Coaster Giveaway Winner

Thank you to everyone who participated in the coaster giveaway this week. It was wonderful to hear from so many of you and welcome so many new people to the site.

According to the random number generator,

the winner is #5, tc, who wrote, "I have a great *wink, wink* suggestion. Please, please post the coaster tutorial. I love the children's storybook ones!!" Congratualtions! I'll be emailing you to get your address and send off the coasters.

I really appreciated all of your thoughtful comments, and while I may not be able to respond to all of them specifically, I do want to take a moment to respond to the general gist of them as well as answer a couple particular questions.

I'm glad to hear that so many of you have enjoyed the coasters, like the tutorial, and find the recipes handy. I hope you enjoy making some dishes and some coasters. Please come back and let me know how they turn out.

As for ideas about improving the coasters, you've got some great ideas, and I'll be on the lookout for new materials to make them more trendy, more vintage, and even more funky.

I was happy to get some constructive criticism as well. I redesigned the blog a few weeks ago, but may be at it again soon. I'm very happy with the layout but I think I'll be playing the colors and seeing if I can make it "jump" a little more.

And, finally, I like when you ask questions. The pitter patter boutique asked what is a challah cover? Great question as sometimes I forgot I'm using terms that not everyone knows. On shabbat and Jewish holidays, meals begin with kiddush (blessing the wine) and blessing/eating challah -- an egg bread that is often braided. Why cover the challah? Technically one covers the challah so as not to "shame" the bread. What on earth does this mean? According to the rabbis of the days of yore, the blessing over the bread ought to come first; however, it's the blessing over the wine that sanctifies the shabbat/holiday meal. Thus in order to sanctify the occasion first and then bless the bread to begin the meal, we cover to challah so it doesn't "know" it's been passed over. Despite this explanation, which demonstrates as well as anything else, the interesting logic of the rabbis, it's basically become standard tradition to cover the challah. And since a challah cover can consist of anything from a napkin to a beautifully decorated cloth, it serves as another example of a Jewish ritual object that has become one type of Jewish art. You can see some examples that I've made here.