Aloha Bread Lovers
Aloha Bread Lovers – This Sunday we will be serving Hummus Masabaha. No doubt, many of you either don’t know or have forgotten what that is. We take the excellent chick peas grown by Palouse Farms in Washington, soak them in water over night and then cook them. Instead of mashing them up into hummus spread that everyone knows (and loves?), we keep them whole and serve them warm, mixed with tahini, a lemon-garlic sauce, pine nuts, olive oil, a hardboiled egg, some pickles and a little parsley. It is of course served with a fluffy pita to mop it up. It is a hearty and healthy way to celebrate Father’s Day!!
And speaking of Father’s Day – here’s a little background info about the origins and its development: Apparently the earliest Father’s Day card dates back to ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) origins of honoring father’s dates back 4,000 years ago when a young man named Elmesu inscribed on a clay tablet wishes for his father’s good health, long life and prosperity. Fast forward to pagan Roman festival of Lupercalia honoring Faunas, the Roman god of agriculture and fertility with rituals designed to protect the family and honor paternal figures. Finally, there are those who connect the Father’s Day with the ancient rituals around the summer solstice where the sun was seen as the father of the universe. In medieval times the Roman Catholic church instituted St. Joseph’s Day where it ultimately became canonized as the Feast of St. Joseph honoring the earthly father of Jesus as a symbol of paternal love and protection and later honoring fathers as the heads of households (as a Jew I can tell you that if you ask any Jewish mother, they would never let this fly…).
The Father’s Day that we are familiar with was started by two women from opposite ends of the country. In 1908 Grace Golden Clayton who was the daughter of a minister in Virginia suggested that they have a service to honor fathers following a coal mining accident that killed 100 men. A year later in Spokate Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd was inspired by Mother’s Day to honor her father who was a Civil War veteran who raised his six children by himself after his wife Ellen died in child birth. She was able to convince the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to honor father’s. President Woodrow Wilson tried unsuccessfully to make it a national holiday in 1913 and then President Coolidge signed a resolution that there should be a day to foster closer relations between father’s and their children and to help fathers understand the weight of their responsibilities. Calvin apparently had some dad issues…. Later LBJ signed an executive order mandating the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day and then in 1972 Nixon signed it into law as national holiday. And there you have it – a brief history of Father’s Day. Wishing all you father’s a very happy Father’s Day.
Mahalo – David and Yael
P.S. A JOKE – WARNING – Click on this link at your own peril (rated “R”): https://www.oldjewstellingjokes.com/2018/11/28/jonathan-avirom-laughing-nurse-564/
