#tu b’shvat

[thepomegranatewitch]

tu bshvat 5784

Welcome to the new tradition around here, sharing my family's tu bshvat table! Pictures imperfect because we needed to sit and eat!

Image description. Three photos of a table set with a meal, described below. One from overhead, the other two from just over tableheight at two different angles.

The whole table! This is a secondhand dropleaf table that I fixed up a bit with oilcloth, but I'd love to have one of those old country kitchen wooden tables that serve as prep table, dining table, and ad hoc operating table for La Résistance. The kids keep grabbing onto the edge and trying to swing off this, and you can imagine that will one day soon end very poorly.

Since I live an actually not aesthetically cottagecore life, we have nothing but the finest dollar store plain white dishware for us adults, and metal sets for the kids. I haven't finished making all the colour coded napkins, but eagle eyed individuals will notice each blue gingham napkin has a flower embroidered in the corner in each of our colour coding scheme, from top left clockwise that's red, yellow, green, orange. Each setting has a bowl on a plate, a fork and spoon on a blue napkin, and a haggadah with a pomegranate branch on blue circle. Adult settings also have a butter knife and a stemmed port glass, and the kid settings have two small square sticker sheets and a turkish teaglass.

The table has, from top left clockwise, an adult place setting, a fruit plate on glass, a child setting, a red plate with four servings of melanzane alla parmigiana, an adult place setting, a paper packet of parsley seeds, a small glass jar with cardamom pods, a glass bowl of wash water with three star anise floating in it, a gray towel with white stripes, and a child setting. Down the center of the table from left to right is a bowl of fruit and nut studded barley, a bottle of white and a bottle of red wine, a square container with mixed roasted vegetables, a half gallon mason jar with water, a pecan pie with circular pattern, and a plate of homemade thick matzah. Yes, I made matzah because I thought it would be easier than making bread. Yes, my oven hasn't been cleaned in a while and so started smoking. Yes, the smoke alarms went off multiple times. Yes, I did have to stand there facing the street while it rained pumping the side door while all the windows were open to get all the steam and smoke particles out of the air. Holiday adventures with Sahar!

Image description. Four close up shots of foods, described below. All are birds eye except the barley, which is at an angle to show the careful mounding.

the fruit plate! Our minhag is at least twelve tree fruits so we piled most of them on the tasting plate. From the ramekin going clockwise, that's a ramekin of pomegranate arils, a chunk of pomegranate, segmented tangerine slices, dried apricots, almonds, dried figs, golden raisins (the baby calls them 'ravens'), extra-dark chocolate chunks (cacao is a tree fruit, it's what the ancestors would want), a ramekin of pitted kalamata olives, and some dried medjool dates. Bonus: the kids ate the plate remnants as a serve-yourself breakfast the next morning. Always wonderful when a holiday yields some batch cooking and child autonomy.

a pecan pie. We use the King Arthur Flour Old-Fashioned Pecan Pie recipe because corn syrup tastes off to me. The changes we made this time are making a savory not sweet pie crust (my spouse makes it with iced water and vodka), cream instead of milk, toasting the filling nuts just shy of burnt, and cream instead of milk. It worked really well to reduce the sweetness from 'sickening' to 'very.' It's our traditional dessert and we eat it only once a year because it's so sweet. I like laying the pecans flat side up in rings on the top for full coverage and so it looks a little like tree rings.

The washwater bowl. It's just a glass mixing bowl with water, but I dropped in some orange blossom water and floated some star anise to make it pretty, and I liked it. Will have to repeat the anise for pesach, but skip the orange blossom water - the anise completely overpowered it.

The barley. We cooked it plain and then added walnuts, pine nuts, dried cherries, fresh pomegranate, and a lot of olive oil. We didn't salt it, which was fine, because we let the kids salt the eggplant before we roasted it, which was not fine. Together they taste great. For those keeping count, the barley dish rounds out the tree fruits to thirteen, and with the whole-wheat matzah that makes all seven species! Side note on the matzah, keep your eyes peeled around pesach for my recipe. Once I learned how to make it, I'm never going back to store matzah. Mine is delicious and oil rich, and we eat it as a pleasant flatbread, not just the bread of affliction.

Image description. Two photos of amanita mushrooms from overhead angles.

As a final bit, please enjoy these amanita mushrooms from the JCC. The groundskeeper is in a months-long battle with this patch that just keeps coming back. He keeps knocking over all but one so the preschoolers can safely enjoy looking only, and they keep popping up. I'm delighted - I thought these were mythical and didn't realize they grew where I live now!

If you'd like to support my work, you can buy a copy of my tu bshvat haggadah here, and the two tu bshvat stickers here and here.

[yourghostofarose]

On this fine Tu B’shvat I envy the trees and their ability to withstand even the strongest storms. I hope everyone finds their inner tree tonight 🌳✨

[rel312]

Have a tree :)

Tree!!! 🌳🌴🌲🎋🏝️

Thank you friend :)

[eretzyisrael]

Trees R Us.

Source: drybonesblog.blogspot.in

[girlactionfigure]

Grow Up My Young Seedling - Vintage Tu B’Shvat Poster,

by David Zak 1966

[abyss-astrology]

[zhabe]

[challahbeloved]

“It is the New Year of the Trees, but here the ground is frozen under the crust of snow. The trees snooze, their buds tight as nuts. Rhododendron leaves roll up their stiff scrolls.

In the white and green north of the diaspora I am stirred by a season that will not arrive for six weeks, as wines on far continents prickle to bubbles when their native vines bloom.

What blossoms here are birds jostling at feeders, pecking sunflower seeds and millet through the snow: tulip red cardinal, daffodil finch, larkspur jay,

the pansybed of sparrows and juncos, all hungry. They too are planters of trees, spreading seeds of favorites along fences. On the earth closed to us all as a book in a language we cannot

yet read, the seeds, the bulbs, the eggs of the fervid green year await release. Over them on February's cold table I spread a feast. Wings rustle like summer leaves.”

— Marge Piercy, The New Year of the Trees, a poem from The Art of Blessing the Day. Page 153.

[selfborn]

[mandalorianbrainweasel]

It is Tu B’Shvat! For your reading pleasure we have:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36471070

Kurishe Gota’tuur

No Archive Warnings Apply

Jango Fett & Alpha-Ø2 | Spar, Boba Fett & Alpha-Ø2 | Spar, Fenn Shysa & Alpha-Ø2 | Spar, Parja Bralor & Alpha-Ø2 | Spar

Alpha-Ø2 | Spar, Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Fenn Shysa, Parja Bralor, Original Mandalorian Characters (Star Wars)

Family Fluff, Holiday Traditions, Chronic Illness, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Festivals, Environmentalism, Trees, Friendship, Jango Fett Lives

Summary

A month and twelve days after Nau'ule be'Cin'ciri, Keldabe celebrates the planting of the first trees after the Ha'ran.

Based on the holiday Tu B'Shvat, considered the birthday of trees.

Language: English Words: 3,413 Chapters: 1/2

Part Two will be up by noon CST January 17th.

[iibislintu]

doing some Tu B’Shvat prep and ngl the kitchen looks like a children’s hospital colour chart

(also before anyone mentions more sophisticated ways to open a pomegranate: where i live, people have historically been more likely to eat pine bark than fruit so please be gentle with me)

[thepomegranatewitch]

please enjoy our family's Tu bShvat table!

Closeup of three haggadot with a fruiting and flowering full colour botanical drawing of pomegranates overlaid with a black and white circle of moonphases, labeled in English and Hebrew as Seder Tu bShvat and Rosh Hashanah l'Ilanot

Closeup of a cheeseboard. Top left, clockwise as follows. Round container of herbed soft cheese, small jar of almonds, sliced red pear, a spoon, two white ramekins of olives, the lower stuffed with almonds, cut parmesan cheese, sliced brie. In center dried figs, golden raisins, and dried apricots.

Closeup shot of flowering white stonefruit blossoms. A cluster of 4 is visible, with a slightly blurry bud in midground.

An overhead shot of a table mostly set for Tu bShvat (I forgot the orange, cardamom, and water; and the vegetarian chili and yellow cornbread didn't fit). Top left clockwise as follows. Flowering pink tulips in a pink plastic wrap, red wine, a baby plate, white wine, a pecan pie with circular rays pattern, a wineglass, a spoon on yellow gingham napkin, the haggadah described above, a glass turkish teacup, a spoon on a red gingham napkin, another haggadah, a spoon on green gingham napkin, a wineglass, another haggadah. In center the cheeseboard described above and a plate of homemade puffed matzah.

If you're interested in the haggadah, a pdf is available, and I made a post with links to multiple Tu bShvat haggadot.

(edited 5784 / 2024 for new link to haggadah)

[blondrichclosetwitch]

Today is the Jewish birthday of the trees.

[rel312]

Happy Trees Day!!! 🌳🌲🌴

[eretzyisrael]

Tree of life - Tu B’Shvat art.

[girlactionfigure]

Tu B’Shvat 

Everything you need to know about the Jewish holiday. Share with your family and friends.