April 1, 2016—PALO ALTO, Ca—The Oshman Family JCC is pleased to announce a major new installation in the Jessica Lynn Saal Town Square: a gefilte fish pond that is slated to become the new centerpiece of campus life.

The pond will be stocked with free-range, cruelty-free organic gefilte fish from the nearby Sacramento River Delta. In time it will become a completely self-sustaining, zero-impact ecosystem, allowing the fish to propagate naturally and drawing its water supply from a 120,000-gallon rainwater collection system to be installed on the roof of the nearby OFJCC Leslie Family Preschool.

Artist’s rendering of the Town Square and pond

“We are eager to bring this expansion of our natural environment right into the middle of our campus where it will attract visitors of every age, from toddling babies to seniors on their way to mahjong,” said OFJCC CEO Zack Bodner.

Bodner predicts that the feature will also appeal to some new avian visitors. “Palo Alto is in the middle of a major migratory bird route, so we are hopefull that the pond will bring to our Town Square a large number of shorebirds who are being displaced as continued development impacts the wetlands along the San Francisco Bay.”

Mature gefilte fish

Once the fish mature beyond their productive egg-laying years, they will be humanely harvested according to Kosher dietary laws and offered for sale on campus by local artisinal chef/fishmonger Nathan Pollack.

Pollack is well-known in the area for his creative use of local, seasonal, on-trend ingredients. He plans to poach the OFJCC gefilte fish in a turmeric-matcha broth before wrapping it in holistically-steamed kale and serving it on a bed of chia seeds and quinoa.

“Free-range gefilte fish like the ones that will be raised here at the OFJCC really do have the best flavor,” says Pollack. “I think patrons will be pleasantly surprised at how much of a difference it makes to be able to eat freshly-caught, locally-raised gefilte fish.”

Construction of the pond has been made possible by the generous donation of longtime OFJCC supporters Eta Goldfisch and Ira Karp.

What’s not to love about hamantaschen? The word conjures up images of buttery goodness wrapped around jam or poppy seeds or occasionally something more exotic like chocolate or nuts. But what happens when you really push the envelope? Here are eleven recipes that are too crazy not to try!

What’s a better filling for cookies than … more cookies? Shannon Sarna at The Nosher combines Jewish form with Dutch flavor in her Speculoos Hamantaschen, which makes use of the traditional Dutch cookie butter that seems to be cropping up everywhere these days.

Lovers of the classic chocolate-and-peanut butter combination, Pragmatic Attic comes to your rescue with a recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Hamantaschen.

Remember the rainbow bagel craze a few months ago?  Melinda Strauss at Kitchen Tested has taken it a step further, inventing Rainbow Hamantaschen.

Chanie Apfelbaum at Busy in Brooklyn takes her favorite Purim dessert all the way to the Ottoman Empire with her Baklava Hamantaschen.

Several cooks have taken inspiration from the fact that Purim coincides so closely with Girl Scout Cookie season this year. Pragmatic Attic combines mint and chocolate into Midnight Mint Hamantaschen redolent of Girl Scout Thin Mints, while Kitchen Tested offers Girl Scout Samoa Hamantaschen.

Gluten-free cooks can get in on the craze, too, with these Bakery-Style Hamantaschen from This Gluten-Free Life.

Take your hamantaschen and … put a stick in it? Miriam Pascal does at Joy of Kosher. She presents a recipe for Hamantaschen Truffle Pops which, if they aren’t baked goods, are at least sweet and do come in the traditional triangular shape. 

And who says hamantaschen are just for dessert? With a few savory bites, hamantaschen could become your whole meal! What Jew Wanna Eat offers up some outside-the-box thinking on the traditional cookie, including two savory treats we’re dying to eat: Savory Caramelized Onion Hamantaschen and Pita and Hummus Hamantaschen, while Melinda Strauss at Kitchen Tested offers up an inspired recipe for Cheddar Biscuit Hamantaschen.

I hope I’ve inspired you to get creative this Purim — and perhaps even invent some crazy hamantaschen of your own!

First of all—let me get this out of the way—I’m not Jewish. That said, I do have a favorite Hanukkah song, Hanukkah Blessings by the Barenaked Ladies. It’s one that I play often this time of year as I’m decking my halls and baking my cookies. I hope my Jewish friends and readers won’t think of this as cultural appropriation but rather as cultural appreciation.

My favorite part goes like this:

How lucky are we that we
have light so we can see
although the day is done.
What a miracle that a spark
lifts these candles out of the dark.
Every evening, one by one…

That’s where the miracle is, at least in part, for me—the ability of long-ago humans to create light where none naturally existed, and the hope that such a thing must have engendered in the dark season. What must it have been like, before humans had a true understanding of astronomy, to see the sun slip further and further away at this time of year, losing light bit by bit each day? What faith did it take to believe the sun would eventually return?

Even in our artificially-lit modern world, we feel it in our bones: the harvest is over and we enter the long darkness shored up with only what we have reserved. For ancient peoples, that meant hoarding enough food to survive until the next fertile season; for us today it means preserving contact with each other through a time when our instinct is to bundle up, close ourselves off and hunker down inside until the light returns.

In days when fuel was precious, burning oil or candles just for the sake of light was a luxury, yet most cultures developed celebrations of light to sustain themselves through the winter and reassure themselves that the sun would return. Though we call them by different names—Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Solstice—what they carry in common is a calling together of community to spark hope, reinforce love and cultivate joy in the darkest of times.

This year’s dark season feels deeper than most. When the news is filled with reports of terrorism, intolerance and mistrust, we need the light more than ever. We need the light of understanding, peace and kindness to sustain us through these times. We need faith that the sun will soon lengthen our days again and also that humankind will find and share a greater love for each other.

As I view the lighting of the hanukiah tonight at the OFJCC, I will appreciate once again this holiday that calls us together to perform the ritual of creating light in community with others. I will carry that remembrance home when I turn on the lights strung around my Christmas tree, grateful for the faces that I see and the traditions that call us together and warm our hearts at this time of year. This is my personal talisman against dark times, dark thoughts and dark beliefs: faith in the goodness of humanity and our ability to repair and heal.

I wish you peace in this and all seasons.

It seems everyone has earbuds on around the OFJCC, tuning in to their private audio track—especially in the Fitness Center. So we asked a few members what they are currently listening to:

“The Cure is coming to Shoreline Amphitheatre in May and it’s gotten me back into them again.”   —Jill

“I’m listening to a lot of NPR these days, in particular Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me and Car Talk. ”   —Sam

“I’ve been listening to a podcast called Creative Mornings— interviews with creative people about what they’re working on. It’s very inspiring.”   —Mimi

“I’m into a band called The Heavy right now—a really amazing rock band from the U.K. You would recognize their song ‘How Do You Like Me Now’ from some tv commercials. I’ve also been listening to Black Map, a local band from San Francisco. They’re great, but haven’t made it big yet. You can still see them live for $10.”   —Ed

“A lot of EDM (electronic dance music) and a podcast called The Message, which is a fictional story about deciphering code.”   —Jared

“A lot of West Coast alternative bands including the Bay Area’s own I The Mighty.”   —Scott

What’s on your playlist?

There is something intrinsically appealing to women about men in the kitchen—whether it brings to mind images of well-trained chefs creating culinary masterpieces or just a night off from routine for a tired wife or mom. So I suppose it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that there is such a thing as National Men Make Dinner Day (November 5). I’m guessing there are some women at whatever agency decides such things, and apparently they want their men to cook more often.

Men making dinner is fairly commonplace in our house; with a husband and two teenage sons around, men make dinner whenever I’m travelling, taking a class or late home from work. And if you count barbecue (which frankly, I do), my husband cooks the meat for our dinner most nights in the summer. Even if most of their go-to meals revolve around ground meat, these guys are pretty capable cooks. So I asked what advice they had for men who might be less comfortable in the kitchen.

“Tacos,” answered my 13-year-old. “All you have to do is brown some ground meat like it says on the box [of taco shells]. You can use beef or turkey; both taste good but turkey is supposed to be healthier.” He also pointed out that once you’ve got your meat browned and seasoned, it’s easy for everyone to customize their shells and fillings—he recommends offering hard and soft shells and a variety of chopped vegetables, salsas and sauces on the table for everyone to top their own tacos.

Our older son is a tried-and-true pasta man. “Every guy should know how to boil pasta, even me. I like sauce from a jar, but the meatballs have to be homemade.”

His recipe for meatballs is simple and fairly quick:

• 1  1/2 -2 lbs. ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• Italian spices to taste

Put the ground beef in a bowl. Add one egg, a handful of breadcrumbs, and a couple of good shakes from each of the Italian-type spices in the spice rack. I use basil, garlic, parsley, salt and red pepper. Squish everything through your fingers a bit to mix (but not too much or they’ll be tough). Then form them into balls—not too big—and put them on a large baking pan. Bake them for 25 minutes at 350°.

My husband, on the other hand, is a big fan of grilling, and believes it’s all about the watch:

My wife is the better cook overall, but like many men, I’ve always handled the grilling. I have fond memories of my father teaching me around a classic Weber charcoal kettle. Grilled hamburgers were a family favorite then, and they still are today. Grilling at our house wasn’t a matter of a lot of fancy gadgets. Dad taught me that there was only one really critical tool: a watch.

Today I have a gas grill, and the things my wife asks me to put on it are more varied—still including burgers and other meats, of course, but also potatoes, eggplants, avocados, and other vegetables—but my watch is still my most important tool. Before anything hits the grill, I always go back in my head to my first lessons, and my basic metric is the hamburger. In my head: “Mom’s hamburgers cooked five minutes per side to get to medium-rare. This chicken breast is thicker (mentally shifting up to seven minutes per side), and it can’t be left medium-rare (up again, to nine), but chicken cooks faster than beef (ratcheting back to eight).”

Having decided on a time, the only hard part is committing to it. Leave it alone, and let the fire do its job. Put it on, close the lid, wait two minutes. Open, flip, baste, close, wait eight minutes. Open, flip, baste, close, wait six minutes. Done. The only adjustments are if the fire is running hotter or cooler than I wanted it, but for the most part, heat + time + resist the urge to mess with it is the simple formula that’s put delicious food on our plates ever since I was a kid.

Including hamburgers. Thanks, Dad.

In the mood to give it a shot? We have delicious recipes on our Pinterest page. Simple or complex, I’d love to hear how it goes in the comments.

We asked members of the OFJCC community to share their favorite water-saving tips:

“Instead of using the towels at the JCC after my water exercise class, I bring one from home, then hang it up to dry. I can use the same towel for several classes in a row, cutting down on the washing!”     –Gayle

“Turning off the water when soaping my hands. You’d be surprised how much water it wastes when you leave it on.”     –Jeremy

“Nebia showerheads use 70% less water compared to a normal showerhead by aerating the water. It’s a new product, funded through Kickstarter–I just got my email to pre-order one.”     –Jamie

“No water waste at our house. Cooking water is great for your garden and half-empty water and seltzer bottles all end up watering my indoor and outdoor plants.”      –Mimi

“I do an almost waterless leg shave using olive oil and just a small cup of water. You can use any natural oil, just let it soak in well before you start shaving, and swish the razor in a small cup of water to rinse. As a bonus, my legs are super soft from the oil!”     –Elaine

“We wash our clothes on the ‘light wash’ setting, which uses less water.”     –Robin

“I’ve taught the kids not to pour the leftover down the drain if they don’t finish a cup of water. We put it in the cat’s bowl.”     –Chris

“My car and my dog are both very, very dirty. They’re running just fine in spite of it.”     –Amy

Get more great tips from the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

How do you use less?

Temperatures may be falling and weather worsening elsewhere, but here in the Bay Area, autumn is characterized by clear days, mild temperatures, and some of the best weather of the year. That makes it the perfect time for outdoor festivals, and there are no shortage of them from which to choose.

Here are a few of our favorites, celebrating autumn in some traditional and decidedly non-traditional ways:

The Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt invite you to “Get lit for a good cause” at their Autumn Lights Festival.  More than 100 local artists’ illuminated art installations have been installed throughout the gardens. The evening’s lights will be accompanied by musicians, fire and light dancers.

Friday and Saturday, October 16-17 | 6:00-11:00 PM | Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA | $10-20

The 2015 Grand National Rodeo comes to town for two weekends of bronc’ bustin’, steer ropin’ and bull ridin’ fun. To help you get your fill of yee-haw, the event also features the Grand National Horse Show and the Junior and Open Livestock Shows.

Fridays and Saturdays, October 16-17 and 23-24 | 7:30 AM-7:30 PM | The Cow Palace, Daly City, CA | $14-44

Lords and ladies, jousters and jesters, merchants and merrymakers convene annually on the Northern California Renaissance Faire. Fairegoers might meet Queen Elizabeth I, watch a fire-eater, learn a courtly dance, sip mead and more. Huzzah!

Saturday and Sunday October 17-18 | 10:00 AM-6:00 PM | Casa de Fruta, Hollister, CA | $25

The greatest gourd of them all will be crowned at the 45th annual Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival, featuring the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Once you’ve gawked at the prizewinning giant, you can enjoy food, brews, an impressive lineup of local bands and even a pumpkin parade.

Saturday and Sunday, October 17-18 | 9:00 AM-5:00 PM | Half Moon Bay, CA | Free

The Tolay Fall Festival offers two weeks of old-time, nature-based fun each October at Tolay Lake Regional Park. This seasonal celebration  connects visitors with the beauty and history of the park through hands-on educational activities and displays.

Saturdays and Sundays, October 17-18 and 24-25 | Tolay Park, Petaluma, CA | 11:00 AM-5:00 PM | $3-5 

The educational farm Slide Ranch, located right on the stunning, rocky coast of Highway 1, opens up to the public every fall for its annual Harvest Celebration. Churn butter, spin wool, make a scarecrow, meet farm animals and listen to music against one of the area’s most beautiful ocean backdrops.

Saturday, Oct. 17 | 10:00 AM-4:00 PM | 2025 Shoreline Hwy, Muir Beach, Ca | $30

If you can’t wait until next May to get your next dose of Maker mania, you’re in luck! The East Bay Mini Maker Faire is bringing the clever, the quirky, the unusual and the self-made to Oakland this month.

October 18 | 10:00 AM-5:00 PM | Park Day School, 360 42nd & Opal Streets,  Oakland, CA | $13-20

You can celebrate the intersection of food and Jewish life right here at the OFJCC when Hazon celebrates local, sustainable, thoughtfully-sourced food at the Farm to Table Food Fest. Food purveyors, producers and devourers will gather for a day of tasting, learning and “hands-on doing” that culminates with a demonstration by Calafia’s famed head chef Charlie Ayers.

Sunday, October 18 | 2:00-5:00 PM | Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto CA | Free

The STEAM Carnival (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) is high-voltage entertainment showcase for all ages, bringing high-tech games, interactive installations, dynamic build zones, stage shows, lab demos, aerialists, artists, food and more to San Francisco’s Pier 48.

Friday-Sunday, November 6-8 | 10:00 AM-6:00 PM | Pier 48, San Francisco, CA | $20-25

Aspiring scientists and engineers are invited to celebrate all things nerdy at the Discovery Day Bay Area Science Festival at AT&T Park. Over 150 exhibits and activities will run the gamut from astronaut training to a robot zoo.

Saturday, November 7 | 10:00 AM-4:00 PM | AT & Park, San Francisco, CA | Free

You may have noticed the new stock ticker that is streaming six-word tweets live in the OFJCC‘s Fitness Center lobby. It’s there as part of the Six-Word Memoir initiative begun by SMITH Magazine; the Jewish cultural mavens at Reboot have brought this interactive embodiment of the project to the OFJCC for our community members to interact with.

The original movement, begun by SMITH‘s editor Larry Smith in 2006, was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s legendary shortest of short stories: “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Over a million participants worldwide have since distilled their own stories down to their most essential elements.

Our CEO Zack Bodner recently challenged some of who work here whittle down the mission and culture of the OFJCC into just six words. Here are some of my favorite responses to the question: How would you describe what the OFJCC does?

Connecting to Judaism in different ways.

Soul-filled adventures in loving community.

Coming to your new Jewish home.

Breathe fresh air into old concepts.

Live Jewish your way with us.

Jewish community. Soul satisfied. Family fed.

Make smiles, make wellness, make memories.

As a followup, Zack asked us to describe the OFJCC of the future in another six words:

It is going to look AMAZING!

The place we do “New Jewish.”

Connected community, free, safe, experimental zone.

Plugging in to high tech Judaism.

Celebrating the past, embracing the future.

Together we are building a Jewtopia.

What can you say in six words? Tweet it with the hashtag #SixWordOFJCC and see it appear in real time on our lobby ticker. This week’s prompt is:

“What will you do differently this year?” 

Don’t have Twitter on your mobile device? Write your response below or on a card in our Fitness Center lobby and we’ll tweet it for you. Learn more about “Six-Word Memoirs” here.

The summer of 2015 will be remembered in the Snell household as the “Summer of Shai.” It was the summer we welcomed an Israeli shaliach into our home for three months while he worked as a counselor at J-Camp, and when we discovered that “host family” is less about being hosts than it is about being family. Here are some of the other important lessons we learned:

1. It’s okay to miss home. Shai had an incredible summer in California. He made close friends among the other counselors at J-Camp and looked forward to spending his days with the campers. But living in a foreign country is, frankly, foreign. It’s natural to miss home even in the midst of a great adventure. I admired the effort he made to put on a smile when those times hit, but I admired him even more for having the courage to admit when he was homesick.

2. Sports are nearly universal. Shai arrived in California overjoyed that his favorite sports team, our local Golden State Warriors, were on their way to the NBA finals. We taught him about StubHub, and his splurge on a ticket to one of the games became one of the highlights of his summer.

But as much as the other members of the Snell household were pulling for the Warriors, Shai was stymied to hear that basketball is not our favored spectator sport. On his first day in our home, Shai asked us what we liked to do in the evenings. My husband responded, “Mostly we watch Giants games,” which drew a look of disappointment. But our guest was willing to learn and asked many questions about this confusing American game with which we were so obsessed. By the end of the summer, Shai was clad in orange and black and scouring StubHub again, this time to squeeze in one last Giants game (his third) before departing.

3. But food isn’t. Shai was excited about hamburgers and deep-dish pizza, mistrustful of grilled vegetables and enthusiastic about my teriyaki-pineapple chicken. He was downright puzzled that I answered his query, “Where do you keep the smoked salmon?” with, “um, the supermarket, I guess!” But the thing that made him smile the most was cooking his own favorite dishes for us: schnitzel and falafel.

One morning as we were preparing to leave for the JCC, I watched Shai place forkfuls of canned salmon onto a roll then spread a generous helping of peanut butter over the top. I was moderately appalled, but thought to myself, “Well, he likes tuna on pizza, and we wouldn’t eat that. I guess his tastes are just really different from ours.” Later that evening, though, I couldn’t resist asking how he had enjoyed his lunch.

“It was so disgusting! I threw it away!”

“I thought it was…unusual…of you to combine peanut butter and salmon.”

“Someone in Israel told me Americans put peanut butter on everything, so I thought it must work. He was so wrong.”

4. Forty-something-year-old white men can’t jump. Nor can they keep up with a 21-year-old on the court, but my husband and his buddies gave it their best shot every opportunity they got. Shai was an equal-opportunity dominator on our driveway basketball court.

5. Host families aren’t exclusively human. Shai immediately bonded with our German Shepherd, Koda, who was thrilled to have another young man in the house to throw frisbees and balls for her. On his final night, Shai apologized for disrupting our sons’ chore rotation when requesting to feed her one last time.

6. Oh, we LOOOOOOVE it!!! J-Campers all know Shai’s signature line, repeated excitedly whenever he lead morning Chavurah. But Shai’s enthusiasm wasn’t limited to camp. The list of things he loved here also included:

• The Golden Gate Bridge
• Santa Cruz
• Union Square
• Strawberry milkshakes
• Downtown Mountain View
• The farmer’s market
• Chinatown
• Going clubbing with the other counselors on Friday nights
• San Diego
• Santana Row
• 90s American comedies
• Target

7. Life elsewhere really is different. Our teenage sons were fascinated by the cultural differences when Shai would talk about his life in Israel. The most startling for them was the concept that this young man, only a half dozen years older than one of them, had been fighting in a war six months previously. He was as open about his love for the country he served as he was his grief for a friend lost in the Gaza fighting last winter. Both were important lessons for my sons.

8. But moms everywhere are the same. Every time I communicated with Shai’s mother on Facebook and Skype, the underlying message was the same—she missed her son and needed the reassurance of knowing that another mom was watching over him. (… and, yes, he’s eating right … and he’s being helpful and polite … and he’s doing a great job at camp … and he’s happy here…)

9. The more you have to love, the more you have to miss.  The night after Shai left us, he called from San Francisco where he was spending some time before heading back to Israel. “I miss everyone at the JCC so much!” he said, “I’m coming back tomorrow just for a visit.” It’s a painful truth that anyone who embarks on this kind of adventure comes to learn: Once you open your heart to a new place and new people, they become your own; you may become torn between the place you come from and the place you briefly called home. Shai will always feel connected to the OFJCC, and we who signed up to be hosts and in the end became family will miss him equally.

Read more about the OFJCC’s 2015 shlichim here.

Learn more about hosting an international camp staff member in your home.

We asked campers and counselors to share some of their favorite moments from this year’s J-Camp:

“Two weeks ago we went to a lake. I got to swim in my clothes because I forgot my bathing suit.” —Sophia, 9

“I loved when we got to dress up as superheroes! I was Spiderman.”   —Daniel, 5

“Seeing my finalized cake in Ace of Cakes.”   —Casey, 12

“I loved Mad Science camp because we got to make slime. Mine was orange!”   —Sydney, 7

“I loved the sleepover. I liked glow-in-the-dark capture the flag and the ice cream and watching the Incredibles movie.”   —Liam, 8

“I like the counselors. They are all very friendly. I can talk to them for minutes on end about anything.”   —Matthew, 10

“The first time we did seltzer rockets: We didn’t know what to expect. The kids filled their bottles with a little water and added a seltzer tablet. The rockets went waaaaay up. We planned to do the activity for 15 minutes, but the kids loved it so much we did it for 30.”   —Larbi, counselor

“When we went to Great America and I went on the BIG rides because my friends assured me that it would be fun …. and they were right.”   —Lexi, 12

Check out more of our favorite J-Camp moments on our Facebook photo album.