Lokchen Kugel

Well, I'm back in the saddle again. I'm still not entirely caught up from my week in Oregon (great God I have been busy), but I'm getting there. I once again have a mental picture up and running of all the things we have in the kitchen, which makes it easier for me to throw together food come meal time instead of punting to my favored take out because 'there's nothing to eat in the house.'

I'm sure it would be marvelous of me to do some sort of brilliant cost comparison of what I would be spending if we ate out on all the recipe book nights, what we're spending per meal, etc., but that's just way beyond my mental abilities. Or at least desires. I mean, how do you calculate the fact that you already have stuff in the house when you're figuring in how much you spend on a meal you cook? Do you figure in the cost of the water and the electricity? What if you use just some of the flour? I'm always refilling my flour. You understand how this is just too much for me to deal with.

Unfortunately, the next recipe was for kugel, which apparently Jews are supposed to love. All Jews except for me, that is. Of course, Jews are also supposed to love marrying other Jews and eating mustard, so this is hardly the first way in which I bucked the trend. Growing up, my family would trot this stuff out at events and I just blissfully ignored it, really. To me it was a non-entity. Bring on the chopped liver and gefilte fish (Yes, I know this makes me weird and you cringe. Is that so different from everything else I do?), but the kugel just didn't rank.

I'm not sure exactly why. I like most of the ingredients individually, even combined with other things. But somehow together it just isn't what I'm looking for in a dish. Perhaps the sweetness of this kugel reads too 'dessert-y' to me for a side dish? And the noodles read to 'side dish-y' to me for a dessert? That might be it; my brain may just refuse to compartmentalize it properly.

I am, however, starting to suppose there may be more than just this one type of kugel. That is because I am putting the finishing touches on a similar recipe book for my cousin (the one who got married last weekend), and she got so many different kugel recipes that I actually just created a kugel chapter for her (Warning to Sara: Spoiler alert! Oh well, too late.) Boy am I glad I don't have to cook my way through all of THOSE.

Of course, this kugel recipe that I'm shitting all over also happens to be my mother's--my mother who reads this blog pretty religiously. Luckily, she's pretty goddamn supportive of my writing (hi mom), and was forewarned that her kugel would be an unfortunate sacrifice on the road to literary justice. She has recently learned how to post comments on this blog, so I'm sure she'll get to have her say. Just as long as it doesn't take the shape of her saying 'bran penis,' which she has basically been chanting at me via emails for two days in some sort of Freudian revenge scheme. Mostly, I just hope she can control the urge to shout it at an unsuspecting hourly employee the next time she's in a bakery, as there are probably few more disturbing experiences than having a tiny, well-appointed, Linda-Richman-like woman gleefully point at the pastry case and request a dozen of your finest Bran Penises. Whatever. I deserve it.

Where's the brisket?

Mom's Lokchen Kugel

2 eggs beaten (take THAT, you eggs)
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt (kosher, natch)
1/2 lb broad noodles, cooked and drained
4 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup seedless raisins, chopped

Look at ingredients. Plan to go to store to get broad noodles, then decide the extra lasagna noodles you already have at home will do, especially since you know in advance you aren't going to really like this.

Put cooked and drained noodles in large mixing bowl. In small bowl, combine eggs (beaten), sugar, cinnamon and salt. In restrospect, wonder if you used cinnamon sugar or cinnamon. Oh well.

Add this mixture to noodles and mix. Open raisins. Scream when moth flies out. Have Josh rush upstairs and ask if everything is okay. Serve him an angry diatribe on bugs, throw out the raisins, and substitute the golden raisins you thankfully have left over from Carol Mertz's salad. Decide that is going to have to Goddamn well do.

Add melted butter and raisins. Mix thoroughly. Place in a liberally buttered 1 1/2 quart casserole and bake at 400 degrees until lightly browned (about 45 minutes). Or use a round pyrex pie dish thing because you think your casserole dish is way too big and completely forget to butter the dish. And then don't hear the timer go off and burn it slightly.

Feed Josh slightly burned, sticking-to-dish kugel with low expectations. Have Josh moan with delight and pronounce it cinnamon-y and delicious while hoovering it up, without even knowing this is his mother-in-law's ass he is kissing. Take bite yourself and pronounce it 'kugel.' Then eat giant salad for dinner instead.