Jews' "sheer sexiness," and the insist-too-much paradox

At various points in the gargantuan stack of paper called my dissertation, I needed to cite something to do with modern-day intermarriage panic. Because the way it works, in academic writing, is that the fact that I know from living and breathing that the American Jewish community has long concerned itself with this topic isn't sufficient. That's not how scholarship works, nor should it. You can't footnote 'Take my word for it.' So in the process, I ended up finding that the whole 'intermarriage finishes what Hitler started' line comes up more often in references to anti-intermarriage sentiment (such as) than in the anti-intermarriage articles themselves. It's not that there isn't panic, just that it's often less hysterical than its more hysterical extremes.

In any case, if only I'd seen this sooner. I've now read Jack Wertheimer's essays and a couple of the others, but will need to read the lot of it. Mosaic Magazine (which... how had I just found this?) has an very useful array of the range of standard Jewish opinion on the matter, albeit the most informed and intelligent array one is likely to find. (And hey, a UChicago student is among the participants!) 

I have, as you might imagine, exactly ten trillion things to say in response even just to the parts of this series I have read, and maybe five trillion ideas of ways and places to pitch whichever aspect of my response doesn't get channeled into the academic version of this that I'm also working on. And I suppose, Petey, I also have thoughts on the new finding that Jews are actually Northern Italian, although this is really a single thought, one I'd already expressed on Facebook, which is that this explains why my apartment is basically the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, Casa Della Bisou. But in the interest of not blathering on altogether forever, I'm going to narrow this post down to the awkward question that always comes up with this topic: How, or really if, Jews who oppose intermarriage should try to eroticize endogamy.

Sylvia Barack Fishman, probably the leading scholar in the field of contemporary Jewish intermarriage, writes: "Individuals, families, and communities need to show, by example and by word, why Jewishness matters—to create in sons and daughters an appreciation of the appeal, and the sheer sexiness, of Jewish men and women." This came up on my Birthright trip as well, when the group leader asked the young men in the auditorium to behold the beauty of Jewish women. The first part - "why Jewishness matters" makes sense, but the second? There's nothing like a well-meaning authority figure telling you that someone - or some group - should do something for you erotically for that not to happen. While I personally have no trouble believing Jewish men can be good-looking, somehow the statement that I, as a Jewish woman, ought to think this summons the image of Brian Krakow - the guy you know you should like, but can't get yourself to. 

Which brings us to the problem with addressing intermarriage with more outreach along existing lines. As it stands, Jewish events aimed at the maybe-not-yet-married age demographic are virtually always thinly-veiled attempts at matchmaking. College students are invited to attend Jewish "singles" events, as though one can be an urban American single at 19. What if you just wanted to see an Israeli movie, or learn about the Dreyfus Affair, and if you happened to be unattached and met someone romantically, so be it? Why couldn't it all be a bit more casual? College itself, for instance, doesn't feel, while you're there, like an elaborate plot to mate you off to someone on a similar socioeconomic path.

Mostly, I'm just skeptical that unless we return to an era of something drastically less casual - arranged or quasi-arranged marriages, or unless all Jews up and moved to Israel, any sort of large-scale change in this area could occur. Points of contact among Jews can be increased, but without a full-on secession from the mainstream community, socialization will continue between Jews and non-Jews. And if every time Jews are placed in close proximity, there needs to be this overt now go mate vibe, a certain number of Jews with an interest in Jewish culture end up not going to what they fear will be a meat market. 

It would be much simpler to say (as used to be said) that marriage is about reproducing the community, forging allegiances between families, and whether or not you find your spouse "sexy" is irrelevant. But once spouses are to be chosen on the basis of individual desire - which is to say, once a baseline of chemistry needs to be there before either party even considers compatibility in other areas, not that chemistry trumps incompatibility - it's only natural that the conversation about how to stop intermarriage would veer towards the ill-fated project of asking Jews to find one another hot. 

Something resembling a pain au chocolat

Chocolate-chip cookies were so terrible as to have to be thrown out. Croissants edible but brioche-like and thus a failure. Cannelés: convincing, if unevenly cooked. Pains au chocolat, however, a success. This, despite my record-breaking, shameless refusal to follow the recipe's directions (from this book), combined with the imprecision inherent in bringing grams and centiliters and Celsius into a NJ kitchen, not to mention having halved it. I most certainly didn't have any "farine de gruau" number 45, or "levure de boulanger." I used all-purpose flour, instant dry yeast, regular sugar not powdered, skim milk not whole, salted butter, and so on. Where the recipe called for the delicate kneading of dough, the careful, ingredient-by-ingredient additions, I tossed everything into a bowl, used the trusty hand mixer, and when the result looked far too pancake-batter-ish to be right, added flour until the consistency struck me as plausible. Dough-chilling happened in the freezer, not the refrigerator, and ended when I deemed the dough sufficiently workable, not when it was in any technical sense ready. I folded... enough. Somehow the end result was flaky (!), utterly convincing, and because I'd made them myself, no doubts about them having been pur beurre. The chocolate I used - semisweet chips from the Belgian gourmet shop - did not do it for the household Belgian, and while I agreed that this wasn't quite what a French bakery would have used, I'm thinking it was as close to that as can be found in Central NJ. The result was not Le Boulanger des Invalides Jocteur, but not as far off as one might expect, and unequivocally better than what the two places in town that sell this sort of thing have on offer.

The first batch were consumed too instantaneously, but looked much like the second, except half the size. This second set are (well, two are, two were) more the size of bakery chocolate croissants. If you're squeamish about realizing that your breakfast included a quarter of a stick of butter, this is not the recipe for you.

Early New Year's Resolutions*

-Write The Small Dog Workout Book. Inspired by this NYT reader comment; socialite, reality TV star, and incredibly tall woman Kelly Bensimon's choice of tiny maltese as workout partner; and my own half-hour jogs with Bisou, the ones that tire her out for a couple minutes and me for the whole day. The jogs are really for her, and for me only insofar as it means maybe she'll require less chasing around the apartment afterwards. But I'm sure that as with any exercise, poodle-jogging makes a person fit and Gwyneth-like. This book would sell in the States, I think, but could even become a hit in Frahnce, where it would be marketed as a way of combatting cellulite. Either way, Bisou goes on the cover.

-Or, co-write the satirical cookbook my friend and fellow woods "housewife" and I have been discussing, based on our non-existent café serving the woodsy academics. Think Bravo meets Alice Waters. Think "Big Bang Theory" from the perspective of Penny crossed with Daria. But those are all the clues you're getting for now.

-Stop reading the NYT, NYMag, or anything else with NY in the title, except for hard news and op-eds. No Styles, no Well, no lifestyle commentary, no restaurant reviews. No reports on shoe sample sales where the shoes look like ones I might potentially be able to walk in. Nothing about how one simply must go to the Greenmarket fishmonger for the latest catch. Yes, it was nice being able to get good fish, as opposed to whatever's shrink-wrapped at Wegman's, or displayed in a fishmongery way but often foul-smelling at Whole Foods. Yes, there's a boutique fish store on Nassau St., but it's at the far end of Nassau St., and days when it's cold enough to take fish that far by bike are days it's too cold to bike there. And my guess would be that if it's anything like the boutique everything stores on and near Nassau St. (like the cheese shop without prices on most of the items! like my recent $14-plus-tax-and-tip hamburger!), if you have to ask... No! I must tear myself away, away from fish stew recipes and the even more delicious comment about how wrong the recipe author is to suggest using canned tomatoes, when in this day and age, with all we know about BPA...

-Pitch some kind of earth-shattering "how we live now" article to the Atlantic. Something about the food movement or rescue culture. Something about how "we" only feed our dogs local and sustainable kibble.

-With husband, purchase car. Learn to drive car. Wean self from shuttle.

-Maybe I could have my own talk show? I like horses.

*Academic goals not included, because they're what they are for every other humanities PhD student, namely finish it, publish part of it, and graduate already.

Cannelazy UPDATED

In the spirit of pro-kitchen-gadgetry, I might mention the great success that was finally making cannelés, months after my mother got me a silicone cannelé-mold-thingy and... fewer months, but still months, after buying the mini-bottle of rum, equally one-purpose as far as I was concerned, as I don't like to drink rum.

I first tried one of the little baked-custard cakes in class, when Lauren Shockey, a college friend, former French major, and now celebrity, brought them in. And it was like, one does not find the likes of this in Hyde Park. And I kicked myself for not being on the path to a career in anything (officially) food-related.

So the one-purpose device that is a silicone muffin-tin-type thing for cannelés sat in a drawer as these things do, until Jo asked me, half-sarcastically because of the time not long ago when we had brownies and shtetl apple cake at the ready, why I didn't make cannelés. And I thought, that's a really good question!

But there were two reasons. One, the recipe called for leaving batter in the refrigerator overnight, and I have a rule about this: I will not make anything that needs to be started the day before, because that's going down a road I'd rather avoid. Two, the recipe (in here) calls for whole milk, which, as someone who prefers skim and is not accustomed to buying two types of milk, I'd forget to pick up. Oh, and Reason 3: after a failed attempt at from-scratch croissants, I was thinking this notoriously challenging dessert would be beyond my capabilities.

Not so!

Not so, because not so challenging, after all, thanks to our good friend the electric hand-mixer. A few simple ingredients, a few minor improvisations (the recipe called for a vanilla bean pod, so I tossed in some vanilla extract, and "blond" sugar, so I mixed some brown sugar in with white... and rather than breaking out the food scale I brought back from Paris for this purpose - recipes generally, not cannelés specifically! - I went to those measurement-conversion sites and approximated), and completely ignoring the recipe's advice about gently folding in whichever ingredients, instead electromixing away (but staying true to all the waiting-related instructions), I ended up last night with a bowl full of what looked like pancake batter but smelled distinctly like cannelé.

After the requisite at least 12 hours in the fridge, plus one of returning to room temperature on the counter, I risked the possibility of the silicone thing sticking to the metal baking sheet it, for lack of a better option, was propped up on in the oven, and it worked. The great thing about making your own cannelés is that if you prefer yours medium rare, that's an option, so if the one pictured strikes you as underdone, let it be known that this is intentional, and that if you don't hear from me for a while, it was the undercooked egg.

In any case, the result was absolute, straight-up, this-could-be-Paris. Taste and texture alike were flawless. (The shape, as Jo pointed out, would be right whatever I'd poured in, what with the molds. So the photo doesn't tell you much.) Which suggests that there's no need to wax copper molds, to weigh ingredients, to have extra-fresh eggs (not for taste, at least) or to purchase a vanilla bean or special sugar for the occasion. (Or "farine T.55," which I don't think is sold at the Wawa.)

Adapted from Magnier-Moreno, Mon Cours de Cuisine: La Pâtisserie:

Makes 15 cannelés plus some extra cannelé batter.

2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
just under 1/2 cup flour
2 eggs and 2 egg yolks
just under 2 oz butter, in pieces
4 teaspoons rum

Day 1:

1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and vanilla.
2. Put the sugars, flour, and eggs into a bowl, and mix (here, the hand mixer is perfection) till it's mixed.
3. While still mixing, slowly pour in the heated vanilla-milk.
4. Add the butter while still mixing.
5. Once the mixture reaches room temperature (or just after a little bit), pour in the rum.
6. Cover and refrigerate over night.

Day 2:

7. An hour before you're going to bake them, preheat the over to 520F and take the mixture out of the fridge.
8. Just before pouring, mix a bit once more, but this can be done with a spoon.
9. Put the silicone wobbly "tin" on a baking sheet (not non-stick, I'd think) before you begin pouring, or be an idiot (oops) and pour first.
10. Ideally, you're pouring from one of those Pyrex things with a spout, but ours is holding the 1/2-cup scoop for Bisou's dry feed (don't ask), so you can make a mess with a ladle. What matters is that you don't fill the cups up all the way, but very close is fine. You just don't want it spilling everywhere (oops).
11. They stay in the oven for 11-12 minutes at 520, then, without removing them, switch the temperature down to 350, and wait an hour, or more if you prefer "well done."

UPDATE

So the ones on the edge came out just right, but the middle ones are kinda on the raw side, so much so that they stick to the mold. Not sure about making breakfast (don't judge) out of a pastry with what tastes like not-cooked-off rum, not to mention near-raw egg that's been sitting on the kitchen counter overnight. So I put them in at 350 for a while more (15 mins?) and we'll see...