Author: Anna

An Orthodox Jewish mom and freelance writer enjoying a simple life with her family and chickens, somewhere in the north of Israel.

Surviving these troubled times

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Dear friends,

Except for a handful of occasions, I have always tried to keep politics out of my blog and grow a happy space focusing on sustainability, chicken keeping, crafts, and other fun stuff.

October 7th changed all that. It changed the world, shook us all to the core, and took us to a dark place Jews never thought they’d be in again since gaining a sovereign state.

This is a time when we need your support. People who stand with Israel are invaluable allies in an old-new scary tide of antisemitism rising in the world.

Some words about how we are doing: these events also taught us the importance of being prepared, as well as we can, for dire situations. There were serious issues with food supply in the days following October 7th. People blazed through grocery stores, emptying shelves, and restocking didn’t happen until after a major delay. I was happy we had a full pantry.

The world is in turmoil. If you can get a personal weapon, do that! I would, if gun license requirements in Israel weren’t so ridiculously strict (especially when you consider the current events).

There were a few days when we were all afraid to get out of the house. We were sheltering in place, like in the early days of Covid. When this happens, you’ll be glad to have a good stock of books, board games, and art and craft supplies to keep the family entertained- although these certainly aren’t essentials.

I believe good will always eventually trump over evil, but we’re facing some dark and difficult times. Stand united. Support each other; if you can, check on your Jewish neighbors and friends. I won’t lie, we’re not OK. But we will be.

Quick Update: We’re OK

I’ve been planning to write about other things, but right now I’ll just take a few minutes to let everyone know we’re OK and not in the missile range at the moment.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, everyone who took the time to email and message me. Your thoughts and concern are very much appreciated.

As you know, things are grim here, but we’re doing our best to carry on with as much normalcy as usual for the children’s sake. We still have public transportation running and I was able to go into town for some errands today.

As I just wrote in a social media post, hatred never ends, but then, neither do the Jewish people. Too many have tried to wipe us out in the course of history. Yet, nevertheless, here we are.

Thank you for the good wishes and prayers on behalf of our soldiers, policemen, first responders, volunteers, and other brave people helping handle this crisis.

Egg substitutes for fall and winter

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Fall is here, and we all know what this means: fewer eggs for the next several months for us backyard chicken keepers.

I don’t use artificial lights in the coop and let the girls get some well deserved rest. Since I usually prefer to go without than buy eggs from the store, I tend to choose recipes that call for fewer eggs – or use creative substitutes in baking.

When it comes to baked goods, eggs basically add three things: moisture, cohesion, and fluffiness. If you just omit eggs, a cake will likely fall apart or be too heavy. Fortunately, you have several substitute options.

#1 Nut butter or tahini. Peanut butter, almond butter, and tahini will bind your batter together and add a delicious earthy flavor.

#2 Applesauce. This classic substitute for eggs adds a lot of extra moisture.

#3 Banana. Mashed banana acts similarly to applesauce – but that banana flavor definitely comes through!

#4 Ground flaxseed. I’ve yet to try this, but many foodies suggest grounding flaxseed or chia seed with a bit of water to create a sticky paste you can add to baked goods in place of eggs.

#5 Aquafaba. Now THIS is something I’m definitely going to try at the first opportunity. Rumor has it that you can whip the liquid from a can of chickpeas, and that it acts similarly to egg whites. I’ll let you know how it works out for me!

In the meantime, I’m wishing everyone a happy fall – and a happy new year and Gmar Chatima Tova to all my Jewish readers.

Keeping cool (and sane) in extreme heat

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August heat tends to throw me into a kind of torpor. It seems like summer just goes on and on, with no prospect of ever ending. All I want is to stay indoors with a cold drink and the AC running full blast, but indulging in too much air conditioning ends with an inflated electricity bill. So how can you stay cool (or at least a little cooler) during scorching hot summers without overpaying for it?

#1 Stick to cooling one part of the house

Heat rises up, which means that the upper level of our house gets insufferably hot during the day. Using the AC is more cost-efficient when we all hang out in the living room downstairs, rather than disperse around the house and run multiple AC units at the same time.

#2 Block sunlight

Draw the curtains or use blinds to block the sun when it hits your house directly (this, of course, will depend on where your house faces). Open the windows to catch the breeze during the cooler hours of the day, like the early morning.

#3 Use a frozen bottle and a fan

Freeze a water bottle and place it in front of a running fan. This simple hack will release a stream of cool air into a room.

#4 Take it easy when it’s hot

Don’t force anything too demanding during the hottest hours of the day. Stay indoors, and preferably rest. Do outdoor chores early in the morning or after sunset.

#5 Wear cotton

Choose lightweight, loose clothes from natural fabrics like cotton or linen. Don’t be tempted to expose too much skin to the sun, as it can actually make you feel hotter. Also choose cooling, absorbent bed linens.

#6 Take a cool shower

Or a cool foot bath. You could even sit with your feet in a bowl of water while you work on your laptop.

#7 Cook quickly

Opt for quick meals that don’t require you to heat up your kitchen (and the rest of your living area) for a long time.

#8 Spend time out of doors

When heat subsides, of course. Around here, we have 2-3 hours in the late afternoon/evening when the house has heated up despite my best efforts, but outside the temperatures drop. Spending that time out of doors helps us stay cool without keeping the AC overworked.

Do moms have marketable skills?

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A statement I encountered on social media got me so full of things to say I pulled out of my unplanned blogging hiatus. Here it goes (simplified for clarity):

“Stay-at-home moms who are looking to reenter the workforce are extremely attractive to employers because they offer so many useful and versatile skills. Therefore, if you’re a SAHM, it will be easy to find a job at any future point.”

What can I say? I do wish the job market worked this way… but it doesn’t.

As one of the more realistic people on that thread said, “Employers aren’t looking at what you COULD do… only at what you have already DONE.”

After I finished my degree, I spent a decade having babies, mucking out chickens, and handling mountains of laundry. Any credentials I had became obsolete, and I had nothing to put on my resume when I eventually started applying for jobs. I was lost, because when I opted out, I never thought there might come a day when I’d be desperately looking for work.

Trust me, employers weren’t lining up saying, “Wow! This woman can change a diaper on a toddler who’s standing on his head, and she’s a real pro at matching socks. That’s a hire!”

Eventually I managed to land my first long-term editing gig, which paid like a Scrooge but allowed me to gain experience I used as a springboard into better things. It was hard; I recall the days of balancing my laptop on the corner of the nursing pillow as my baby snoozed. It got easier at some point, but I’m still a freelancer. I don’t enjoy the security or pay that my peers managed to gain by staying in the workforce.

Do I regret this? No. I made choices; being with my children was and is priceless; I love the flexibility of working remotely. But what I wish I had done, and what I hope everyone does, is walk into this situation with eyes open.

Everything is a tradeoff. If you take a decade off to focus on parenting, reentering the job market may be a grueling uphill struggle. If you choose to work part-time and/or from home, you might miss out on opportunities. You may need to settle for lower pay and no security. You may lie awake at night panicking about what’s going to happen.

I don’t want to discourage anyone, but let’s just stay real. Yes, you can find paid work after many years of full time parenting. Just don’t expect this to be easy, fast, or instantly super lucrative.

Extend the life of your clothes with mending

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Today, there’s an increasing trend of viewing clothes as disposable – cheap stuff that’s meant to be tossed after a couple of uses. Gone are the days of mending and altering clothes, and re-using the fabric when the item has reached the end of its lifespan.

While many clothes today are of a really shoddy quality, you can still get a lot more wear out of them with simple mending: replacing lost buttons, sewing up a ripped seam, or stitching a hole before it grows too large.

I always save buttons and often use them to mend different items, often not the original ones. I have also noticed that, while the stitch quality in clothing is often subpar, the fabric itself is OK, especially if I choose cotton. A couple of minutes’ work buys me months, if not years of extended use.

Many of our clothes are actually hand-me-downs in pristine condition except for a missing button or another such little easily fixable thing. I love taking something that would otherwise be thrown out and giving it new life.

To keep my mending organized, I put all the items in a pile on a dresser in my room. The clothes only go back into the closet when they’re ready to wear.

Your clothes will last longer if you invest in higher-quality items, but that’s not always possible with a bunch of growing and active kids. However, thrift stores in your area might yield some treasures if you have the time to look.

Another way to keep clothes in better condition is not washing them that often. Sometimes, an airing is more than enough to make the item ready to wear again. For me, washing after every use is non-optional only for underwear. Less laundry is also great for other, obvious reasons, like less work and a reduced electricity bill.

Once an item is really beyond repair, you can use it as a rag, make a rag rug, or repurpose it as pet bedding. Some people make yarn from used t-shirts, although I personally find this a little too labor intensive.

If you have a favorite hack for making clothes last longer, let me know in the comments!

Best no-bake energy bites

When it’s a scorching hot day and you’re longing for a sweet but healthy treat that doesn’t require turning on the oven, you can’t go wrong with these perfect nutty, crunchy, creamy, dairy- and gluten-free bites.

You’ll need:

About 1/2 cup crushed walnuts

1 cup almond flour

3 heaped spoonfuls crushed dates or date spread/filling

1 teaspoon of cocoa powder

2-3 heaped spoonfuls of your favorite peanut butter

A tiny drop of brandy, cognac, or liqueur (optional)

Shredded dry coconut for rolling

Mix everything together until you get a pliable mass you can easily roll into little balls. You may need to add a little more almond flour. Roll each ball in shredded coconut, place on a tray, and chill or freeze. These can keep in the freezer indefinitely (though they’ll disappear quickly!) and defrost in minutes.

I love how versatile this recipe is. You can substitute walnuts for cashews or pistachios, omit cocoa, add more sweetener, and, of course, double the amount! The recipe above makes about 20 bites that will go perfectly with iced coffee. Enjoy!