Illustration by Lea Kron

The Man

Aaron Josephs,
Age 27
2 kids
Learning in
Kollel
Ramat Eshkol, Yerushalayim

I frowned down at the sticky, gooey mixture. Something didn’t look right.

A memory flashed back from this afternoon.

“Hey, you know that when the recipe says to beat the eggs, it means with a mixer, right?” my wife commented.

“Of course,” I replied confidently. “Not sure why you think I wouldn’t know that.”

My mocha ice cream was already stored away from her prying eyes, and I was fairly certain that, electric whisk or not, I had nailed it.

Well. Turns out recipes are written for women, after all.

Yesod #1: Everyone Likes Guy Food

When my wife challenged me to Man with a Pan, a few thoughts came to mind. First, this was a chance to beat her at something she was really good at. Second, this was my opportunity to correct all those things that bother me about Shabbos menus. And third, cooking is easy. Or so I’ve been told.

I asked her for any rules, and she said there were only two. Rule #1 was that she wasn’t allowed to help me, and Rule #2 was that she couldn’t go hungry.

I’ve always disliked the idea of having cake during the meal and pretending it belonged in the main course. If you’re going to have cake and it tastes like cake, then have it during whichever course you want to, but call it what it is. I decided to make “healthy” muffins as a main course item, but with frosting, just to call a spade a spade.

I knew my wife would want something green on the table (she had hinted as much), but there is so much untapped potential in a plain grilled chicken salad. What if I added sautéed onions and mushrooms to it to stand in as vegetables?

I mentally listed a few more items to add to the menu. Yapchik, deli roll, salami, and liver. We were getting somewhere. Ice cream sandwiches? Salmon over sesame noodles for fish? I would have to go all out to make this happen, but hey, a challenge is a challenge.

The next day, my chavrusa called. He was coming back from America and would be in quarantine for two weeks. I immediately offered to make him and his family Shabbos, too.

Double or nothing.

I still needed recipes, though. And some more ideas. I asked my chavrusa for suggestions, and he sent over a recipe for mocha ice cream. Google and my mother supplied everything else — yapchik, pumpkin muffins, and the rest.

I was ready to go.

Yesod #2: Sautéed Onions Are Good in Basically Everything

My kids wake up at about 6 a.m. on a regular day. Tuesday morning was no different, except that my two-year-old and I made chocolate chip cookies instead of playing trucks. (Full disclosure: I hate chocolate chip cookies, and the concept of chocolate chips altogether, for that matter. In fact, it strikes me as overly pretentious. What other food is there that, in addition to being a food by itself, is cut up into little chunks and put into every other food? It’s like having little landmines all over an otherwise delicious cookie. But they’re my wife’s favorite.)

Now, there are few things less helpful than a toddler trying to help, but despite his enthusiasm we got it up in under an hour.

At lunchtime, I was ready to roll. The first thing I did was cut up ten onions and put them in a Crock-Pot overnight with a bit of oil.

I meticulously followed the ice cream recipe, beating the eggs with a whisk until they got just a tiny bit frothy (“Beat until stiff”? What could that possibly mean?), and then added everything else and stuck it into the freezer.

We have a recipe for grilled pitas, which I figured would be easier than trying to make challah. I dug up the recipe from my wife’s recipe collection and put up a batch of dough. I covered it well and left it in the fridge, with an image of that kids’ book with the challah dough swelling up to fill the kitchen and burst through the windows seared into my mind. I brushed the thought away and headed out to second seder.

That night, after discovering my mess of an attempt at ice cream, I remade it with an electric beater and then grilled the pitas. My wife’s pitas usually come out perfect circles, but the dough was really sticky, and mine came out more like giant misshapen blobs of dough. Not so picturesque, but delicious nonetheless.