M-U-L-T-I-C-U-L-T-U-R-A-L-I-S-M

Sophia had a big project for the culmination of her first grade class' multicultural week. She needed to bring in a food for the group lunch that represented her heritage. We decided on providing potato pancakes, or as we affectionately call them - latkes.

Sophia wanted to help. She really did, but after putting all the ingredients within reach on the kitchen table, and doing a little mixing, she dissappeared. Zach, however, was keenly interested in helping out doing the dirty work. And it was dirty and smelled up the entire house.

I won't lie - on a crisp fall afternoon, I had the front and back doors open for ventilation. It got smokey in the house. Some rooms were actually filled with dense flavor (read: smoke) and I was more than mildly concerned for the smoke detector. Zach pulled up a chair to stand on at the stove (while maintaining a safe distance from the hot stuff) and tried to help and watch as best he could. He was pretty excited to be invovled in this project. It turns out I'm not close to being as good at making latkes as either of my grandmas, or yours, or anyone's for that matter. Really that's not a surprise. I basically created a huge, smelly mess.



Once I finished cooking two batches of the batter, I covered them up and took the kids outside - mostly for some fresh air, but also to run a few errands. Upon our return home, I realized how much the house stank and that the stank was in my hair and on my clothes. It was all in the name of helping Sophia get a good mark for her multiculturalism project. Which probably meant she'd get a check mark in a ledger somewhere. I had to throw my clothes down the laundry chute and almost showered. I must say though, I didn't mind any of this and found it quite fun.



The finished project (two plates full) went to school today for the big lunch, along with a box of matzohs. Don't tell the other first graders that the matzoh box was left over (unopened of course) from this past Passover. Fresh?, you ask. Do matzohs really ever go bad?

The result of all this - Sophia said all the latkes were eaten. Hmmmm. I wonder about that.