Yesterday morning I forgot the sciatica that cripples me from time to time, and decided to treat my Tuki on this Purim festival!  I'm so glad that I planned for it weeks ago: instead of getting there in a rush and almost last minute as I used to do for the past festivals (which for us Jews almost always means a looot of cooking!), I was lucky as to stumble upon the recipe for Hamantaschen stuffing made with poppy seeds in a FB thread of my dear Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers in London. Ariel, indeed, had been saying that this, and not jam, is her favourite.

So, I made about fifty of these little triangles, which are supposed to remind of the pockets of Haman - boooooooo! - the evil man in Megillat Esther, the story of Esther and the Jewish people when in exile in Babylon, who were about to be exterminated because of Haman's plot - boooooooo! But thanks to her cousin Mordechai, who urged her to come forward and reveal herself as a Jewess to King Achasueros, of whom she was one of the concubines, Esther was courageous and asked the King to consider the evil that he was being led to do. Probably, if the plan had not been foiled, the Jewish people would no longer exist.

Ariel loved the Hamantaschen, so we made many little mishloach manot, the traditional packets of food for our friends and relatives that are traditionally given out on Purim.

This afternoon I went to visit my mum, and I brought her a mishloach manot of Hamantaschen.  When I go to see her, I never know how I will find her: if this is true for each of us, for Silvia it is much more so: sometimes she will talk to me as if she were talking to herself, with big gaps in her memory and maybe one sentence being repeated as if to fill those gaps. Sometimes, on the other hand, my heart leaps with joy seeing and hearing her being serene, present, affectionate ... today it was like that!

The wonderful thing for me about Jewish food is that I am passionate about telling the story of the festival for which I prepared that particular dish or dessert, and why.  So, since I found my mum amenable, I immediately offered the Hamantaschen and, sitting around the kitchen table with her and our dear Estelita, I told them about the Megillat Ester.

Silvia is always in the habit of eating only for appetite, I have almost never seen her having a second helping of even the most delicious food: this afternoon, while listening to my sketches she ate the sweets one after the other, and we were laughing at Haman's - booooo! and it was very good!

Chag Purim Sameach, happy Purim!