Listen to the Rain

A couple weeks ago I decided to host a party for Shavuot, since while studying Torah all night isn't a strong draw to most people, eating dairy products definitely is. I bought a bunch of cheeses and cheesecake, invited people, and then they showed up and we ate cheese, drank wine, and chatted. It was basically a wine and cheese party but with the added justification of being on a Jewish holiday, which are my favorite days to host parties.

The question of why we eat dairy food on Shavuot came up a few times, and the simple answer is "no one knows." But this is Judaism, so there are plenty of explanations.

I bought all that food but I still wanted to make something, and I was a bit lost until I remembered a blog post I read about peach and mozzarella (link in Japanese). The post is basically the author saying how she found the idea of peaches and mozzarella tossed in olive oil to be kind of disgusting until she got the urge to try it, made it, and thought it was delicious. I had much the same reaction in all respects--it sounded kind of awful until I made it and tried it and then I learned how wrong I was:

( Cheese and fruit )

Cheese was eaten, wine (and alcoholic dairy drinks like coffee creme liqueur) were consumed, and a good time was had by all! The last people didn't leave until after 2 a.m., and then I cleaned up all the food and put it in the fridge, and now I have enough cheese to last for weeks. When I bought like ten different kinds of cheese at Whole Foods, the woman at the checkout took one look at it and asked me if I was having a party. No surprise there--no one can eat that much cheese all at once, and I am certainly no exception. I'm just glad that I can still eat cheese, since my sister wanderluster_kp is lactose intolerant now. I guess my constant consumption of dairy has kept my body in a state of high lactose alert. Even when I lived in Japan, we'd buy $20 a pound imported cheddar just to get our cheese fix.

I grated some of the cheese over my lunch salads and took some with me as a snack for later, since I'm going from work to dinner and then to see Detective Pikachu with lisekatevans. More about that tomorrow!