But Seriously.

I started to blog my family's recipes because I was terrified to belong to the last generation of Sephardic women in this country, willing to cook my beloved burrecas.

I was terrified to find out that neither my daughters nor my Sephardic friends were interested in learning how to grind nuts to making those delicate-melt-in-your-mouth mostachudos ("why would I do it if I can buy it from you?") or to make the perfect oil dough for boyos that will guarantee many "aaaaaahhh's" and "ooooooohhhh's" whenever you put a tray of those yummy little treats over the table.

My daughters were raised up eating what they understood to be normal, everyday, so-not-special, plain food and they are either not surprised at all in front of dishes that for other people would be "exotic", or they would be fed up with sweets they started eating ever since they teeth. ("Baklavas again?")

So, feeling a little bit disappointed about my totally unsuccessful quest to find heirs worthy of receiving my grandmother's recipe book, I started to blog in an attempt to put every recipe I know, all together in the same place and share it with the world. Who knows? maybe someone will care.

My first post saw the light to a very restricted public. I hereby recognize the fact that I am not quite an expert in blogging, blogging communities, publications etiquette, and all those big little issues pertaining to the virtual world.

After some 300's visits to Pinterest, Google, Facebook among others, and all my gratitude to the online community which selflessly share every single imaginable tutorial you can picture, I felt more confortable with my writings and with my humble existence in the virtual fellowship.

Looking for places who would welcome my posts, I found Marcia Weingarten's "Bendichas Manos" and I was delighted to see beloved recipes that soothed my soul with the incomparable aroma of familiarity. However, the recipes and the whole site were written in English.

"Uhmmm... that may be quite a challenge", I thought.

I finally decided to share one of my posts with Bendichas Manos after I took into account that if the nature of the page was of Sephardic heritage, hopefully, many of the readers would speak Ladino (which is around 90% Spanish, the language in which all of my posts were written up to that time). Bingo!.

I wasn't ready to receive feedback from that sole post, and I did. Unexpected, friendly, encouraging comments from people from across the Equator. Sweet.

Less was I ready to be contacted by rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, who, during a very beautiful conference call, invited me to contribute with My Jewish Learning which is a totally amazing Jewish blog to which I was a huge fan eons before being contacted by her.

But the story doesn't end up here. After I found out that Ruth was a rabbi, I corteusly asked her where was she ordained, only to find out that she is an HUC graduate, just like my beloved husband, rabbi Roberto Feldmann.

Oh, the signs of the universe!. Both Ruth and Roberto met each other a few years ago in Argentina at a Rabbis' Kallah of studies, all of which makes Ruth my instant friend and unconditional comrade. ;)

It's a small world, isn't it?

So, here I am, declaring that I will do something I never considered doing, out of embarrassment, which is to put the contents of my blog into my clearly imperfect English.

I considered some proof reading from a professional translator but then I thought that it would be fun to laugh and let others laugh out at this experiment.

So, with all due respect to my English speaking readers, I hereby open the gates to comprehension (or at least I touch the gates and attempt to open them up) and start translating right away.

Thank you Ruth, for this opportunity.

Love

Yael Camhi.

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