Making Menena

We had a busy two-hour session each week day this past week. Immediately after reading a chapter from "A Shout in the Sunshine," and after clearing the tables from snack, we began our Hebrew through Movement exercises. This week, I began to introduce Purim vocabulary, since Purim is just three weeks away.

Warming up with a run around the classroom - "Koolam, la'rootz mee'saveev la'keeta." ("Everyone, run around the classroom.")

Then I introduced several words related to Purim:  megillat ester (Scroll of Esther), keter shel melech (a king's crown), keter shel malka (a queen's crown), l'hareesh ra'ashan (make noise with a grogger), maseycha (mask), and l'heeshtachavot (bow down).

We had a lot of fun with the last word in the above list!

And with other words in the Purim vocabulary as well.

During the 3rd-5th grade tefillah in the Beit Knesset, our fifth graders used their new Siddurim (prayer books) with beautifully decorated covers for the first time. 

As soon as we walked into the BK, we could see the colorful array of Siddurim on the bookcase. Bill had brought them down from the Social Hall in time for our weekday tefillah.

I actually re-arranged the books before the session began, so that all 10 of our Edot 5th graders' books were standing next to each other, easy to find. 

And after tefillah and hafsaka were over, it was time to focus on our final preparations for the Chamsa Family Workshop this coming Sunday.

Our final project in this unit of study was to prepare menena, an Iraqi-Jewish treat modeled after an Arabic pastry called ma'amoul.  I took the recipe that we used from Claudia Roden's wonderful "The Book of Jewish Food." Traditionally, Iraqi Jews include this pastry in their "Meeshlo'ach Manot" baskets given out on Purim day to neighbors and friends. Since Purim is just 3 weeks away, our timing is near-perfect!

It's an easy recipe to prepare, though rather tricky if it's the first time you're making it.

Basically, you're preparing a dough cup, and filling it with a date or nut filling (in our case it had to be only dates since we have to maintain a nut-free zone at JQuest).

The tricky part is making the dough cup. After taking a walnut-sized piece of dough (which I prepared ahead of time at home, since we wouldn't have enough time for the entire process during class), you roll it into the shape of a round ball, press your thumb in the center to create a "well," then work the dough to build thin walls around the well, as thin as possible, in which to put the date filling. Sounds easy? Well, it's not as easy as it sounds!

After a few tries, each student found his/her own system for making the dough cup. It took a lot of focus and care not to make the walls of the cup so thin that they broke.

OK - no one says you can't have fun while you're focusing!

Once the cup was ready, it was time to add in the date filling.

I had made a date paste at home, together with the dough, which I put in bowls on the tables. The easy part of putting in the date filling, was taking a small spoonful of it from the bowl...

...The really tricky part was getting the very sticky date filling to stay in the cup without getting sticky yourself as you used fingers to push it in and keep it in. That's why I also put bowls of warm water and lots of paper towels on the tables!

At the start, figuring out how much date filling to put into the dough cup could be tricky as well. Too little, and you'd basically end up with a dough ball with just a tiny hint of  date.

Too much, and you won't be able to close up the cup into a ball again, per the recipe instructions.

Once the ball is closed, you put it on the baking sheet with the smooth side up, then press it slightly down. And voila - the menena is ready for the oven. I baked the pastries for half an hour, then sprinkled them while still hot with confectioner's sugar.

Near the end of each session, once the students had all developed their own systems for each step of the menena making process, I reviewed the two songs that we'll be singing during our workshop - "Al Naharot Bavel" (By the Rivers of Babylon), and "Hallelu Avdei Adonai" (Praise those who serve Adonai). We'll sing the chorus to this last song as we listen to the CD, so it's really the chorus (made up of the 3 words in the title) that we were practicing.

We had just enough time to finish making the menena pastries and to wash our hands, when it was time to go to the Shira classroom, to join them in learning a Purim song with Ben. It's one of my all-time favorites.

If it's Purim, it's time to be happy! And Purim is celebrated in the month of Adar. Hence the title of the song, "Mee'she'neechnas Adar, marbeen b'seemcha." ("One who enters Adar, is filled with happiness.")

I'm looking forward to our Chamsa Family Workshop this coming Sunday. There has been a change of venue. Since so many people have told me they will attend, we'll be holding the workshop up in the Oneg Room instead of in our classroom. A separate notice has gone out to all the attendees with this information.