Yesterday some guy followed me up the stairs on a subway transfer (that it turned out he wasn’t taking, just creepily following me like a creepy creep creep) and after the requisite come-on line (which I won’t burn your retinas with), he instantly whips out the line I’ve grown so accustomed to hearing: “What’s your heritage?”

Here’s what I don’t understand (well, here’s one of many, many, many things I don’t understand):

Why does every guy in New York who approaches me want to know my ethnicity?

And I’m serious about this. Because, look. I live in New York City. There are more Jews (such as moi) here than like everywhere ever. I should not be so unidentifiable.

For me, there are two varieties of these guys. The guy cited above fits into the first category: guys who guess. And they always guess Italian, Puerto Rican, or Greek. Seriously. And I am pale like the squishy underbelly of a cabbage.

The other category of guys are guys who want to know if I’m Jewish. These guys are usually Muslim or Israeli and nothing in between. I don’t know why either group bothers–I’m too Jewish for the Muslims and not Jewish enough for the Israelis. So it goes.

And why, friends, why oh why for the love of all that is good and not annoying, why do they need to know my heritage in the first place? When did this become an acceptable thing to ask a stranger? Read More »

Basically, I ran out of things to eat.

Yeah, yeah, it shouldn’t be that hard. But somehow nothing seems quite satisfying enough, quite interesting enough when I have to think so hard about my food.

I am not the kind of girl who diets. In fact, I’ve never been on a diet in my entire life (excluding this “Passover diet” that I go on every year for a week). And I’ll tell you, I don’t like it. If I had to be so careful about what I ate all the time, I would definitely be a much bigger bitch.

Which is really making me a better person. Because now when someone is rude to me on the train, I can think, “oh, they must be on a diet,” and let it go. Thanks, Passover!

In any event, the last couple of days were annoying. I missed out on free Beard Papa cream puffs, on free cookies, on going out to (not free, but still) pizza with friends, etc. etc.

I ate Pinkberry frozen yogurt for lunch one day when I was in a rush and couldn’t think of anything else that was fast.

I was not always nice to my boyfriend. Read More »

Basically, I’m hungry and fatigued. And I want to eat bread.

I wake up and I eat matzoh.

Then I go about my daily day (see?! I can’t even think of a better way to say this!) and find something I can eat for lunch (surprisingly difficult even in lower manhattan).

Then I’m cranky at people until dinner, at which point I am tired of trying to think of what to eat and end up having a fudgesicle.

Actually, I think I might be losing weight, but only because eating has become so calculated and joyless that it’s not even worth it.

I mean, this is not a big deal. I can’t have bread. To channel my grandmother for a moment, this should be the worst thing that happens to me. Read More »

I should probably point out that I am crappy Jew and, even in not eating chametz (leavened bread), I’m not actually keeping Kosher for Passover. There are lots of rules that I suck at and am therefore not doing. Think of me as a Secular Jew. That’s probably the nicest possible term.

Anyway, Day 3. I woke up hungry. I ate leftover lox (with nothing else because I am super gross) and drank coffee. Then I went about my daily business.

I didn’t get a chance to eat again until the early afternoon and by then I was starving, I mean like in a dizzy, light-headed kind of way. Usually I can wait a bunch of hours before eating again. But then again, usually I eat bread.

So I had chicken and broccoli for lunch and felt better but still hungry.

Round it off with an apple and I’m doing really great, right? Actually, maybe I’ll lose weight on this after all. Coincidentally, of course.

Buuuuut then I felt hungry and depraved and ate a whole bunch of chocolate. Twice.

Happy Passover. Hand over the bread.

And oh, what a Day 2 it was.

Well, first of all, last night I went to my parents’ house for a Seder. We went through our Maxwell House Haggadahs like I go through a fresh, steaming cup of Maxwell House coffee.

…Anyway.

I asked my father what the correct pronunciation of “Haggadah” was, because a friend of mine says it “ha-GAH-dah” whereas I have always heard it as “huh-GUH-duh.” I was told that the first way is Hebrew, the second is Yiddish. Go fig. My fam-o is full of the Yiddish. The Hebrew, not so much.

Okay, this no bread thing is making me punchy. Let’s move on to today: Read More »

Every year for Passover, I give up bread, grains, etc. for 8 days. Why? Because this is how we do.

My mother told me she used to bring tuna sandwiches on matzoh every year every day for all of Passover. I can’t imagine how she did this. Tuna on matzoh is basically disgusting.

But I digress. This morning my Chinese-American-Non-Jew boyfriend walked into our living room, took one look at me eating buttered matzoh, and said, “Hey, Matzoh Girl.”

That was it for me, folks. I am going to document the 8 days of my Passover Diet here on College Candy.

Side Note: I am calling it a diet only in the sense that it is a way of eating. Unfortunately, it is not a losing weight diet. Every year I think it might be. I mean, the Atkins Diet is, right? Unfortunately, every year I also end up eating a lot of cheese and junk food to fill up when bread is not possible, and so it ends up…let’s say evening out. Yeah. Evening out.

So, okay, last night through this morning:

Right before the sun went down, I had my last bread meal before Passover: a chicken gyro. Mmmm. So long, dear pita, I knew you well. Read More »

Passover. Great holiday. Eternal source of existential agony.

I’m Jewish, yes? Well, ethnically, for sure. My family is made up of Jews from Belarus and Romania/Transylvania (suck your blood, blah, blah, vampire joke) who take the culture seriously but the religion…well, not so much.

Supposedly, all sets of my parents’ grandparents were Orthodox, and then their parents (my grandparents) were all Conservative, but my parents, as first and second generation Americans, kind of let that all go. They sent me to Secular Hebrew School for five years, where I learned all about the culture but not the actual religious rites, and that was that.

However, my situation growing up was very different from theirs, and that, of course, made my relationship to Judaism a little more complicated.

My parents were both raised in Jewish neighborhoods in the Bronx. Growing up, they were in the ethnic majority (at least until high school). Being Jewish was just a fact of life.

I grew up in a very Italian- and Irish-American town on Long Island where I was one of about six Jews in my grade. Even though my parents and I barely practiced (every third year or so we’d go to temple for Yom Kippur), Jewishness became a very important part of my identity. As it happened, we lived directly next door to the Catholic church that was attended by about 85% of my classmates. This was a constant source of amusement. Jewish jokes? I was there…and maybe the one making them. Being Jewish made me stand out. So I made it work in my favor. Read More »

You know what’s funny? When people make fun of over-hyped things. You know what else is funny? When people satirize their own religion. And since I’m not Jewish (but should be, considering how many Jewish people I chill with on a regular basis), I’ll refrain from saying anything except that I find this clip hilarious.