My parents made me a big bat mitzvah – like black-tie-affair-on-a-yacht-cruising-around-Manhattan-harbor-with-a-hundred-and-fifty-of-our-closest-family-and-friends big. But they weren’t just the people that planned the party and paid for it. They saw me through all my years of Hebrew school and bat mitzvah lessons. They helped me write my speeches and made me practice them. And although we had […]

I have recently become an expert – nay, a master – of white rice preparation. How, you ask? I don’t know exactly, but my white rice of late has had the perfect balance of oil, salt, moistness, and fluff. It is everything I ever hoped for and dreamed for in a calorie-heavy, nutrition-light accompaniment to the delicious (and likewise unhealthy) sweet and […]

I call it a “food mood.” I don’t know what it is exactly – we’ve never consulted a doctor for a technical term – but there is something very real and disturbing that happens to my husband’s blood sugar when he gets hungry. It makes him faint, dizzy, and downright iRrAtiONal. It runs in his family, and now it runs […]

Hi Allison, I’m reform and don’t understand why Orthodox women don’t read Torah in temple. If you have not heard Torah sung by a woman you have only heard half of the Torah!! The most important thing is that Torah is READ by someone with a love for it. I would appreciate your thoughts on this. […]

We were headed to my in-laws for a visit when we lost our way — three times. And there was no one blame but the GPS. The first time we were looking for the nearest gas station off the highway. The GPS took us to a dark, winding road. Five miles later we were parked in front of a house. Needless to say, our […]

My younger daughter has been trying to be exactly like my older daughter for about as long as she’s been trying to be. Which, by the way, is a precursor to complete and utter awesomeness (and incidentally what I did as a kid with my older sister). This monkey-see-monkey-do business produces children that are either twice as nice or […]