Sunset in the Dog Park

Last Sunday my daughter and I went to the dog park in Donaldson Park. She wanted to see the dogs, and I was happy to see the sunset. Donaldson Park is on the other side of Highland Park from where we live, and it is right next to the Raritan River. You can park right near the dog parks.

There is a dog park (a large caged in area) for little dogs and one for big dogs. There were a lot more big dogs. They romp around and play games with each other. My daughter was following the interactions carefully.

I enjoyed the oranges, reds, yellows of the sunset. The steeple you see is across the Raritan River in New Brunswick.

Good night!

For more photos Straight Out Of the Camera:

Healing in a Community

It did have a healing effect, the Borough Council meeting, at least I thought so. Elsie-Foster Dublin, councilwoman, led the meeting, and at one point she talked about how when the African American community had problems, Rabbi Malomet had sent her a helpful email. Now, when the Jewish community was upset by an incident, Rabbi Malomet again sent her a calming email. Several Jewish community members, including Rabbi Luban and Rabbi Kaufman, expressed their thanks to the police department for their swift action. And the police commissioner (who was thrilled with all the praise) was sure to point out that Rabbi Kaminetsky had come by the police department that day to find out how the police were doing (I think he operates as a chaplain for the police). And the meeting wasn’t just about the broken glass incident – one person who lives near Raritan Avenue has a terrible problem with noise and someone else has problems with broken sidewalks. The usual small town fare.

There was someone sitting next to me who appeared to be a journalist, as he was taking copious notes. I didn’t take any – my purpose in writing this post is just to say thank you to those who make this a nice community.

• • •

See photos of sunset at Donaldson Park and the dog park. I did update with a few more details the post on the night of broken glass in Highland Park (and in New Brunswick).

Corn Bread Recipe

We served corn bread on Thanksgiving, and as I talked about doing in my previous corn bread post, I finally put together the corn bread recipe for preparation and consumption by the general blog public.

Ingredients

• Oil to cover the pan

Dry ingredients:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup oat milk (or rice milk or almond milk)
• 3/4 cup applesauce (you can try a full cup or even more – my previous version of this cake, without measuring applesauce, was moister than this one)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup sugar (you can add more maple syrup instead, if you want)

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl. Mix the wet ones in another bowl. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a pan – I used a tube pan this time, because my last one was quite moist. With 3/4 cup applesauce, a regular baking pan should be fine, though it will probably take longer to bake the middle than the sides. Mix all the ingredients together and pout into the pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Question: is it hard to obtain maple syrup where you live? You might try molasses, but it will then be a different sort of result, darker and with molasses-like flavor.

• • •

Upcoming recipes for this blog – I finally took photos of the sprouting process, so I hope to post about sprouting lentils soon. As Chanukah is coming, I have two diametrically opposed blog post ideas: 1) sufganiyot – doughnuts recipe AND 2) a group post (meaning your participation) about salad dressing with olive oil, for those of us who wish to partake in a food way of the miracle of oil and would prefer not to consume mass quantities of fried food in order to do so.

Red Carnation

Update: I added one more photo of red carnations.

Broken Glass and a Vandal is Arrested

I will be visiting the Judaica Gallery today because I need to make a purchase for my daughter – at least those of us that are local can support the businesses that were targeted. Rutgers Hillel and Chabad in New Brunswick also were targeted with smashed glass, as well as the restaurant Maoz. The Highland Park businesses were Jerusalem Pizza, Park Place, Judaica Gallery, Trio Gifts and Jack’s Hardware. Maybe I should go buy some light bulbs at Jack’s.

A big thank you to the Highland Park police for their quick and decisive action regarding this crime.

Update: A Letter from Mayor Steve Nolan (it ends with: “As a community, we are much stronger than a pane of glass could ever be.” – bravo)

Update: An excerpt from a letter from Rutgers Hillel director Andrew Getrauer:

Wednesday morning at 2 AM a Jewish Rutgers student, very
involved in Hillel, was at the kosher Dunkin’ Donuts in Highland Park,
when a man approached him and started a conversation about Jewish
issues. He identified himself as Jewish. This deteriorated into a rant
where the man also declared himself a neo-Nazi and told the student he
should be in a camp and killed like his ancestors, and that he would
start a ‘second Kristalnacht.’ At this point the Dunkin Donuts staff
threw the man out of the store.

Wednesday morning Highland Park woke up to find 5 Jewish-owned
stores with windows broken; 2 Judaica stores, 2 kosher restaurants, and
a hardware store owned by an Orthodox man. A Jewish-owned falafel
restaurant in New Brunswick was also targeted. Hillel staff contacted
the student who had encountered the man at Dunkin Donuts and made sure
he was in touch with police. Hillel staff contacted the ADL and New
Brunswick police to help connect the dots between the various incidents.
There was wide spread anxiety throughout the local community, expressed
thru constant phone calls, emails, Facebook and twitter messages. To
give you a sense of the feeling at the time, people were calling it
“Kristalnacht in New Jersey.”

More details were reported in the Star Ledger, New Jersey Jewish News and other press.