Author Archives: garobins@usc.edu

Matzah Ball Soup

“First I bake the chicken and then cut the chicken off the bones, into cubes. I changed this part of the recipe from what my mom did. Grandma always puts the whole chicken in the soup but I never ate the chicken meat because it was always dry that way. Add whole Potato, yellow onion, turnip, parsnip, a handful of parsley, 1 leek, peppercorns, salt and pepper to taste. Put the chicken aside and put the bones in the pot with broth, bouillon cube, and water and veggies. Cook 2-3 hours. Strain out the peppercorns and all the veggies, add carrots and celery during the last 15 minutes of cooking and then add the chicken later.

As Jewish tradition, having Matzoth ball soup in the fridge is a staple. If it wasn’t in the fridge, it was frozen and ready to be defrosted. This soup is traditionally served during the Jewish holiday of Passover; a time that commemorates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian slavery, which lasts eight days. During this time, individuals are not supposed to eat bread; they primarily consume various meals and snacks are made with matzah. While chicken soup can be made at any point in the year, adding matzah balls to the soup makes is a classic Passover tradition. There are many different variations and there is not a “right” way to make this recipe or how the soup should taste, however, it is very typical for people to say things like “my Mom’s soup is the best ever” and have joking argument about it.

It is common for recipes to be passed down through generations of families, especially when they are related to rituals and ceremonies. I personally have grown up cooking with my mother and from a young age I knew this recipe by heart. She told me that her mother taught her the recipe, and made modifications to it which she then taught me

 

Kings, A Drinking Game

Kings is a game where you use each card in a deck of cards to represent a different drinking rule. This was told me by my older friends who experienced drinking before I. This game was talk to me by one of my friends. We always hang out and find things to do in the summer, a lot of them are drinking socially. One of our favorite games is called Kings. In this game it is basically a random way of making everybody in the group drink, by following rules based on a classic deck of cards. This game is really fun to play because there’s not many guidelines however you can make the game as fun or intense as you want it to be. The rules are pretty self-explanatory, and it’s a really fun game to play to pass time, enjoy great laughs, and to get drunk. We play this game in New York City, and I have tried to introduce this game to some of my friends, who have never even heard of it. It is really interesting to think of the geographic boundaries that games have been passed down. There are also other drinking games that I do not know that are played in other regions of the country, which shows the diversity amongst verbal folklore.
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Insight about Tomorrow

If you have one foot on yesterday, and one foot on tomorrow, you end up pee-peeing on today. Be present.  

This quote was told to me by my brother. He is a very wise person and has a lot of insight for saying this under his sleeve. This was told to him likely by our father, which is surprising because I had never heard it before. The meaning of this saying is implying that if you focus on yesterday and tomorrow, you can never focus on what happens today. It mainly is telling the audience to be present and focus on where you are in your current moment. There are many quotes about being present, however, this one is particularly special because it has a joke and connotation to it. It talks about peeing which makes it have a lighter tone and my intrigue audiences to respond to it more than they would a more serious quote.

 

Riddle about the Future

What is something that is always coming, but we will never get to? Tomorrow!!

This riddle is kind of tricky but one of those sayings that it is so obvious. Essentially, this riddle makes you think about what could potentially happen but you would never be able to get to, and there are so many possibilities for this. It could be about crossing an ocean, and never being able to get to the other side, but that’s actually possible. It could also be about going into space or and never getting to Mars, however it’s as simple as thinking about how we are always living in today and there’s a past present and future. Tomorrow is always going to be tomorrow, but we will never be up tomorrow because tomorrow will always be the day that you’re in, today.

 

Friendship Protocol

Keep your friends close and enemies closer.

When my brother went to college, he encountered a lot of difficulties making friends. He explained to me how keeping his friends close and enemies closer really helped him. If your friends are close, you trust them and have a compliance that they will not do anything bad to you. Your enemies, however, will. You never know what information they have about you, so it’s important to get to know every single person that you meet. While you may not know that someone is your enemy, it is important to learn things about every individual you and counter just in case of a scenario that May hurt you. When you have a situation where someone can have leverage on you, your enemy, it is important to also have leverage on them so you will not be completely thrown under the bus. You normally don’t have to worry about these kinds of things with your friends, because well, they are your friends.