Latke Vodka Babka Kafka Tchotchke
For nearly 25 years now, my chosen family has been celebrating a very unusual Christmas tradition: Latke Vodka Babka Kafka Tchotchke. It’s an eclectic mashup of several holiday traditions, plus a sacrilege or two.
All morning long on Xmas Day we fry up a huge batch of traditional Hanukkah potato pancakes. People bring over bottles of vodka, often DIY-infused w garlic or horseradish or cucumber, plus a homemade loaf or two of Babka, a classic chocolate-swirled Jewish desert bread.
Around noon, with 15-20 of us now packed into my tiny 450 sq ft lower-Manhattan apartment, the smell of cooking oil still in the air, we sit down to eat the latkes (often topped with apple sauce or sour cream), and do shot after shot of the vodka. A few hours in, tongues and hearts loosened, people will read aloud their favorite Kafka passage or parable, and amidst wide-ranging debate and more vodka, we’ll ponder the dark twisted existential condition of modern humanity.
Finally, end of day, heads clearing a bit, we’ll roll out to catch a movie and/or a gypsy-jazz band in the back of a local bar.
And the Tchotchke? It’s a Yiddish word that means trinket or keepsake. Pronounced chach-ka, it helpfully rhymes with the latke, vodka, Kafka, and babka of our tradition’s title. Over the years we’ve assembled an altar with photos and keepsakes of beloved friends and family who we’ve lost over the years. Pride of place is given to my mom who started this tradition with me 25 years ago, but over the years folks have also added various Kafka-themed tchotchkes, including a Kafka action figure, postcards from the Kafka Museum in Prague, and even a “Cooking with Kafka” cookbook.
At the culminating moment of the day, we bring the altar forward to do a big toast to friendship, love, and our broken-hearted yet still beautiful world. After all, “There is hope,” as Kafka himself said, just “not for us.”
The year we took part in your Latke Vodka Babka Kafka Tchotchke was the best holiday celebration I ever had :) I wonder if I can export the tradition to Bordeaux, where we now live. Maybe if I make it "Foie Gras Bordeaux Zola" or something like that? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, though, doesn't it?... Happy holidays!
"...plus a sacrilege or two" LOL Thanks for another year of your gallows humour (pardon my Canadian spelling) and all the work you do. Have a wonderful "eclectic mashup" of a gathering with your chosen family!