I was never a writer in the journalistic sense, but I've always been a writer. A poet, anyway. I like to think I have a sense for how something is meant to sound and how the words are supposed to be paired.

But enough about me.

I pose a question for my readers of the academic or religiously curious persuasion: Recently in my Bible course we were discussing the Trinity and Jesus/G-d. Now, I can't seem to get a really straight answer about how Christians reconcile the following things. Assume the following are all accepted as true.

1) G-d is all powerful and cannot suffer

2) Jesus is G-d

3) Jesus is flesh, and thus able to suffer

So how do Christians reconcile the idea that G-d cannot suffer but Jesus does suffer if Jesus is G-d (which he has to be, otherwise it's idolatrous)? I'm asking this seriously, as an academic. It seems to me that all explanations boil down to the following: "We cannot know, for G-d's ways are mysterious to man." And that, unfortunately isn't good enough for me. Sure, there's a lot in Judaism that people throw into the same category, but at least we argue about it!

Anyhow, for this week's parshah, Chayei Sarah, check out G-dcast.com , and have a good Shabbos!

Coffee with Your Torah?

While scanning pages I'd noted while attempting (and failing) to read Constatine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, I came across an interesting passage that I just felt like sharing because it makes me smile. For those of you unaware, I started reading this book many moons ago and have renewed it repeatedly. The 175 pages remaining never got read, and I essentially threw up my hands in protest at the behemoth size of the text and its almost unreadability because of the way the book is -- the entire book (text, notes, index, etc.) is nearly 800 pages, all in one big hardcover binding. It's just inconceivable to read unless you're planning on sitting down at a table consistently becuase it's such a clunker. At any rate, enough kvetching. Essentially I had dozens of pages noted with various comments, and wanted to keep those in case I pick it up again, hence the scanning.

In a chapter (37) on the religious response of Jews to the implementation of the Roman ghetto, the author, James Carroll, speaks about the lively religious community within the ghetto walls. Carroll says, "If the Christian world had cut them off, the Jews would turn their separation into a religious value" (387). The passage goes on to talk about what Jews did in order to sort of religiously rebel against the forces keeping them down, and it is the following that gives me a grin:

If Jews were forbidden to leave the ghetto at night, then night would become not only the time for study and prayer, but an image of G-d's own darkness. (Jews in the ghetto, in the seventeenth century, drank newly imported coffee as a way of staying awake.). 

The item in parens is footnoted to a text by Kenneth R. Stow, "Sanctity and the Construction of Space: The Roman Ghetto as Sacred Space," in which, in reference to coffee, he says, "First, one stimulated his body with this miraculous new beverage, and then he stimulated his soul by ritual devotion."

Isn't that outstanding? Maybe I'm easily amused, or maybe I'm just an academic, but it's morsels like this that fascinate me.

(Of course, it's completely unrelated, but two pages later the author mentions Shabbetai Zvi and the Baal Shem Tov essentially in the same breath, which is valid discussion for an entirely different blog post. Needless to say, I had a written note with this aformentioned paragraph that read: "places Shabbetai Zvi in same breath as Baal Shem Tov -- implying falseness??")