Chanukah preliminaries, plus cute cat in box

On Sunday night, our Jewish book club had its First Annual Jewish Food and Film Festival, which really was a Chanukah party at friends' house who have a home theatre, so wanted to show films in addition to our usual book discussion. We followed the tradition we established last year, of not reading a book for the month of December, but instead bringing in a favorite Jewish cookbook, making a recipe from it, and then sharing the recipe and the food with the group. Someone (we can't remember who now) suggested that we should take this opportunity to make latkes (potato pancakes) because the kitchen at the church where we meet has some serious constraints on it now--they have a caterer who does a big brunch every Sunday, and the kitchen has gotten quite dirty. Plus several years ago we made latkes in that kitchen and ended up ruining the garbage disposal with too many potato peelings and too much used oil down the drain. The church folk were nice enough to say that the plumbing was very old and would have broken any time, but i'm not the only one who doesn't want to repeat that fiasco!

Therefore, this past Sunday Rabbi Rose and i made a zillion latkes (give or take a few dozen *g*). We were ably assisted by three other people who helped peel the potatoes. I brought my food processor, cast iron fry pan, pot holders, potato peelers, salt, spatula, and apron (plus homemade applesauce to eat with the cooked latkes), while Rose brought the potatoes, onions, matzo meal, eggs, and vegetable oil. We made latkes and then we made some more! We couldn't flash freeze them, which would have been ideal, because the freezer wasn't big enough or empty enough to accomodate a cookie sheet, so we drained the latkes on paper towels, then placed them in layers separated by wax paper in large plastic containers and put them in Sharon's freezer (she really had to struggle to make room).

When i got home, i put the box full of supplies down on the kitchen floor (the only available horizontal surface) and started to put things away. The next thing i knew, Gingy had stepped into the box, and into the frying pan, and was vigorously licking it! Even though i had washed it in hot water, i guess some molecules of fried potato-flavored oil were still clinging to it!
I probably haven't mentioned before that Gingy's previous owner is a Rabbi...every once in a while, Gingy gives hints about her "upbringing" in that household, such as begging for pieces of challah or rugelach, which totally mystifies the other cats, and i'm thinking her love of the latke pan is another one.