It’s my birthday, and it’s a strange one.

For starters, the date itself.

So happy to see you here, my refreshed newsletter home, where I’ll be visiting weekly with dispatches from my life and kitchen. Although you’re always welcome to remain an unpaid subscriber (you’ll receive an email once a month),upgrading to paid(thank you for supporting this small business!) you’ll get access to a monthly original recipe just for subscribers; exclusive upcoming news about new books/projects, musings from me; travel and eating suggestions for Israel and beyond, and more treats.

Until last year I always considered the number seven to be a lucky one, but now it’s been exactly ten months since October 7th. I always say that this country sees more drama here (a lot created internally—we don’t need a lot of help in this department!) in one week than most see in several years (or ever). The irrefutable fact is that there are 115 Israeli hostages languishing in Gaza. They must, must come home. Like, yesterday.

Today’s forecast gave me an early-morning gift: Slightly less sticky, schleppy, muggy weather. Granted, it’s still slated to be 91 degrees later (!!!), but at 8 A.M. the humidity hadn’t yet blanketed the day in its oh-so-very special way.  

I went to swim some laps in my beloved Gordon Pool to start things off on good footing (OK, floating). I moved silently through the water, the repetitive motions calming me and allowing me a few moments to stop speaking, thinking, or even listening to others. Afterwards people were drinking coffee and acting like everything was normal, almost, in that functional-denial way that only Israelis can. Things are clearly not normal. They never are here, but in the past 10 months, it’s on a whole different level.

Several friends who were supposed to be here from abroad this month have not been able to make it in (pretty much every airline has canceled direct flights from the USA, and can you blame anyone for not wanting to take a 35-hour, three-leg journey into a place where fiery flying things sent our way by an Axis of Yucky could make ground at any time?).  

We’re staying close to home these days because of these amorphous threats. Anthony Blinken, the U.S Secretary of State, said 48 hours ago that we should expect to see a “response” from The IRGC within… 48 hours. Like many deadlines here, that one has come and gone. So in the absence of said “response,” or “escalation” or “provocation” or other sundry words used to sugarcoat the specter of more really bad stuff going down, we charge our chargers and stockpile water and have flashlights and transistor radios at the ready, and shelf-stable almond milk and cereal and canned goods. 

I was meant to go out to dinner with my dad and Bette (my stepmom). But they were away from their home on October 7th and had to drive back to Jerusalem, and it was scary. So I told them their birthday gifts to me were: That they will be comfortable and feel safer in their own home (I totally get it!). That they live here, an hour’s drive away versus the previous 15-hour flight. And that, after a long and arduous health journey, my father has really turned a corner and is doing SO WELL (in large part thanks to the love and care of Bette). He is peppy. He is smiling. He is sharp as a tack. His health has vastly improved. And he is living where he wants to live, and if we all had his level of Zen we would all be better off. 

To keep things “normal” Naama (my assistant) and I are cooking today for work. There’s skirt steak, fish, shoestring fries, chicken and rice on the docket. So what do two people do with four proteins? Jay and I will have some friends over later to eat the leftovers and watch the Olympics. 

As usual, I will end up feeding other people, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Now, this is not meant to be political. But a certain couch-surfing Vice Presidential candidate’s remarks about “childless cat ladies” and the dangers they pose dredged up a lot of feelings for me. It was implied that somehow, those who didn’t birth babies can’t properly steer a proverbial ship, that we should have less agency in decision-making, that we are somehow less-than. 

Essentially, that we don’t know how to care. 

As a biologically childless (but, alas, allergic-to-cats) lady, I took this very, very personally. I live to love, I live to nurture. I live to care. The fact that no children grew inside me does not change that. In fact, it may have informed it. I waited a long time to feel the way I do about my life and its worth. Yes, my husband, my stepchildren, my grandchildren, they have all enriched my existence in ways I could have never imagined.  

But I would like to think that we’ve evolved as a society to the point where we don’t need to measure up to anyone’s standard of how things should look. That we are just fine precisely where we are, who we are, and where we’re at. We set the goalposts—no one else. My birthday wish this year is that as a society, we take the time to help those of us who don’t feel that way to get there. I wish us all a better, more peaceful, less extreme, delicious-er year.  Starting right now.