Shabbat menu

[magid]

grape juice
rolls
egg drop miso soup with veggies / whitefish salad
green salad (red leaf lettuce, scallions, halved grape tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette)
steelhead trout fillet baked with gingery cranberry chutney / lemon chicken with thyme
roasted root vegetables (onion, potato, carrot) with rosemary

Still feel like I should've managed to make more veggies. And I wonder if I should've gotten those frozen apple turnovers, too. Ah, well.

Not-quite-new, but noteworthy: I'm using the glass candlesticks for the first time in years. I hope they don't break again.

A good Shabbat to those who observe it, and a good start to the weekend to those who don't.

Comments

[cellio]

I broke some glass candlesticks, presumably because the flame was too hot. Then I discovered those little foil "cups" you can put in candlesticks to catch the dripping wax, and started using those. No problems with my current glass candlesticks breaking, after about 3 years.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yes, I bought a package of the foil cups once I planned to try using the glass candlesticks again (and indeed, they didn't break :-).

I was just amazed that the candlesticks had broken from the heat of the candles in the first place. I mean, they're supposed to be designed to have candles burning in them! Though I've heard of wooden candlesticks, too, so I suppose it's not always a given. OTOH, these were my grandmother's, and somehow I assume that people back then (no clue as to how old these are) were more sensible about things like this...

[cellio]

I think glass (and wooden) candlesticks are designed on the theory that you'll blow the candles out when they get that low. For anything except Shabbat candles, that's probably a safe bet. But it takes a long time for the last bit of a candle to sputter and die on its own, and while it's doing that it's directly heating the bottom and the entire circumference of the cup. I guess that's beyond the usual fault-tolerance bounds.

[magid.livejournal.com]

First reaction: I must be warped by my religion - people blow candles that are not on birthday cakes out, before they burn out? On a regular basis? Wow.
Still seems a bit odd to assume that the user will blow out the candles in time, though; I'd think they'd have more safety-oriented thoughts, or something (working on that "people are stupid" theory, where there are labels reminding people not to do incredibly obviously stupid things with certain products (superhero underwear doesn't mean you can fly...)).

Second reaction: the glass they use for yahrtzeit and jesus candles (those big 5-day ones) must be particularly strong, to deal with the heat.

[cellio]

people blow candles that are not on birthday cakes out, before they burn out?

Yeah -- usually it's candles on the table at more formal dinners, and the taper are long and would last 8-12 hours on their own, so people blow them out when the dinner is over. I've seen this, anyway; maybe I'm the one with the warped background.

the glass they use for yahrtzeit and jesus candles (those big 5-day ones) must be particularly strong, to deal with the heat.

I usually get the yahrzeit candles in the metal tins, though I think I recall the glass ones being reasonably thick on the bottom. (I don't know what a Jesus candle is.)

Two other factors: I think the yahrzeit candles have a little metal fob at the end of the wick, so that final sputtering isn't happening directly on the glass. (And the diameter is larege compared to regular candlestick, so the sides aren't in danger.) The other factor is repeated use: yahrzeit candles are one-shots, but candlesticks are used every week. Perhaps each candle burning down to the end does a small amount of incremental damage until finally the galss cracks. (Beats me; I'm not a materials scientist.)

candles, etc

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've been to very very few formal dinners (if any) that involved candles and weren't Shabbat/Jewish holidays; your experience is more likely normative than mine.

Around here, jesus candles are in the supermarkets, looking like taller, thicker yahrtzeit candles, except that (a) they come in a variety of bright colors (also, thankfully, white), and (b) you can choose which saint/jesus/mary you want on the side (also thankfully, there are blank ones. I wonder if that means "Draw your favorite saint here."?). I use them instead of yahrtzeit candles over holidays, to light a flame from for the second night's candles; I was, um, burned too many times with the yahrtzeit candles finishing just before I got home from shul...

Yahrtzeit candles are available in glass or metal around here; I never think the metal ones are "right," because my mom always got the glass ones when we were growing up. (The candles were larger then (I wonder what wax technology has allowed them to get smaller?), so the glass containers were larger, and we used them afterwards as juice glasses. The current ones are far too small...)

I hadn't thought about the wick-holders, the diameter of the candles, the thickness of the base, or the one-shot usage of yahrtzeit candles. All good points (I'm not a materials scientist, either.).
I'm pretty sure that the first time I tried using these candlesticks, one broke after 2 Shabbatot, though there may have been internal cracking after the first week.