How to Safely Use an Older Tallit for a Huppah

Are you thinking of making a wedding huppah from an older, well-worn tallit, like a grandfather’s tallit, but concerned that the tallit is too frail to be tied to huppah poles? No one wants to risk damaging such a special heirloom. I thought I’d pass along great idea from one of our Huppahs.com clients who faced the same dilemma.

Our client rented a Simplicity Huppah and laid his grandfather’s tallit over the top of the canopy without tying to the tallit to the poles. The ends of the tallit draped over the edge of the canopy, so the fabric and fringe were visible.

The couple were able to wed under the tallit worn by the groom’s grandfather free from any concerns about damaging the tallit.

Thanks for sharing, Robert, and Mazel Tov!

VISIT:

• Free printable templates:Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors (Huppahs.com)
• 7 Ideas for Decorating a Huppah (Chuppah)
• Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park

Recipe: Blueberry Sauce (Parve, Vegetarian, Non-Dairy)

This gorgeous, sweet sauce can be made with fresh blueberries in the summer and frozen berries year round.

We post this sauce to accompany our baked pears for an autumn or winter celebration, but can’t you imagine it with something lemony? Let us know how you use it.

The recipe comes from one of my go-to cookbooks, Marlene Sorosky’s Fast & Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays. Not all of the recipes in the book are kosher, but sticking to the kosher recipes, I’ve found them to be not only delicious, but fast and foolproof.

Ingredients for Blueberry Sauce

Maked 5 cups of sauce

• 1 quart (4 cups) fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ cup water

Instructions for Blueberry Sauce

In a medium saucepan, stir all ingredients together. Bring to a boil over moderate heat and cook, stirring often, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until sauce thickens slightly and sugar is dissolved. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.

Make-Ahead Option

Sauce can be refrigerated, covered, up to 2 weeks.

Recipe: Baked Pears for an Autumn or Early Winter Wedding (Parve or Dairy, Vegetarian)

These pears work for both elegant and rustic menus. Add homemade berry sauce and serve them as an accompaniment to a slice of light wedding cake or as a side dish for a wedding brunch.

Today my daughters and I packed a brunch and brought it to my parents’ house to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The planned menu included poached pears, but last night, when I should have started the poaching, I hung out with a bunch of brothers and sisters and in-laws instead, talking about, among other things, Bill’s latest ice sculptures. So this morning, my daughters and I prepared the pears by baking them. The prep for baked pears is less fussy and less time-consuming than than for poaching, which makes them an appealing dish not just for easy-going family weekends, but for small self-catered weddings, too.

Serve these baked pear halves with a slice of light wedding cake and homemade berry sauce for a complete wedding dessert, or include them as a side dish for an autumn or early winter wedding brunch. We’ll make the berry sauce recipe our next post.

Menorah Ice Carving Hanukkiah

BTW, here’s a pic of the Hanukkiah ice sculpture Bill carved today during a demonstration at Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Manhattan.

Ingredients for Baked Pears

Serves 24

• 12 Bosc or Anjou pears
• Cooking oil spray
• ½ cup butter, melted (or for a pareve version to serve with a meat meal, use non-dairy margarine)
• 6 Tablespoons honey
• 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions for Baked Pears

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
2. Lightly spray the bottom of two 9″x13″ baking pans with cooking oil.
3. Cut pears in half, cut out the core, and peel the pears.
4. 

   Make 4 slices in each pear half, stopping about a quarter inch from the narrow end of the pear.

   Optional: Make four slices in each pear half, stopping about ¼” from the small end. This will enable you to fan out the slices on the plate when you serve it. Or leave the halves unsliced for a more rustic presentation.
5. Place the pears flat side down in the baking pans.
6. Mix the melted butter, honey and spices. Drizzle the mixture over the pears.
7. Cover the pans and bake for 40 minutes or until the pears are tender.

The pears can be stored overnight, covered, in the refrigerator.

Reader Question: How Do I Attach 2 Tallits Together to Make a Wedding Huppah?

Question: We are thinking of making a huppah canopy by combining the groom’s father’s tallit and his grandfather’s tallit. Do you have any recommendations for how we might do this?

Answer: The idea of making a wedding huppah canopy from more than one tallit, or prayer shawl, is a definite trend. At Huppahs.com we’re getting variations on this question more and more often.

Jewish couples have been marrying under huppah canopies made from tallits for centuries (Quick point: The Hebrew language plural for “tallit”, also spelled “tallith” would be “tallithim ” or “tallisim”. However, I’m using tallit as an English language word, so I’m using the plural “tallits”). Through the ages, the bride and groom stood under the groom’s tallit, in keeping with the symbolism of the huppah as the couple’s physical home and their shared spiritual space.

Many of our clients use our huppah poles with their own tallits or a tallit of a family member to create a very personal huppah.

Today, the idea of combining the tallits of more than one person is seen as a way to honor people who are special to the bride and groom and to represent the presence of these people in the couples’ lives.

As a huppah and tallit designer, I can recommend a few things to keep in mind:

1. Compatible Lengths: Make sure the two tallits you want to attach together are the same length.
2. Final Canopy Size: Every fabric canopy will drape in the middle. The larger the canopy, the more the drape. You’ll want to make sure that the size of the combined tallits isn’t so large that it drapes too low in the middle. Also, the larger the canopy, the more it will weigh, and heavier canopies pull more on the huppah poles. Be sure to use poles that are strong enough to handle the weight of the combined tallits without bending. For Huppahs.com’s poles, we recommend a canopy size that is no larger than 60″x80″ (1.5mx2m). That size yields a nice drape, and the poles are easy to hold.
3. Tallit Age: If you are using an older tallit, such as a grandfather’s tallit, look it over carefully to make sure the fabric isn’t frail or threadbare. Stitching two prayer shawls together will make small holes in the tallits, and when the canopy hangs the huppah poles, the weight of the tallits will pull at the fabric along the seam. Make sure the tallits are strong enough to hold up well to this kind of treatment.
4. Religious Nature of a Tallit: Keep in mind the religious role of the tallit. Wearing a tallit for prayer isn’t just a tradition, it’s a practice rooted in religious obligations laid out in the Torah. The Biblical and spiritual power of the tallit lies in its shape, with four corners, and the ritual fringes on the corners. Sewing two prayer shawls together changes this physical structure, and although doing so can create a huppah with great emotional meaning, my recommendation as a huppah and tallit designer is to use only one tallit for your huppah, to ensure you are preserving the tallit’s religious and spiritual power.

Given these practical and spiritual considerations, my recommendation in most cases is to use only one tallit for a huppah canopy and honor additional special people in other ways. Here are some options:

1. Ask them to hold a huppah pole.
2. Ask them to recite one of the seven blessings during the ceremony.
3. Acknowledge them during a speech or toast at the reception.

Update: Here’s another option for using two tallits that doesn’t involve sewing them together: Attach one tallit to the huppah poles, and lay the second tallit on top of the first. You would want to make sure that the fabric of the first tallit is strong enough so that it won’t rip at the point of the tallit where you tie it to the poles, especially since the fabric will be carrying the weight of two tallits.

This would be a way to combine two tallits without sewing them, and it would be a way to include a second tallit that is older and frail or too delicate to sew or carry weight.

This idea comes from a Huppahs.com client who wanted to use a grandfather’s tallit that was too frail to be tied to the poles. His solution was to start with a Simplicity Huppah and lay his grandfather’s tallit on top of it. A great idea.

Do you have any other suggestions for honoring special people on your wedding day? Please share them in the comment section.

RELATED:
Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park

Winter Wedding Hors d’Oeuvres Recipe: Latkes for a Crowd

Latkes are great dish to serve for a winter wedding, not just weddings at Hanukkah, because they are so satisfying on a cold day. You can serve them as an appetizer or with the entree as a tasty, creative alternative to baked potato or rice.

One year I had the pleasure of making latkes for a large group of American military service members. It was during Hanukkah in one of the four years I lived in Kuwait. This was between the Gulf Wars. My husband was the U.S. Defense Department’s designated lay leader for the Jewish service people who cycled through the country, which means that I was responsible for making holiday meals and parties for the Jewish service people in my home. It was a great time, we met a lot of really great people, and I hope they’re all now safe at home enjoying the country they’ve served.

On this particular Hanukkah evening, I was rushing to get ready for a crowd of service people who were coming for a party. I was in the middle of preparing the latke batter when they called on their way over to say that instead of the seven people that were expected, they were 16 people. I would need more latkes.

I started throwing all kinds of things into the bowl to bulk up the latke mix: more potatoes, more onions, more eggs, a couple boxes of dried latke mix that family had sent from the States, ricotta cheese, sour cream, and I’m not sure what else, maybe even some cream cheese. Of course, they were amazing, but because I didn’t keep track of exactly what went in them, I would never know how to reproduce them.

It’s OK that I don’t remember, because I want to give you a non-dairy latke that you can serve with any wedding meal, including meals that include meat. And I want to give you a version that is easy to prepare and can be made a day or two before the wedding. The recipe below is adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd: Recipes with a Vegetarian Emphasis for 24 or More, a book that I relied on heavily when serving large crowds in Kuwait. I raised the flavor profile a bit to create a more refined, wedding-worthy dish by adding sautéed leeks and a non-dairy sour cream with chives to serve on the side. Yum.

Recipe: Latkes for a Crowd (Parve)

Serves 24 (2 latkes per person)

Latke Ingredients

• 4 ½ lbs. potatoes
• 4 lbs. onions
• 2 cups chopped leeks
• 24 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. salt
• 1 ½ cups bread crumbs or matza meal
• 1 cup + 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

“Sour Cream” with Chives Ingredients

• 2 pints (4 cups) non-dairy sour cream
• ¼ cup chopped fresh chives

Latke Instructions

1. Chop the leeks and sautée over medium heat for 3 minutes until just translucent. Remove them from the heat and put them aside.
2. Grate the potatoes coarsely with a food processor or hand-held grater.
3. Put the potatoes into a colander and squeeze them to eliminate excess water.
4. Preheat the oven to 350º.
5. Grate the onions and drain them in a colander. Squeeze out the excess water.
6. In a large bowl, beat the eggs.
7. Add the potatoes, onions, leeks, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs or matzo meal. Mix well.
8. Pour ¼ cup of oil into the bottom of four half-size insert pans (12½” x 10¼” x 2″) and place them in the hot oven for 5 minutes.
9. Pour the batter into the hot pans. Spread the oil smoothly across the top of the batter with a spatula.
10. Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes, or until crusty and golden.
11. While still hot, cut each pan into 12 latke squares.

“Sour Cream” with Chives Instructions

Make the sour cream the same day you intend to serve it. In a medium bowl mix the chopped chives into the non-dairy sour cream.

To Serve

• If your serve the latkes pre-plated, put two latkes on each plate and two tablespoons of “sour cream” next to the latkes.
• If you are using a buffet, serve the “sour cream” in a bowl next to the latkes.

Make Ahead Options

You can make the latkes a day before the wedding. Cover them with foil and keep refrigerated. Reheat in 350º oven for 10-12 minutes.

Pantone Announces 2012 Color of the Year: Tangerine Tango – Does It Work for Weddings?

The world’s color king maker, Pantone, just announced the Color of the Year for 2012: Tangerine Tango, a vibrant reddish orange.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

We’re sure to see Tangerine Tango appliances, clothing, accessories, and ads. Given Pantone’s close association with one of the country’s leading retailers of wedding clothing and accessories, The Dessy Group, we’re almost certainly headed for Tangerine Tango bridesmaids’ dresses.

Question: How do you think Tangerine Tango works as a wedding color?

Super Small Wedding Music Budget? Consider the iPod Option

Do you have a nano-size wedding music budget? Consider using your iPod to crank out the tunes. I recently talked to Patrick, owner of the Washington, DC-area Ipod Mix, which creates custom music mixes for weddings and other events. Patrick has been an event DJ for twenty years, and he now also offers iPod mixes through his internet-based service. The cost savings over live music or a DJ are amazing: as little as $100 gets you music for your cocktail reception and dinner/dance reception.

“For music and songs, we leave it completely up to the client to tell us what their style and tastes are, then we customize their mix to fit this,” Patrick says. “We try to make each mix as different as possible so it has a unique feel for their wedding day.”

But he brings his DJ experience to the custom mixes, adding what Patrick calls “dance floor packers”. “You want people to enjoy themselves and have fun, and these types of songs help people loosen up.” Still, it’s all based on the clients’ tastes. Ipod Mix has done mixes with all country music, rock oriented mixes, and mixes with a more vintage feel.

For amplification, you can connect your iPod or other MP3 player to your venue’s in-house amplification system, which sometimes requires a rental fee, or equipment rented from an entertainment company. Fees vary, but you can expect sound equipment rental to run in the neighborhood of $200. If you are renting your tables, chairs, or a tent, Patrick recommends asking the same vendor about including sound equipment in a package deal.

For couples considering the iPod option, Patrick recommends two points to consider. First, there’s no getting around the fact that the atmosphere will not be the same as at as when you have a live DJ. I would recommend thinking about the crowd you’re inviting and the space you’ll be in and considering whether they’ll help make up the energy that a DJ would otherwise bring to the cocktail hour or dance floor.

Second, and what Patrick says is “the absolute biggest thing to keep in mind”, is that not everyone at your wedding will share your musical tastes. Speaking from his twenty years of DJ experience, Patrick says, “If you limit too much the type of mix we create for you, most likely you will find people are not going to have a good time. The best, most successful and entertaining weddings are ones where all the musical styles are included, so everyone will be dancing and enjoying themselves all night long.”

Ipod Mix’s website and Facebook page.

Wedding DIY: KosherEye Posts Candy Decor Projects

Source: KosherEye.com

Does candy feature in the theme of your upcoming wedding? KosherEye.com has just posted photos and instructions for making candy trees, candy and flower centerpieces, and lollipop place card holders.

KosherEye recommends the projects for your Rosh Hashanah table, but in the same way toddlers know that just about any object makes a fabulous hat, we know that pretty holiday projects like this make great wedding inspiration.

Source: KosherEye.com

Imagine candy trees among the apothecary jars of sweets on your candy buffet or the lollipop place card holders doubling as favors. See all the projects and instructions at KosherEye.com…

Wedding DIY: Shabby Chic Burlap Banner

For those shabby chic wedding self-stylists out there — and I know there are a lot of you — take a look at this easy DIY burlap banner project posted by Megan White, one half of the event planning duo Social Graces, based in Springfield, Missouri. The project appears on the company’s website, eventsbysocialgraces.com.

The demonstration banner reads “A-i-d-e-n” for a baby shower, but you could just as well write out “J-u-s-t-M-a-r-r-i-e-d” or “J-e-n-&-M-i-k-e”. “I-A-m-M-y-B-e-l-o-v-e-d-’-s-A-n-d-M-y-B-e-l-o-v-e-d-I-s-M-i-n-e” would probably not be practical. Project details…

Photo Source: Megan White, eventsbysocialgraces.com

Recipe: Ginger Pear Pie for a Wedding Dessert Buffet (Dairy or Parve)

We’re continuing the pie recipes, inspired by our recent fruit picking trip to Lawrence Farms Orchards in Newburgh, New York and the growing popularity of pie dessert buffets at weddings. In our last post, we offered peach pie.

Today, we present a pear pie enhanced with the flavor of ginger and a crumble top with pecans. The original recipe and the photo come from Delilah Stauffer on allrecipes.com, but we adopted the commenters’ recommendations to use real maple syrup (in place of the original recipe’s corn syrup) and pre-bake the pie crust.

By the way, did you see Bill’s question in the comment section of the last post? He asked about kosher foods at Lawrence Farms. In addition to the fresh fruits and vegetables being kosher, of course, the farm shop also has a freezer of Klein’s kosher ice creams and flavored ices for the many kosher-keeping families who visit. Yeah!

Ingredients for Ginger Pear Pie

• 1 9-inch unbaked pastry shell (dairy or parve) [parve pie crust recipe]
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup real maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 4 large pears, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine

TOPPING:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 cup cold butter or margarine
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Instructions for Ginger Pear Pie

1. Pre-bake pie shell according to package directions.
2. In a saucepan, combine the next six ingredients until blended. Gently stir in pears. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally; boil for 1 minute. Add butter. Pour into pastry shell.
3. For topping, combine flour, brown sugar and ginger in bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over pears. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

TIP: To keep the edge of the pie crust from over baking, cover the crust edge with aluminum foil during the second baking.

Tablescape of Wine Bottle Candle Holders

A tablescape of wine bottle candle holders. Great for evening weddings in the approaching cooler seasons. Plenty of other folks seem to have been inspired by this image; I traced it back through more than a half-dozen blogs and websites to its origin on This Is Glamorous (http://citified.blogspot.com). The photo is by Tom Mannion.

Recipe: Apricot Rolls for a Middle Eastern Wedding Menu (Vegan, Parve)

These traditional sweets add a Middle Eastern touch to a dessert buffet, hors d’oeuvres reception or, as Gil Marks, points out, a Middle Eastern wedding shower. The recipe comes from Mark’s treasure of a cookbook, The World of Jewish Entertaining.

Ingredients for Middle Eastern Apricot Rolls

Makes about 7 dozen rolls

• 1 pound (3¼ cups) dried apricots, washed and drained
• ½ cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• ½ cup coarsely chopped blanched almonds or unsalted pistachios

Instructions

1. In a food processor or grinder, grind or puree the apricots with the ½ cup sugar.
2. Sprinkle a large piece of wax paper with additional sugar and spread half of the apricot mixture on top of a ¼-inch-thick rectangle.
3. Arrange the nuts along one side of the rectangle, then roll up from the nut side. Repeat with the remaining apricot mixture.
4. Let stand, uncovered, at room temperature for 2 days, then cut into slices.

Alternatively, mix the nuts into the apricots, roll into ½-inch balls (about 50 balls), and press an additional piece of nut on top of each ball.

Wedding DIY: How to Decorate a Table with Garland

Let me refine the title of this article: it should be “How to Decorate a Table with Garland WITHOUT Putting Holes in Your Table or Your Tablecloth.” The conventional method of attaching garland to a table requires sticking pins into the table through the tablecloth. Not ideal, especially when the table and tablecloth are your own.

To style our wedding punch photo shoot we avoided putting holes in our cloth and table by attaching the beautiful Ruscus garland with tablecloth clamps. The garland is from FiftyFlowers.com which is a great source of wholesale flowers for DIY brides.

You’ll find full instructions with photos on our Facebook page…

Photo: Jason Weil; Rockville, Maryland
Garland: FiftyFlowers.com

Enjoy Our New Summer Bliss Wedding Punch Recipe

We put on our celebration hats to come up with this cool new wedding punch recipe to celebrate the launch of our new Huppahs.com’s Facebook page. We call our divine creation Summer Bliss.

Your guests will love this original summer punch: a cool combination of watermelon, Catoctin Creek Distillery’s Organic (and kosher!) Watershed Gin, and other tasty ingredients. It makes a refreshing and delicious addition to a wedding or party beverage menu.

Get the recipe on Huppahs.com’s Facebook page.

Along with the recipe, you’ll also find out on our Facebook page how to enter a drawing for a free Catoctin Creek Distillery T-shirt.

We even show you how to style your table like we did using garland from FiftyFlowers.com.

Check it all out – Summer Bliss awaits…

Photo: Jason Weil
Garland: Wholesale flowers from FiftyFlowers.com

Flash Sale on Wedding Peonies at FiftyFlowers.com – Ends July 1st!

Flash sale on peonies from Fiftyflowers.com:
“Our Peony fields are bursting with flowers which allows us to pass on a VIP flash sale to you! Get 100 Peonies for $199.99, but only for a limited time!! Peonies are a picture perfect flower that will WOW you with its beauty and elegance. Choose from our Blush, Hot Pink, Pink Sarah Bernhardt, or a beautiful Mixed pack!”

Hurry, Only Available for Delivery from Now until July 1st, so get them while you can! Go to the peony sale now…

How to Decorate Your Huppah #5: Hang Ribbons from Poles

One in a series of posts on how to decorate your huppah…

Add color and movement to your huppah with long ribbons that catch the breeze. Ribbons make simple and inexpensive wedding decorations.

You can keep the look simple with one color, or combine ribbons in all the colors of your wedding to draw the huppah into the rest of your wedding décor.

To create the best effect, ribbons should hang down one-half to two-thirds the length of the huppah poles. And rather than matching up the ends of the ribbons, vary their lengths by a half inch or so to encourage them to move independently of each other.

Take a look at the joyous combination of ribbon colors that Barbara Hoffman of Maryland chose for her daughter’s Simplicity Huppah earlier this month. Each pole was tied with three ribbons chosen from a palette of orange, baby blue, ivory, pink, white, and apple green.

Here’s another decorative option that works well in combination with ribbons: Scatter Flower Petals on the Ground