Illustration by Esti Friedman

The Boy

Yechiel Eisenberg

age 11

Manhattan 

6th grade

cooking for two parents, two little brothers, one guest (on Friday night)

I can totally do a Shabbos just like Mom’s,with a bit of change-up for fun

It all began in July 2020, when my mother gave me a Man with a Pan article to read. From then on, I read every one... and the rest is history. My mother thought it was a great idea for me to try it myself, as long as I followed the rules (see below). 

My mother loves reading cookbooks but never makes anything out of them(she only uses them “for inspiration”),so I decided to actually make some things from a cookbook. I considered making lime cookies for dessert, but Ibaked them on Chanukah and decid-ed that they are a big patchkeh to do together with so much other stuff, soI would make chocolate ramekins in-stead. Since my mother makes fish, cel-ery root, potato kugel, carrots, cauli-flower, and strip steak every Shabbos,I would do those also. Cholent seemed too complicated to me, so I decided to make flanken, which my mother servesevery once in a while for a change from cholent. I decided to add ramekins and maple chicken to make it more interesting and different.

On Thursday, our neighbor from across the street let us know that her COVID test came back negative, so she could come for Friday night — hooray!

The Rules

I had to get the shopping list ready by Wednesday morning, since we live in Manhattan and if we want the Thursday order from Breadber-ry, it has to be placed by Wednesdayafternoon.

I was allowed to cook starting as soon as I finished my homework onWednesday. After cooking, I had to do some basic cleaning up and put-ting things away, but the housekeep-er could help with the rest.

Only the challos, dips, and herring would be store-bought. My mother would make the (best) chicken soup(in the world), but I would do the rest.

Most importantly, it couldn’t interfere with homework, and I had a Chu-mash test coming up, so I needed to review as early as possible to make sure I had time to cook.