Articles From Issue 14

The following are sample articles from Issue 14. Click here or contact fallopian.falafel@gmail.com to order the full zine.

Cooking Pot of Gold (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Up until recently, I was unemployed. I spent endless hours in the social insurance office, cursing under my breath while applying for anything that could keep me from starving to death.
It wasn’t always so. I used to work in a place where I felt like a doormat at best, and a two-dollar whore at worse. I was being yelled at for other people’s mistakes, ridiculed for any kind of creative initiative, ignored for any kind of protest, and taken advantage of due to my lack of beard and testicles.
So when I finally broke and quit that place, I traded in my empty spirit for an empty belly, and literally became a starving artist. Instead, I fed my many hopeless addictions – mainly writing and zine producing. But having no money, I was constantly anxious and depressed because I kept taking my parents’ money, so writing was not always enough to make me feel better.
So I went back to the doormat/whore place (ironically, a soup kitchen), which is where I’m at right now. I am also a part-time dog walker and an unpaid freelance writer for the Jerusalem Post… and an indie zinester on top of all that, which is not a job but not any less of an occupation than the others.
While I was out of a job, I couldn’t go grocery shopping as much but this gave me a chance to use the food items I already had to practice my cooking skills. I banged out some pretty funky dishes and made some rad baked goods for the first time ever. But now that I can afford to buy food, the fast kind comes in very handy when you work 50 hours a week. I have no time for cooking and settle for a couple of cookies for breakfast, a sloppily improvised sandwich for lunch and Minute Rice for dinner.
This got me thinking about this topic of career women and homemakers. How can a woman manage to work one full-time job, one part-time job, one freelancing gig, as well as make three decent meals a day, raise her kids and tend to all the household chores? And how exactly can anyone view that as anything besides miraculous that such women not only survive this lifestyle, but are actually happy with it, due to the accomplished feeling that it creates?
Although I still hate this fascist capitalist society with a passion, using money to keep people chained to their jobs like rabid dogs, there is something empowering about making your own cash and actually using it for your benefit. And ironically, it’s this very cash that, if used properly, can bring down the capitalist regime. Use it to print more copies of your zine and photocopy more anti-establishment flyers, and throw it in everybody’s faces.
And if you can make matbucha for Shabbat and serve home-baked carrot-cake cupcakes for dessert while you’re at it, that’s even better.
Find recipes for these dishes among many others in the mini cookbook included in this issue, alongside many other submissions by women and their take on work, kitchen and family life.
Plus, the Riot Grrrl Corner featuring an R&B song with a powerful indie twist – “Independent Woman.”

Meymers (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

A Well-Rounded Woman (by Riotgrrrlaz - author of Little Girl Lost & Found)
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Working woman, mother, friend, and sexy goddess – these are all titles a woman today may have the honor of holding. Juggling all of these titles can seem to be an impossible feat at times and is certainly exhausting! But perhaps the most difficult feat is continuing playing the part without little or any recognition or appreciation. So why do we do it? Easy. Other people are depending on us and if we were to throw in the towel everything would fall apart...we are born nurturers.
The ability to even be a woman and have options other than being a homemaker is remarkable and therefore coveted. Women today are proud of their accomplishments, which can often result in a reluctance to ask for help for fear of being viewed as weak. To feel needed and desired can empower a woman; however, she also requires respect and support from the people in her life, especially her spouse/partner/lover.
In my own experience, a lack of respect and support has lead to burnout, extreme stress, and even resentment. Independence runs through my veins like blood, so asking for help from others is not in my nature…I would much rather suffer in silence than admit defeat. The lesson I have learned, though, time and time again is that if I fail to take care of myself I will be of no use to anyone else and I ultimately end up sending out a message of insecurity to others.
As women, and more importantly, as human beings, we must first love ourselves (inside and out) and learn to ask for help when we need it so that we can maintain and juggle all of our titles and remain sane (somewhat). With most families today having two working parents, some even working more than one job just to keep the family afloat, it is important to recognize that the raising of a family can no longer be a torch carried only by women. More and more, men are stepping up to the plate and taking on roles that were once predominately associated with women; child rearing, cooking, household chores like dishes, laundry, and regular household cleaning.
If there is one thing that feminism and the history of women has taught me is that there are no limits as to what we can do except for those that we create within our own minds. We can be super women that hold down jobs, continue our education, raise families, heal the wounds of friends, pleasure our lovers, and embrace our own needs, desires, and goals all with ease and grace.
I am a woman who works full time, has two children, a husband, and holds an AAS and BAS, which were obtained within the last five years. I enjoy and take pride in tending to and raising my family, but still manage to make time for myself and my love for writing and crafting. If I did not lean on my husband from time to time and make time for my own interests and needs, I fear that I would lose touch with myself, thus creating road blocks in reaching my own personal goals. At times I may have too much on my plate and I may be pushed beyond my limits, but in my opinion this makes me a well-rounded and strong individual.

I'm Always Happy to Slice Dry (by Sue Tourkin-Komet)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Of Kitchens, Conventions and Other "Cookery" (by Hannah Greenberg)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

The Hierarchy of Love (by Tinamarie Bernard)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Not Yet Washed Up and Not Yet Washed Out (by Sue Tourkin-Komet)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Kitchen Woman? (by Mindy Aber Barad)
*featuring a flyer by Jenn Reid
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In 2006 I wrote that life as I had known it was redefined many years earlier by law school. “Good” became “out-did”; “win” became “show-off”; “smart” was telling the professor what he wanted to hear. “Brilliant” was only challenging the professor’s opinion on a case when you were a blood relative of the sitting judge.
Into such a world I had my renaissance as a loud voice with an aggressive manner that could push any otherwise reasonable person into oncoming traffic. I was the monster created in the ivory tower laboratories. And I broke out into a legal world where I could have an impact, 12 hours a day. I admitted even then that it was a negative impact, but better negative than none at all. My new definition of “good” was fierce, a bulldog.
It was at this time of my life that “they” decided it was time I started going out on shidduch dates. One guy was actually very nice, except that he said women didn’t need to work outside the home, yada yada. That was the end of my shidduch dates for a long time.
A year later I had met and married my husband, and we were expecting our first child. The question circling throughout the legal world was just how short, if any, a maternity leave I would be taking. Several colleagues even had the nerve to ask me straight out.
“I don’t know,” I responded. “It’ll depend on how I feel.”
Well, this answer puzzled everyone. It implied that I was open to the possibility of an extended leave, which further implied that I might actually be taking care of my own child full time.
And I did. And then we had another and another and another. I’ve worked part-time on and off.
Today, while I would not say that my heart is in the kitchen, I’ve come to appreciate that particular need in my family, and, gulp, in me too. Raise your hand if you can tell I’m ambivalent!

Occupation: Mother (a Hebrew piece; author unknown)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

I'm Hearin' in My Kitchen (by Sue Tourkin-Komet)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Blessed Are the Foodies (by Dr. Lea-Ora Leeder)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Chained to the Kitchen (by Dorit Shirim)
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At, On and Under This Table (by Sue Tourkin-Komet)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.

Recipes! - An FF Cookbook, c/o the Zine Contributors

Matbucha - Moroccan Tomato Salad (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Every person in my extended family has a different way of making this salad, but it always comes out rad. My version is based on my mother’s recipe but somehow it still comes out different, yet yummy as anything.

Ingredients:

1) A big can of diced tomatoes
2) Olive or vegetable oil
3) Salt
4) Sweet paprika
5) One green pepper
6) One red pepper
7) Tumeric
8) Four cloves of garlic

Instructions:
Chop the garlic, green pepper and the red pepper. Spill the diced tomatoes along with the juice into a big enough pan, so that it doesn’t overflow, and mash the tomatoes as much as possible. Do not drain the tomato juice.
Add the garlic and the peppers, mix it, and then put it on the stove. As it’s cooking, add the oil, salt, and paprika. I don’t have specific quantities, but for a real Moroccan taste, use a lot of each. Use your own culinary intuition.
As for the tumeric, put just a tiny, tiny fraction of a teaspoon. Seriously cheap out on it. If you put too much of it, it will turn your salad yellow, which would be lame. The paprika should make it dark red.
Leave the pan uncovered and let it cook on a medium fire forever, or until all the tomato juice has evaporated, whichever one comes first. Stir it once every three to five minutes, and once the juice has evaporated, I would suggest you taste it and add more paprika or salt as needed.
An optional trick for an extra kick:
When my mom makes this salad, it always comes out great. But once, she left it on the stove for a little too long and it burned a little. When she served whatever was left of it at the dinner table, I was like “Holy shit! That salad ROCKS! What did you add to it?”
And she said: “Um, nothing. Actually, I burnt it.”
So I said: “YES! Keep burning it!”
So if you choose to burn it a little, it will add that extra kick and will really make the flavors come out. I let it burn for a couple of minutes then I turn off the stove, scrape the bottom of the pan and mix it with the rest of the salad.
Don’t freak out if little drops of your tomato salad jump from the pan onto your stove. It’s perfectly normal. You can always clean it after :-)
Serve it with bread, or use it for shakshooka with a fully cooked sunny side up.

Other recipes (Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download)
Including:
- Chocolate Coulant (by Judit Alonso)
- Gazpacho Recipe (by Dr. Lea-Ora Leeder)
- Channie's Vegetable Soup (by Hannah Greenberg)
- Dave z"l's Friend Steve's Stir Fried Tuna (by Mindy Aber Barad)
- No-Bake Cookies (by Riotgrrrlaz)
- Falafel (online recipe)
- Assorted Goodies Froom the Home of Annika Weimbs
- The 6-C's Recipe From the PMS Perzine (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)

Riot Grrrl Corner (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
Available only on hard copy. Click to order or download.