29.1.10

Happy Tu B'Shvat!

When it's almost Tu B'Shvat (the "new year of the trees")...

And you live in Israel (where the "new year of the trees" is a widely-celebrated holiday resulting in massive sales on dried fruit in any super)...

And you go to visit Polish Grandparents (who had to fend for themselves as teenagers during the Holocaust, and who therefore think that they need to show their love by giving you all the abundance they lacked, plus some extra just in case you think they skimped on you or maybe you are still hungry because maybe you forgot to buy any food this week, and they want to make sure you don't run out too quickly)...

And they are very concerned about you not eating enough because you're on a diet (and can't seem to understand that deep-fried shnitzel is unhealthy while drinking water during a meal-- tfu tfu tfu-- is ok)...

And you can only stay a few hours for lunch, thus increasing their concern for your well-being (and their fear that you will catch your death of cold or swine flu or hunger while on the train ride back)...


Then you risk returning home lugging about 20 pounds of dried fruit and nuts (yes, those are three full-sized ice cream tubs full of pecans, apricots, and golden raisins).

On the plus side, bags and bags of dried fruit and nuts make a pretty good seat when the train is packed to the brim on Thursday afternoon. Happy Tu B'Shvat, everyone! 

Bonus points if anyone can read the name of the grocery store (שופרסל) where my husband's grandparents bought this insane amount of food. (Hint: this is kind of a trick question. I'll explain later unless someone wants to beat me to it in the comments.)

6 comments:

  1. Is the name of the store "Supersell?" Because that'd be weird.

    Your parents-in-law are so funny. My stepmother's mother used to do that with my dad because he was always so skinny.

    ReplyDelete
  2. not "supersell", shoofersal.
    Shoofer-Dunno, no such word in Hebrew
    Sal-basket, grocery basket

    בכל מקרה, חג טו בשבט שמח לכולם מישראל!

    ReplyDelete
  3. A little edit-
    According to Wikipedia, the proper spelling is "Shufersal", and it's a compound of the words שופרא-shoofra, which means "quality" and "sal"-basket.

    אני חסר חיים ברמות מטורפות.

    ReplyDelete
  4. לא קראתי את התגובה עד הסוף...
    נראה לי שקצת רימיתי

    ReplyDelete
  5. Most people I know just call it "Supersal" (and have been for decades)..so the pronunciation doesn't really seem to matter.

    Happy Tu B'Shvat! Have some of those Medjoul dates, they're the best :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think that most of us anglos call it Supersol, since we're used to seeing "super" all over most Israeli billboards (like the stores with all sorts of variations on super-hyper-deal). But technically the store chain is Shufersal, as anonymous said above - shufer as in meshupar (improved) and sal as in basket, like grocery basket.
    May figuring this out be the hardest part of our day!

    ReplyDelete

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