going away

This Friday I will be leaving for a weekend in the Poconos with 21 other women, many of whom I know only online. It will be only the second weekend since our wedding that Julian and I have spent apart...the first one was also a gathering of online friends, although those of you who know about that one should understand why I want to sort of block it from my mind.

Anyway, the upcoming gathering consists of people from the boards at Indiebride, which is a cringeworthy name for a web site, but not a bad place just the same. We'll be staying at several neighboring houses in the Poconos, and on the way down I'm stopping in NYC to pick up N and grab some food. (For those of you who don't know this already: the kosher restaurant options in the Boston area are pitiful.) Hopefully I'll see Adam and maybe Batya over lunch also, and of course Rivah is coming down from Boston with me. All in all, the traveling should be a blast. I'm a little more concerned about the gathering itself, as I haven't spent as much time on the IB boards recently as I used to. I'm worried that I'll get all cliquey with the ladies who've been in touch with me via email, and that no one else will know who I am.

In my excitement over this whole gathering (and really, as an excuse to cook, because that's one of my favorite things to do), I offered to make enough challah for everyone to sample, along with some desserts. That's in addition to providing real food for myself and N (who also keeps kosher) for the entire weekend. Two friends had babies in the past ten days, and I'm making meals to bring to one of them this week and probably some sweet thing to bring to the other next week. Out of the kindness of my heart, I'm going to leave some food at home for Julian as well. So, all in all, I am making: a dozen medium-sized challot; a pan of baklava; two, maybe three, pans of brownies; two quiches; a double recipe of pumpkin soup; three loaf pan sized lasanges; a huge pot of chili (to be divided and frozen); two pounds of green beans; broiled portabella mushrooms; a yerushalmi kugel; roasted potatoes with mushrooms and onions; spicy chickpeas in tomato sauce; and mustard-baked chicken. All in the next forty hours or so, plus I'd like to sleep. I'll let someone else sort out what goes where.

Don't believe a word of my complaints. I love to cook.