All that husband bashing was just harmless venting, right?

Chapter 1

H

ey, can you send me the recipe for the salmon salad that you served on Shabbos? Rivky said it was amazing, and I need some new app ideas.

I paused in the cereal aisle as I read the text, a smile playing at my lips. We had the Schonbrenners and the Kleins for lunch this past Shabbos, and in my opinion, I totally brought my A-game with the menu. Nice to hear Rivky Schonbrenner agreed —she’s a really good cook herself. If my neighbor Chavi was asking, Rivky must have given her a full report.

Hey Chavs! Sure thing. Sending you the link, I jotted back as I dropped a box of Cinnamon Life into my cart.

We’d moved into our young community a year and a half ago. “Young-ish community” is actually what I usually called it. There was a range of ages, but not too big of one, and a nice mix of families who were similar enough in terms of hashkafah. There were backyards and front yards and side yards, and most incredibly of all, an eiruv. In other words: bliss. There were teenagers around to babysit and corner parks full of kids; plus, my sister Raizy lived only a 20-minute drive away.

Where I’d grown up, we’d only really known our block, which had been mostly older couples with older kids and a few neighborhood family friends from shul. Now I lived on a quiet street lined with frum kids who all loved to play outside. It was like I’d moved into a whole new world. My oldest was only eight, with four more under him, and they had the run of the neighborhood.

I reveled in the luxury of sitting with new friends in a neighbor’s backyard, schmoozing together while we kept an eye on the kids, who roamed free, running from house to house. My husband loved it, too; Aaron had set up a new chavrusa and found a rav he respected, and the shul we went to was super- social — there was a really nice working-guys night seder, regular farbrengens, and an active Neshei.

As soon as we moved in, we started receiving invitations for Shabbos meals — from people my husband had met in shul, from old acquaintances who’d moved to the area before us, and from neighbors. It was clear there was a decent eating-out culture in the neighborhood, and I felt so welcomed by it.

We met so many new people at these Shabbos meals. There were always at least three families at each meal, the kids milled around and found new friends, and the break from cooking was amazing. Of course, I began inviting people back.

By the end of my first year in the neighborhood, I found myself hosting at least one meal a month, and we were invited out once or twice a month, too. Sometimes, the meals were with families I didn’t know well, but often, the invitation came from someone within the same group of five to six families that we’d become close with.

This coming week, the invite was from the Mendlowitzes up the block. And that reminded me — I’d volunteered to bring the “kid food.” I navigated to the baby aisle to grab some jars of baby food carrot puree for muffins and went hunting for the components for a deli roll.

I was looking forward to another idyllic Shabbos with friends and family.