Latkes FTW

Tonight featured this year's installment of the annual latke/Channukah party, aka The Big Fry.  I enjoy latkes but eat them only at this party.  The problem is, I am a latke wimp.  I can eat two, but no more--and the second typically has to be on the small side.

Each bite of latke that hits my stomach immediately begins growing.  I'm not sure how this process works, but in seconds the swelling commences.  By the time I've eaten my second, the latkes have grown into baby demons determined to emerge from me and kill those around me.

Fortunately, the latkes have never escaped--but then, neither have I.  Cheesecake and carrot cake help a little bit, perhaps by distracting the alien latke-beasts in my tum, but in the end, the only cure is time.

Maybe that's why I eat them only once a year.

Latkes as expanding universes

Last night, we enjoyed another of our extended family's holiday rituals: Gina's Channukah latke party. We chat, exchange some presents, and, of course, eat latkes. Team Latke--usually Josh, Mara, and Jennie on the fryers, plus Christy and Gina doing support work--turn a great many potatoes and vast quantities of oil into the deceptively small looking potato pancakes.

You learn how dense they are only later, when it's too late.

I ate two. Each year, I eat only two (with the exception of one very foolish time at which I consumed three of them and paid the price later). Each year, I learn anew that two potato pancakes that when stacked are no bigger than a single hamburger actually can expand in my stomach into something roughly the size and shape of a 1956 chevy standing on its end. They do taste good, though, which is why you have to be particularly careful about how many you eat. Now, over twenty-four hours later, I think they're finally done expanding, though I won't know for sure until tomorrow.

If you've never eaten a latke, definitely try them--but do allow an appropriate amount of recovery time.

Latke time

Tonight was Gina's annual Chanukah party, at which we celebrate that holiday, eat latkes, socialize, eat latkes, laugh, eat latkes, and eat latkes. Then, we eat ice cream cake and cheese cake.

Sometimes, for a break, we eat chips and dip.

Latkes are always available for the hungry.

I can't understand why I have weight trouble this time of year.

The party was fun and, thanks to the hard-working fry crew moving to the deck, significantly easier on that team than in the past. (They make a lot of latkes.)

In unrelated news, last night I went to bed tormented by the change in direction of Overthrowing Heaven. Though I knew I was doing the right thing by moving to this new approach, I had figured out virtually nothing about it, so I was quite concerned. While in the shower after the walk, however, my subconscious spit out idea after idea, and suddenly the book has form and I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be a really cool book. I'll have to hope that others feel the same way, when about eighteen months from now they get to read it.