It’s Hump Day

Last week was a flurry of planning and baking and cooking and fetching and running from here to there.  We were blessed this year to be able to sponsor an Iftar dinner in our community.  Last year, the first year, we actively participated in the menu planning, the micromanaging, the driving everyone at the Mosque insane…and ended up with not enough food.  This year, we relaxed a little on the external obsessing and just let our craziness unleash on what we actually had control over.  Which was what we were cooking, baking, preparing, shopping and bringing.  And we had too much.  Did we really?

The days leading up to the Iftar, I baked desserts, the day before the Iftar we cooked the chicken, the morning of the Iftar we prepared the veg and fruit.  We carted it all there, we helped with the setup (more like we got in the way of the setup.) And when the people arrived, there were less in number than expected.  Everyone had more than enough to eat their fill, and we were able to send home food with quite a few for Suhoor and the days after.  Maybe this was the real purpose for all of our work?  To have plenty to share with the faithful in their homes, not just that one meal.

During cleanup, one of the ladies I see on a regular basis was commenting on how many things we brought in addition to what was provided and I told her, “to me, if I’m not baking, it’s not a holiday.  The more I cook for others, the more I bake for others, the more it feels holiday to me.”  Maybe this was a little window into my holiday confusion on how to go about celebrating the Eid.

It’s about time to whip up a new item to share with New Friend. (I’m still working on her alias.)  Stay tuned!