Here’s a sweet thing. It all started with Margret. Margret is a regular at Motek. She came in one day with what looked like a canvas bag that she wanted to show me. This was no ordinary bag – the material was impregnated with beeswax and it was meant for bread such as ours. She swore by it – it kept her bread fresh far longer than without the bag. Well, that’s all we needed to hear. The next day another one of our regulars came in – Amanda the seamstress. We know Amanda from the early days when we had a stall at the Pukalani Stables Farmers Market in Waimea where Amanda has a stall to this day. So I show Amanda the bread bag (online version) that Margret showed me and asked if she could make them for us. Amanda, being Amanda, jumped right in. She then connected with Kaisa, aka “Honey Girl”. Kaisa and her partner Jerimiah are beekeepers (apiarists to be more precise) here in Kapaau. As it turns out, Honey Girl was already selling swaths of cloth impregnated with beeswax which is used to keep food fresh. So now Malama-Ki Honey Bees is going to work with Stitch-In-Time Amanda to produce special bags for Motek (with our logo of course) that will keep you bread fresher, longer. This is all just a promo as they are still figuring it out – but it will happen. In the meantime, we have begun stocking some of Malama-Ki Honey Bees honey which is absolutely amazing as far as honey goes. They have 2 varieties – one produced from hives placed along the rim of the Pololu Valley, producing a dark, syrupy honey and the other from hives place in Puako producing a thicker, golden honey. We are thrilled to be selling their honey and very excited about this hyper-local venture to produce bread bags to keep you bread – locally and freshly baked at Motek – fresher, longer. Also, tomorrow (Saturday) we will be baking a special sourdough loaf with oatmeal and honey.

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING – CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN PERIL (you might laugh): https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/13/neil-elliot-a-divorce-360/

This week we felt a nice earthquake as it rolled across the island. For many, the surprising thing was not only the magnitude, but also the duration. I have a personal connection to earthquakes and not only because I grew up in Los Angeles. Before Motek Bakery took over my life I was the head of business development for a start-up company that developed a method of providing early warning for earthquakes. Without getting too much into the weeds of earthquake early warning, there are two waves emitted by an earthquake. The first wave (the S-wave) travels very fast and arrives ahead of the damaging second or P-Wave. Using a lot of pure physics and some AI, the company had developed a technology that could very quickly analyze the data provided by the S-Wave in order to know when, where and how strong the P-Wave would be. On a good day we are talking about advance warning of maybe 15 – 30 seconds. Still, you would be surprised what you can do in 15 seconds: stop elevators, slow down trains, close tunnels, etc.. I tried to interest the authorities here in Hawaii but, as you can imagine, I didn’t get very far.

.Thank you – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING -CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN PERIL - https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/13/richard-klinger-the-schmaltz-technique-358/

FYI “schmaltz” is chicken fat that is skimmed from the broth of a boiled chicken and used in Jewish cooking.

On another note, a huge Mahalo for all of the very kind and comforting condolences. Losing a mother is not easy and the outpouring of love and support from this amazing community has meant a great deal to us and has been quite humbling in the best way possible.

Thank you – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNIG -CLICK ON THIS LINKAT YOUR OWN PERIL - https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/28/jack-brandman-talking-dog-for-sale-555/

We will be following (in our way) the ancient Jewish custom of sitting shiva. This is when the family of the deceased spends seven (shiva) days sitting on low stools, mourning the deceased. We will sit on chairs and include the weekend (the Sabbath is not usually counted as part of the seven days). Old photo albums are brought out, friends come by and offer comfort and you say an ancient Aramaic prayer daily (Aramaic was the language spoken by the Jews while exiled in Babylon). In this way we will help each other deal with our grief – in particular my father who for the last 68 years had enjoyed the love and companionship of my mother. She was a beautiful woman and a kind and compassionate soul. We will sorely miss her.

Mahalo – David and Yael

Aloha Bread Lovers – Mother’s Day is a great day for Bagels and Lox. We will also be selling a limited number of bagels separately. We will be open as always, 9-2 and will also have our amazing Uke Jammers to make great music that will put a smile on your face.

This week Yael is the author with this beautiful post that she just posted to Instagram and Facebook:

We just started serving “My Mother’s Apple Cake” at Motek—a flavor from my childhood that I used to absolutely love when my mom made it. Looking back, I don’t know why it took me so long to finally bring it to life here in the bakery.

Talking about my mom brings me back to my Sir HaPele -Hebrew for “Wonder Pot”. It is in the photos here. This specific pot, made by Palalum likely between the 50s and 70s, was the original “baking hack” in Tel Aviv. Before home ovens were common, this aluminum legend sat right on the stovetop. Its hollow center creates a convection effect that makes cakes rise higher and fluffier than almost anything else. This one used to belong to my mother, and even though she didn’t use it for many years , she already had the electrical oven, she always kept it.

My mother has been gone for many years now, but she left me with the two greatest loves of my life: the love of baking and the love of reading and maybe also a deep love for chocolate, too! Some of my most cherished memories with her as kid are standing beside her, watching and mixing the chocolate and butter while they melt together for brownies and waiting for that magic moment when I finally got to lick the bowl.

She taught me that baking isn’t just about ingredients; it’s about the magic in the moments we share.

When I left home for university, my mother gave me this pot. It first came with me to the dorms, then to every apartment I ever lived in. Even when I finally had a real oven, I kept it close “just in case.” I wanted to know that no matter what, we’d always be able to bake a cake.

When we moved to Hawaii, it was only obvious that the pot would come with us. And believe it or not—with all the electrical outages we experience here on the Big Island—we’ve actually had to use it!

Now days we use it at the bakery when ever we need a pot with a hole in the middle. In the photo you can see the Flan in it…

I put here some photos of my mother from way back.

I guess it is a post about Mother’s Day…

Come try a slice of my mother’s apple cake this week and share in a bit of that magic with us.

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. A Joke – WARNING- CLICK ON LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK: https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/13/steve-shecky-platt-traffic-stop-351/

In other news, we had the pleasure of having some friends over for dinner the other night. They noticed that we have a collection of various pot shards on our window sill that we brought with us when we moved here from Israel. They asked about them and I told them that I found them on the beach. I used to have a 20 ft. catamaran that I kept at a sailing club that was at a beach next to the ruins of the ancient Roman seaport of Caesaria, about 40 miles north of Tel Aviv. Back in the day, Caesaria was a major port whose ruins remain remarkably intact, made with cement that was mixed with volcanic ash that the Romans brought in from Mt. Vesuvius in Italy. In fact the ancient Roman amphitheater now serves as a concert venue. I guess that even way back when, various clay vessels fell into the ocean at the port. Every so often, just walking along the beach where I would launch my catamaran you would see an ancient amphora handle or shard poking up in the sand, which I of course collected. This then led us to a discussion about the Roman conquest of Judea. In 135CE the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed Judea in order to punish the Jews following their revolt led by Bar Kochba. His goal was to sever the link between Jews and their land. The name that he chose was that of the main adversary of the Jews at that time, the Philistines (remember Goliath?) who lived mainly along the coast of what is today Gaza and Southern Israel. In addition to renaming Judea, he also renamed Jerusalem, calling it Aelia Capitolina. After putting down the revolt, he sold most of the Jews into slavery, apparently glutting the market in Egypt at the time; he forbid the remaining Jews from entering his new capital, Aelia Capitolina and forbid Jewish practice such as circumcision. And there you have it…. all of this from a pot shard.

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING – CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK (rated “G”): https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/10/25/suzanne-shepherd-my-aunt-malka-225/

Some of you have been asking about my parents Ed and Gail (96 and 88 yrs. old) and their transition to life on the Big Island. Ed has been doing surprisingly well and has demonstrated that he can be responsible with a walker and in spite of some minor falls (or as he says “not a fall, I merely slid to the floor, nothing serious..no big deal”). Gail on the other hand has seen better days. Coming from LA to Hawaii has not been so smooth. One of the key sticking points that I did not account for was her hair. In LA she had her hair salon but since moving here a year and a half ago she has not had a haircut. There is very nice woman at the Regency Hualalai who cuts hair for the residents, however after looking around the dining room my mother decided that it won’t work for her. This week she finally broke down and asked her caregiver – who used to be a hair stylist – to take a couple inches off the back. According to my father he heard a yell and then my mother loudly repeating “UNBELIEVABLE! UNBELIEVEABLE!!” as apparently the well-intentioned caregiver took a little too much off from the wrong place and was stopped midway into the coiffure. That night the caregiver called to inform me that she is done working for my parents. Meanwhile, my mother looks a bit lopsided with half of a haircut while my father keeps reassuring her that it will grow back. I of course suggested that she reconsider having the nice woman at the Regency even her out.

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING – CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK (this one’s pretty good – nothing too offensive) https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/28/ian-abrams-what-should-i-wear-547/

This week has been bursting with topics to write about, starting with the developments in the Middle East however in an effort to steer clear of politically charged issues, I have decided to revert to my previous habit of copying and pasting the recent Harper’s Index. For those who don’t know, the Harpers Index is a monthly, extremely random collection of statistics that is published in Harper’s Review. Below are some of the choice ones from the most recent edition. I especially like the stat about believing in Bigfoot and Aliens and about the freshmen trying to get into my alma mater UC San Diego. Enjoy!

Mahalo – David and Yael

Harper’s Index

• Average amount that a U.S. worker has saved for retirement: $955

• Percentage of Americans aged 30 to 47 who have spent some of their retirement savings in the past six months: 57

• Estimated number of Americans who worked two full-time jobs in January 2015: 172,000 In January 2026: 476,000

• Portion of U.S. employees who would recommend working for their current employer: 1/4

• Portion of Republicans under the age of 50 who describe themselves as anti-Semitic: 1/4 As racist: 3/10

• Percentage by which Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe that Bigfoot exists: 19 By which Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe that aliens exist: 33

• Percentage by which Democrats are more likely to believe that contact with aliens would be good for civilization: 46

• Chance that an American believed that the government was concealing information about the moon landings in 2016: 1 in 4 Last year: 1 in 3

• Percentage of American males aged 16 to 24 who are neither employed, in school, nor in job training: 12 Average number of hours per day that such a male spends sleeping: 10 Of waking hours per day that he spends alone: 8

• Portion of incoming UC San Diego freshmen taking a placement exam last year who failed to solve for x in “7 + 2 = x + 6”: 1/4 Who failed to round 374,518 to the nearest hundred: 3/5

• Percentage of Americans with postgraduate degrees who report using AI “almost constantly”:46

• Of those with a high school education or less who do: 20

• Percentage of U.S. corporate executives who say that AI saves them at least twelve hours of work per week: 19 Of U.S. nonmanagement employees who say so: 2

• Portion of American mothers who say that children should start using AI “as early as possible”: 3/10

• Percentage of Americans who say that, as children, they knew a compassionate, nonjudgmental adult: 35 Percentage of these Americans who say that their mother was such a person: 50 That their father was: 5

• Portion of Americans who strongly believed in 2018 that society is “better off if more people are married”: 1/5 Who strongly believed this last year: 1/10

• Percentage of American men who say that it is acceptable for women to be topless at a public beach: 38 Of American women who say so: 17

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING – CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK (language and sexual content): https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/10/31/jay-orlikoff-grandma-and-billy-246/

Yael and I have been enjoying playing around with our new pasta machine which is in itself a marvel of Italian engineering. This week we put a Bucatini die on the extruder to make some killer fresh pasta. Bucatini is a narrow, hollow tube pasta about 10 inches long. It is said to have originated in Sicily sometime in the Middle Ages. Its name comes from Buca which is hole in Italian referring to the hollow center. This allows the pasta to absorb sauces. Bucatini is traditionally served with Amitriciana sauce, whose origins are not surprisingly in Amitrice. This is a sauce made with guanciale (pork cheeks), pecorino cheese, San Marzano tomatoes (a variety of plum tomatoes),black pepper, peperocino (Italian chili pepper) dry white wine, salt and some olive oil. Celebrity chef Carlo Cracco had the audacity to suggest that you could sauté an unpeeled clove of garlic in the sauce and then remove it before serving. This drew a quick rebuke from the former mayor of Amitrice who categorically rejected this idea…stay in your lane Carlo and don’t mess with the sauce. We sell our pasta in 10oz. bags for $10 (sort of like the dime bags of contraband that we used to buy back in the day…).

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke WARNING – CLICK ON LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/12/13/ronnie-haber-the-desert-island-451/

SUNDAY APRIL 5^TH AT 7:00PM AT MOTEK

54-3854 AKONI PULE HWY., KAPAAU

OPEN TO ALL

PLEASE JOIN US THIS SUNDAY, APRIL 5^TH FOR A TALK STORY WITH C.J. – A CETACEA RESEARCHER BASED ON THE BIG ISLAND WHO WILL SHARE HER INSIGHTS AND EXPERIENCES FROM 15 YEARS OF GETTING IN THE WATER WITH HAWAII’S MOST FAMOUS AND AWE-INSPIRING PART-TIME RESIDENTS.

.

This is a big week for everyone as today marks Good Friday. Being Jewish, I am pretty unfamiliar with the traditions around this holiday. For example, why is it called “Good Friday” if in fact Jesus was crucified? What’s so good about that? A little research taught me that “Good” in old English is actually another term form “Holy” such as the Good Book. Another explanation is that it was Good because of the good news of salvation. Then there is the Last Supper which was essentially a Passover Seder. Having experienced by now many Passover Seders, I have to say that it sad to think that Jesus’s last meal may have included gefilte fish, dry matzah, some bitter herbs and possibly a tough piece of brisket.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is where Jesus was resurrected. It is a site claimed by 6 branches of Christianity. On the ledge above the entrance to the Holy Sepulcher there is a wooden ladder that has been there for more than 250 years. Way back in the 1700’s someone put out that ladder to access the roof. Any unilateral action by any one branch of those who claim ownership of the Holy Sepulcher insinuates a higher status of ownership relative to the other branches and therefore only a unanimous decision can make any changes…..and so it still stands there to this day.

But that’s not all. If a ladder has remained in place in order preserve a delicate balance between the different branches of Christianity, who gets to hold the keys to the Holy Sepulcher? The answer might surprise you – there are two Palestinian Muslim families who hold the keys – a representative of the Joudeh (Al-Husseini) family holds the 12-inch physical key and has been doing so for centuries. A representative of the Nuseibeh family is responsible for getting the key from the Joudeh family every morning and every night in order to unlock and lock the Holy Sepulcher each morning and every night

.

It is said that this arrangement dates back to the time of Salah Al-Din after he took Jerusalem from the Crusaders. In any case, it is an often overlooked example of interfaith cooperation that has weathered centuries of wars, plagues, changes of rulers, etc.

Mahalo and Happy Easter

David and Yael

P.S. – A Joke: WARNING CLICK ON THIS LINK AT YOUR OWN PERIL https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2022/01/12/sherwin-kepes-neil-armstrong-599-38/

April 1^st marks the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Normally this is a great holiday for Jewish bakeries as you are not allowed to eat any bread or any other leavened anything. In fact, observant Jews are required to clean their homes and businesses of any bread, bread crumbs, flour – you name it, just about anything that has flour in it. For those who take it very seriously, they are expected to be so thoroughly cleaned that they must inspect all of the dark crevices with a candle and a feather – a candle so that they can see what they are cleaning and a feather so that they can sweep up even them most minute particle of a bread crumb. This is done in order to keep the holiday “Kosher for Passover” in recognition of the fact that ancient Hebrews had no time for their bread to rise while they were escaping Pharoah and his army in their exodus from Egypt. No worries, we will remain open even during Passover and have no intention of doing the candle and feather thing. We will of course have a family Seder – the Passover meal that recounts the story of the Exodus. “Seder” literally means “order” as in the order of things. That is because for millennia Jewish people have been conducting the very same meal the same way, carefully retelling the story by following a Haggadah – a small book that is pretty much like a paint-by-number of what to do and what to say.

There is one part of the Seder where you open the door and invite in Elijah the Prophet to come and drink some wine. As children it was our favorite part as we would all stand around the table, keeping a keen eye on the special cup filled to the brim for Elijah. Someone would open the door to let the prophet in while an uncle or cousin would surreptitiously shake the table, causing the wine glass to jiggle as if Elijah had just taken a swig. It never occurred to us that Elijah would need to be drinking from a lot of cups that night and would likely fall over in a drunken stupor. More than anything, Passover is about freedom. While it is true that it focuses on the story of how the Hebrews were liberated from their bondage in Egypt, the key theme is to see it a celebration of our being unfettered and free – physically, spiritually, mentally…free.

Happy Passover – David and Yael

P.S. – A Funny Related Clip – it is somewhat irreverent so click on this at your own risk:

P.P.S. Shakshuka = tomatoes (lots), onions, garlic, olive oil, spices all slow cooked overnight. When you order it, we crack an egg or 2 (your choice) in it, pop it in the oven where the egg cooks in the shakshuka and then serve it with a fluffy roll baked fresh to mop it all up.

Speaking of weather – this Kona low 2.0 is definitely the talk of the town and with good reason. It is hard to watch the havoc on Oahu – the power of nature that is once again so humbling. As long as there is electricity Motek will be open. We will postpone the planned Infrequent Talk Story Sunday with C. J. to talk about whales and re-schedule when we have more hospitable weather. The weather will actually help to clean up around the hitching post. Nothing puts a bigger smile on our face than to find a big pile of horses…t, evidence of another rider…now we just need to leave them a note with our hours so that they come when we’re open.

Mahalo – David and Yael

P.S. A Joke: Warning, click on this link at your own peril https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2022/01/12/malcom-mason-oral-sex-practice-599-4/

Subscribe now