Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Tomorrow night is the start of a Jewish festival, shavuot. Pronounced Sha-voo-ott. There's a custom to stay up all night learning, like you're at Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments. It's generally like having a very long after dinner conversation with some intelligent people; I'm going to stay with D&C (not a couple, they share a flat).

One of the major customs is to eat milky food, to celebrate receiving the commandments, which include not having meat and milk food together. I make a fabulous cheesecake, which is the secret family recipe of my mother's now estranged next door-neighbour's now deceased mother-in-law. I know, you have too much information already. Imagine someone calling you every day with stories that contain that level of detail.

A couple of years ago when I was working at a top tier, terribly English headhunting firm, the day after Shavuot I took my cheesecake into work, and not wanting to email people the whole story, just said "It's the Jewish cheesecake eating festival, I've made a cake, and left it in the second floor kitchen." I did not write "enjoy!" at the end of the email.

Later, I got email from one of the secretaries: "Dear Sasha, the cheesecake was delicious. I hope you won the cheesecake eating Festival."

And they say we live in a multicultural world.

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