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Tomorrow I and my students have a farm excursion. This makes me feel so very high schoolish, even though my students are all well and truly adult. We're also up to our last class next week, and my Wednesday students are already holidaying. What does this mean to me, aside from almost all my teaching materials being away and the front room of my flat looking suddenly more respectable?

It means I get to eat supremely kosher for eight days. It's not lifechanging, but it makes my mother happy. Thank goodness she's an outstanding cook.

It also means I get to eat food that's more old-fashioned Australian. This gives me a new response for the next person who tells me that my Jewishness prevents me being Australian will be asked "And what did *you* have for dinner tonight? Was it chops and salad and three vegies?"

The asumptions about Jews being a race and apart and not belonging to their own countries has haunted me these last few weeks. It's six weeks running now that I've had to endure comments like "Jews and Australians" and "But your parents aren't Australian, are they?"

I'm afraid my second most recent answer to that second one was "My father would argue with you, but he's dead." - I'm rapidly losing it with daft assumptions.

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Writing that last post made me realise I have to do at least a token emptying of cupboards for Pesach. I can't do much this year because that virus loves me longly and will not leave, but I've used up all my wholemeal plain flour at once by making cheese bread with saltbush and Dorrigo pepper and Russian garlic. And, in fact, the virus helped in one way. There being only some foods I *could* eat means that those foods are gone.

I expect a bit of recipe experimentation will get rid of remaining flours. Either that or I eat many polenta pancakes. It all depends on me getting better by tomorrow. And every cookup has to be balanced by me eating bread so I won't miss it. Also, I need fresh vegies in my diet, and maybe the autumn pluums if the market has them.

I could take some of the must-finish food to class on Thursday. Three hours of class (during dinnertime) gives me a brilliant excuse and seventeen people can get through more in one night than one in a week. What's more there is food history in this tradition of finishing. I'll see how I'm going on Thursday.

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