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Friday, April 19, 2019

Company for dinner can be truly festive occasions.
I recently enjoyed a larger group over a pretty special Prime Rib Roast.

I’ll enjoy a much tighter group, five of us, this weekend over one of my other favorite meals, Roast Goose.

Next week I’ll enjoy a group over a dinner of Osso Bucco, Veal.

Thinking, do I create a dinner party because I miss the people?
Or is it because I have a longing for a particular food that lends itself to cooking several portions that defines a dinner party?

It varies.
A birthday or anniversary dinner defines itself.
I’ve had two such, recently.

The Roast Goose was a combination of desiring and ordering the goose and within hours having coffee with a friend prompting the idea of a dinner party with the friend and several more of our mutual friends.

I suddenly felt the urge to eat Veal Osso Bucco.
Picking up the goose at Roche Brothers, 11 pounds, 6.99 per pound, I asked Richard, the meat department manager, about the availability of Osso Bucco.
It appears it will arrive in the store next Saturday.
While I haven’t thought of an Osso Bucco party, I will.
It’ll just be a matter of how many pieces.
And risotto. Creamy risotto, even if I must add some heavy cream to gain the consistency I have in my head.

We share reminiscences, we bring each other up to date with our lives, we small talk, joke, compliment the chef. Always compliment the chef. You want to be invited back, don’t you?

Eating great food is a wonderful occasion.
As is the company of good friends.
Company for dinner? Can be truly festive occasions.

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Postings Count, Weather Brief, and Dinner
Friday, April 19, 2019

My 378th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 378 posts we’re at the 7.56% mark of my commitment, the commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.

Time is 12.01am.

On Friday, Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 70* with a feels-like temperature of 77* under cloudy skies with showers.

Dinner tonight will be sandwiches of Roast Rib of Beef and lamb.

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Question of the Day:
Who was Rabbi Tarfon?

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Friday, April 19, 2019

Love your notes.
Contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com

From Gary K in reference to this post:
God asks us not to ask Him why we are in the middle of so much misery.
God asks us to, instead, help someone near us.

Gary says: 

Good morning Dom,

Just reading this and thought I would offer a couple of quotes from the Dali Lama in support of your idea today.

"The planet doesn't need more successful people the planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, story tellers and lovers of all kind."

"Your job. is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something. Your job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting "

And perhaps my favorite although a bit off topic but couldn't resist...

"There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, to do, to believe and mostly to live."

Cheers,

Gary
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And referencing the same post, Howard D writes:

I’ve embraced this for a long time, since I discovered it (it’s pretty ancient), not too long after Linda died, 11 years ago:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.

-- Rabbi Tarfon

Web Meister Responds: Nice adds. Thanks, my friends.

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Chuckle of the Day:
A lady tells the pharmacist, "I would like to buy some cyanide."
The pharmacist asks, "Why do you need cyanide? It’s a deadly poison"
"I know. I need it to poison my husband."
The pharmacist exclaims, "Lord have mercy! I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband! That's against the law! They'll throw both of us in jail! Absolutely not!"

The lady reaches into her purse and pulls out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.
The pharmacist looks down at the picture, looks up, and says, “Why didn’t you tell me that you had a prescription?”

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Answer to the Question of the Day:
Rabbi Tarfon was a resident of Yavneh, but Jewish sources show that he also lived and taught in Lod.

He was of priestly lineage, and he once went with his uncle on his mother's side to participate in the priestly prayer in the Temple in Jerusalem.
As a priest, he would demand the terumah even after the Temple had fallen, while his generosity made him return the money given to him as a priest in the pidyon haben ceremony.
Once, in a time of famine, he took 800 wives so that they might, as wives of a priest, exercise the right of sharing in the tithes.
Once, when from his window he saw a bridal procession evidently of the poorer classes, he requested his mother and sister to anoint the bride that the groom might find more joy in her.

His devotion to his mother was such that he used to place his hands beneath her feet when she was obliged to cross the courtyard barefoot.

Although wealthy, he possessed extraordinary modesty; in one instance he deeply regretted having mentioned his name in a time of peril, since he feared that in using his position as teacher to escape from danger he had seemingly violated the rule against utilizing knowledge of the Torah for practical ends.

When Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was sick, and a deputation was sent to him, R. Ṭarfon acted as the spokesman, addressing him as follows: "Master, you are worth more to Israel than the sun, for that gives light only on earth, while you shed your rays both in this world and in the world to come".

Similarly, he led a number of scholars in a visit to R. Ishmael ben Elisha, upon the death of the sons of the latter; and when Jose the Galilean, R. Ṭarfon, R. Eliezer ben Azariah, and R. Akiba assembled to decide on the disputed sayings of Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Ṭarfon was the first speaker.
He was one of those whose names occurred in the deposition of Gamaliel II, and it is expressly stated that he was addressed as "brother" by the other scholars.
He is said to have dwelt at Jabneh, although it is evident that he lived also in Lod.

R. Ṭarfon was accustomed to open his aggadic discourses with a halakhic question.
In his own upper chamber at Jabneh it was decided that benevolence should be practiced according to the injunction of Psalm 106:3.

On festivals and holy days, R. Ṭarfon was accustomed to delight his wife and children by preparing for them the finest fruits and dainties.
When he wished to express approval of anyone, he would say, "'A knob and a flower': you have spoken as beautifully as the adornments of the candlestick in the Temple"; but when it was necessary to upbraid another, he would say, "'My son shall not go down with you'".

When he perceived that his two nephews, whom he was instructing personally, were becoming careless, he interrupted his lecture and regained their attention by saving, "Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Johanna" whereupon his pupils interrupted him by exclaiming, "No, Keturah!"

His students included R. Judah, Simeon Shezuri, and Judah ben Isaiah ha-Bosem.

Rabbi Tarfon is mentioned in the traditional Haggadah of Passover in the company of other sages: "It happened that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Tarfon were reclining (at a seder) in Bnei Barak (in Israel) and were telling of the exodus from Egypt the entire night..."

An ossuary from a burial cave in Jerusalem has been discovered that is marked in Aramaic, "Elisheba wife of Tarfon."

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Good Morning on this Friday, the Nineteenth Day of April.

We posted a thought on company for dinner.
We counted posts, checked the weather, and decided on dinner.
We posted letters from Gary K and Howard D.
We posted a chuckle for the day and asked and answered, Who was Rabbi Tarfon?And now? Gotta go.
Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

See you soon.

Your love.