This week is Passover, a Jewish holiday that began on April 12 and will conclude on April 20. I’m not Jewish so I don’t celebrate this holiday, but I do feel like in my own life I’m the one that is a “pass over”. What do I mean exactly? Well, in my professional pursuits, I always seem to been the candidate that gets the “pass over” to others that are more qualified, or simply interview better. In my personal life, particularly dating, I get the “pass over” to others who are younger or better looking (or use better filters). A few weeks ago, I told my friend Amy that I’m learning to become more resilient to these rejections. On the other hand, the seemingly endless rejections start to be more challenging to this resilience. 

My last batch, or should I say my last bitch, touched upon my re-entering the dating app scene. It’s been almost a month since I signed up on Hinge and the reality of being a “pass over” remains. You may recall that my first scheduled date no-showed which I’m considering my first strike with this app. Since then, I’ve been chatting with a few other guys, but with much less enthusiasm as I had the first week. One guy who I had been chatting with for a couple weeks finally asked me if I wanted to meet for coffee or a game of tennis. I replied letting him know that coffee sounded great and asked what his availability was like. And then, POOF, he disappeared, never to be heard from or seen in my chats again. I can only guess that he was either married and his wife caught him using the app, or that his profile was fake (even though it said it was “verified”) and he couldn’t continue the charade. I’m not going to consider this my second strike with the app yet, although I will if this happens again (non-spoiler: it probably will). 

What people don’t seem to “pass over” are my cookies. This week, I decided to make Mandelbrot, also known as mandel bread, which is a type of cookie found in Jewish cuisine. It’s on the 40 Cookies From Around the World guide as a cookie from Israel, although its precise origins are unknown. The Yiddish word mandlbroyt means almond bread, and the basic ingredients are flour, sugar, eggs, and oil. The traditional ingredient is almond, but you can substitute that with walnuts, dried fruit, or chocolate. It’s like a biscotti, but unlike Italian biscotti, Mandelbrot is softer and doesn’t require a hot beverage to dunk it in so you can eat it without breaking a tooth. Given that it’s Passover and all leavened food like flour is avoided during the 8-day holiday, I decided to make my mandelbrot leaven-free. I also used semisweet dark chocolate instead of almonds which I think is the best choice. The recipe I found from The Monday Box ticked off all the leaven-free boxes, replacing the leavened ingredients with matza cake meal and potato starch, and included chocolate chips.

 https://themondaybox.com/worlds-best-passover-chocolate-chip-mandel-bread/

I’ve never shopped for matza cake meal before. Turns out, none of the stores in my area carried matza cakemeal, and I wasn’t going to drive all over the place to try to find it when I could (per the recipe) just get regular matza meal and use my food processor to grind it into a fine powder which is what I ended up doing. Regular matza meal – Manischewitz brand, was available at the Ralph’s next door to Trader Joes I shop at. Bonus, it was on sale because of Passover. 

Grinding the matza meal in the food processor was a little messy, but seemed to have made more of a powdery texture for my Mandelbrot. After I added the matza and potato starch to the creamed butter, sugar, and eggs, I folded in the chocolate chips. I then had to wet my hands and form logs no more than 2 inches wide and place them on the baking sheet. I wasn’t sure how many logs I would have, but the final count ended up being 7. Although I had the logs pretty close to one another – 4 on one baking sheet & 3 on the other – they fortunately did not spread out and bake together. After taking them out of the oven, I had to cut them into 1/2”-3/4” slices and put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes to get crispier. The second baking did result in some slightly charred cookies, so I’m glad I didn’t end up keeping them in any longer.

So how did mine turn out??

As this was my first time making Mandelbrot and using matza meal, I wasn’t sure if the consistency was right. However, they turned out pretty good, especially the slices that have more chocolate chips. I’d like to try making Mandelbrot again, but with the basic ingredients so I can compare it to this version and maybe add some almonds. Overall, I enjoyed making this cookie, using a new ingredient, and discovering a little more about Jewish cuisine and holidays. 

I know I won’t always see myself as a “pass over”. As many of my friends have told me, the right thing or person will come along. Plus, this is a part of my journey in allowing myself to take more risks in order to discover where I belong. 

Albert Einstein, one of the great physicists and most famous Jewish figure once said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” 

For me, at this moment, the important thing is to not stop baking. Shalom!