Saturday Snapshots: Purim!

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Saturday Snapshots
Hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books

Tomorrow is the Jewish holiday of Purim* and I've been in a baking frenzy the past of couple of days, preparing food for the gift baskets that we will be giving to our friends and neighbors, throughout the day.

While looking for some creative ideas of what to make, I came across an interesting looking cookbook on Net Galley called Cutie Pies, and which I download for review, in the hope that I would find some useful recipes there. I ended up making these adorable mini-apple pies that I found in the cookbook, and they came out wonderfully.




I also just finished making several batches of hamantachen, a traditional Purim treat named after the villian from the Purim story, Haman.

Blueberry and cherry filled hamantachen

Getting dressed up in costumes is also a big part of the Purim celebration, especially for children, and on Friday my kids all donned their costumes for the carnival at school.

My toddler admiring himself in the mirror.

(In case you are wondering about the long hair, it's our tradition to grow our sons' hair until the age of three. It's a chassidish custom we somehow adopted, even though we aren't chaddisim)

My 9 year old as a policeman

My 6 year old as a ninja


My daughter, the princess

And now I'm off to try to get some sleep since I'll need all my wits about me to survive tomorrow (Purim gets pretty crazy around here).

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*A little bit about Purim, From Judaism 101:

Purim is celebrated on the 14th day of Adar, which is usually in March. The 13th of Adar is the day that Haman chose for the extermination of the Jews, and the day that the Jews battled their enemies for their lives. On the day afterwards, the 14th, they celebrated their survival. In cities that were walled in the time of Joshua, Purim is celebrated on the 15th of the month, because the book of Esther says that in Shushan (a walled city), deliverance from the massacre was not complete until the next day. The 15th is referred to as Shushan Purim.

One of the commandments of Purim is to eat, drink and be merry. According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai," though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is.

In addition, we are commanded to send out gifts of food or drink, and to make gifts to charity. The sending of gifts of food and drink is referred to as shalach manos (lit. sending out portions). Among Ashkenazic Jews, a common treat at this time of year is hamentaschen (lit. Haman's pockets). These triangular fruit-filled cookies are supposed to represent Haman's three-cornered hat.