Midaregami

Best Craigslist ad ever.

At various times when I have put forth the effort to make this attractive, slightly sweet bread for public fuctions of one kind or another, I have often been informed by helpful parties that it is not in fact real challah, because it uses butter, and moreover it is not a “festive” or “festival” dish, as I had been initially told, because Jewish people blah blah blah—by this point I am typically done listening to their helpful advice.

So the food whose recipe and braiding procedure I am about to divulge is clearly not Challah—it is not Jewish, it is not for festivals or indeed events of any kind, it “cheats” and uses butter, and in all probability is not even bread.

But: it is gorgeous, and delicious. I am going to call it “shmallah.” It is a dish I have invented and of whose correctness I am sole arbiter. It is completely original, and is the traditional festival food of whenever I goddamn well feel like making it.

Here’s how to make shmallah—and anybody that tells you otherwise is a filthy liar, and although death is too good a punishment for their vile dissembling, death, nevertheless, is what they shall have.

My trusty Braun electric razor finally gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, and as my stubble grew beyond “rugged” into “vagrant” (bringing with it a marked lack of approval from She Whose Opinion Matters) the need became pressing enough that I finally started looking at replacement razors.

I recalled that my 5-year-old Braun had been in the seventy dollar range, so I warned Herself that it might well cost a pretty penny. “I don’t care,” she told me. “Just get one.”

So I investigated the Amazon reviews of various razors, and was introduced to an intriguing concept—the self-cleaning razor.

Cleaning my razor is something I don’t enjoy, so the idea of having it done for me sounded attractive. It had a certain Jetsons-style “Life… in the future” appeal. My razor would also be a robot—that cleans itself! Boss!