Sunday, April 5, 2009

When The Last Plate Comes Down ... We're All "Turned Over"

Jews of German extraction have a great word for turning the kitchen back over to chometzdik after Pesach.  We call it "Rumpling" (i.e. to "rumple" is used as a verb).  We don't unfortunately, have any cool word for turning over INTO Pesach, which is what we did in my house last night.

When I was a little girl, I was the small, wiry, tomboy child, so my job each year was to climb up on top of the refrigerator and unload the Pesach cabinet, by carefully handing things down one at a time.  I felt very important because my being small was for once an ASSET. Every year things came down in a familiar order until this plate.  We never used it come to think of it, but that plate was always in the far recesses of the cabinet and when it came down, that meant I was done.


I never gave much thought to the plate as a child, but recently, when my mother moved to Eretz Yisroel, sentimentality dictated that I take it to my house and I then had the opportunity to examine it more closely.
We always got a chuckle that the plate was surely painted by a gentile because of the obvious mistake on it, but I never took note of what the plate was for. 
My grandfather's name is handpainted on the back and it appears that it was presented to him in 1926 on the 40th anniversary of the choir of the Klaus shul in Germany.
Pretty amazing stuff.... now if I could only find a use for it......

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

What mistake ?

tembow said...

yeah, pardon my ignorance (maybe due to no zoom on the pic) but where's the "obvious" mistake?

G6 said...

Sorry.... I don't know why you can't enlarge the pic.....
Instead of the letters "Kaf" and "Taf" for "Keser Torah", there is a "Tes" instead.... :)

ProfK said...

Along the same line, we have a plate with sentimental family value. I was afraid to use it so I shouldn't break it. I took it to a frame shop and they made a shallow plexiglass and wood frame around the plate and it hangs on a wall near my grandparents' pictures. It's a conversation starter for the family because it always leads to a command for my mother of "tell us more elter babi and zayde stories please."

Anonymous said...

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Who's Coming to your Seder ?

G6 said...

:D
Along with my family, we have old seder "regulars" and some new friends.
Kol Dichfin.....
Anybody who still needs a place - there's always room at the G6 table!
Email me.

Anonymous said...

i would totally come but we don't mish

G6 said...

Anonymous -
"Casa G6" is a year round establishment.
The invitation doesn't expire.
I'm fascinated as to how one stays "anonymous" at the Shabbos table though ;) ......

Mikeinmidwood said...

Maybe an am haaretz wrote it.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

I just realized something, I was being slow before. Your blog title is "Guess Who's coming to dinner" so it makes sense you invite people over. I didn't think of that before...slow me.

interesting plate, I wouldn't have caught that mistake. That's nice that you brought it over, I also like keeping things with sentimental value.

G6 said...

JSB -
I started this blog as more of a record for myself of guests coming and going throughout our house... what they liked to eat... what not.... hence the name.
But it evolved into something more (and because of this I am more careful about posting guest's real names and what they eat, etc.):)
We do love to have people over though.
You are welcome any time :D

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

That is such an interesting idea for a blog.

lol, I can imagine.

Thanx :-)

frumcollegegirl said...

yea, but you want to be careful...for all you know G6 might be and axe murderer who uses her blog as a way to lure unsuspecting guests over...

G6 said...

FCG -

YOU survived!!

(Of course, who knows... we could be in cahoots in our dastardly plan... mwaaahahaha)

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

FCG: lol, nice try!

G6: btw, what's the 6 for?
and that's cool you had FCG over, I remember you once saying that you recommend her blog.

G6 said...

JSB - Count the number of people in the 2007 Strawberry Fluff Pic ;)

(Somebody recently suggested I that I should change my name to G6+2 {or more correctly G6+2+2})

FCG was a great guest. She didn't eat with her fingers or sneeze into the platters or anything!

I'm sort of curious now to see how many fellow bloggers we can have for dinner in the next year (regulars don't count). Harry-er said he'll come. Anybody else in?

frumcollegegirl said...

you only thought i behaved because you were comparing me to the other guests...

the other guests-your children still blame ME for having them over

G6 said...

FCG -
You said you wanted to meet some of our more "colorful" guests...
You asked for color.
You got color.
Be careful what you wish for ;)

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

G6: I figured the 6 would have to do with how many is in the family.

It's nice to see that FCG had a good time.