Rick Chappell wrote:
> First, let me expound upon the extreme privelege I have of making the
> first relevant cross-post between rec.humor.jewish and
> rec.food.drink.tea (if I'm wrong please don't tell me - I wouldn't
> admit it anyway, as my wife and students could tell you).
>
> "Sucked through a sugar cube"? Have you ever tried it? I did, once.
> I obtained my Russian tea. I heated up my samovar. I got my zavarka
> and boiling water in proper combination poured into a finjan, not a
> yahrtzeit glass since we very fortunately have not been in need of the
> latter. I delicately rested the sugar cube between upper and lower
> incisors (facilitated by my slight, though not unsightly, prognathism
> - surely produced, as my mother warned me, by indiligence in wearing
> my retainer as a teen) and then:
>
> Disaster. The cube crumbled faster than a Republican congressional
> caucus after an indictment. I was left with a mouthful of granulated
> sugar in tea, unable to spit it out because a child was attentively
> staring at me across the table; the very child whom I had previously
> sternly lectured about keeping his food in his mouth and that, even
> though the poodle would appreciatively lick premasticated pizza off
> his fingers, this is still considered bad manners.
>
> I have heard that hard candies are permissible. Also, I'm sure that
> if I stroll the back alleys of certain Slavic neighborhoods in Chicago
> I can find a fellow with a Rasputin beard and shiny dark eyes who'd
> sell me a bag of crystal suc. In the interim, I'm doing quite nicely
> with a spoonful of cherry jam admixed (and a "bissel schnapps" when
> the wind blows fiercely off the lake).
>

The Firebird, an excellent Russian restaurant on Restaurant Row in mid-Manhattan, serves
tea in a glass with a holder, and jam on the side. Marvelous. And requires no special
skills.

> Best,
>
> Rick.
>
>
> Bob > wrote:
>
>>Remember how your grandmother used to cook? Where is that cooking now?
>
>
> ... Numerous savory but ultra-high cholesterol details deleted ...
>
>
>>Since we couldn't have milk or any dairy products (milchiks) with our
>>meat meals (flayshiks), beverages consisted of cheap pop (seltzer in
>>the spritz bottles), or a glezel tay (glass of hot tea) served in a
>>yohrtzeit (memorial) glass, and sucked through a sugar cube held
>>between the incisors.
>
>