Krefttik 2.5: Krefttik thwarted

Drove over to the East End today for dinner with Adrian and Margaret so thought it was the perfect opportunity to pop into Klein's on my way to try to find some Krefttik. But no, even though kosher shops are *always open* on Sundays (it's a quirk of the Sunday trading laws: if you close on Saturdays for religious reasons you're allowed to treat Sunday as a normal trading day) Klein's was closed. Damn them. I stood outside and shook my fist at the sky.

Instead, and because I had loads of time to spare before my dinner, I made a short detour to Hackney where my grandmother Lily who died in 2006 lived when I was a child. I hadn't been back until earlier this year when I spoke at Hackney Limmud but I found it oddly comforting just to stand on the street outside the house, thinking about what it used to look like inside, about how it felt to be there. I took some pictures (worrying all the time that the people who live there now would come out and shout at me) and ran my hand along the rough brick wall outside: a very physical childhood memory.

Unlike some of the houses on that street, my grandmother's house hasn't been gentrified yet. This pleased me. The plants she grew in the front garden are still there, grown tall and wild. The chequered-tile front step is still there, the mouldings above the front door are still thickly coated with paint just as they were in my childhood. I hope they keep it like that.

Krefttik 2: The Search for Krefttik

On to lighter matters. Made a little detour to Golders Green today, in search of the mysterious Krefttik. Friends, I went to Kol Tuv. I looked through their shelves. I saw no Krefttik.

Eventually I spoke to the man behind the counter.
"Excuse me," I said, "do you have Krefttik?"
"I'm not sure..." he said, "what is it?"
"Ah," I said.
I guessed at breakfast cereal, but it wasn't there. Or anywhere. In fact, I suspect that Krefttik may be a rather more *specialist* product.

The hierarchy of kosher shopping areas in North London goes: Hendon < Golders Green < Stamford Hill, where < means "less removed from the modern world".

It was immediately obvious to me when I saw the advertisement that no shop in Hendon would stock Krefttik. Hendon's kosher shops stock sundried tomatoes, for goodness' sake. Pesto, they have, and fake turkey bacon, and other products which mean that you can make a stab at a Nigella recipe with a few substitutions.

Golders Green, with its butchers that stock 'jellybones' (for making calves' foot jelly) and the massive Kosher Kingdom superstore, is a little more esoteric. It was not impossible that Krefttik might be found there.

But it's clear to me now that I'm going to have to go to Stamford Hill. The belly of the bearded beast. Where they stock newspapers labelled only in Yiddish and would have thought me a heretic even at my most religious. I have my suspicions that I may never see this Krefttik: perhaps I'd need to be wearing the full Chasidic-woman regalia to get my hands on it. Still, when faced with a quest like this, one must try.

A travelling day

Spent most of today in a car on the way from Seaham back to London but... managed to stop off at The Blake Head, a very gorgeous vegetarian cafe/bookshop in York on the way home. Their risotto cakes are excellent, the cafe is very sunny and clearly popular. Here's my mum going in:

If I hadn't been travelling for nine hours today, I'd try to write something fascinating, reflecting on the meaning of a project that makes me seek out newness.

It might be about the uses of the old and the new. How new things are exciting but old things are comforting. New things offer the promise of improvement, but sometimes we only know how much we'll miss the old things when they're gone. How having too many new things leaves us exhausted and overstimulated, while having too many old things leaves us dull and bored and grey. How sometimes I feel impatient that the future I hoped for hasn't yet arrived, and sometimes I feel appalled at how much has already been lost from the past. I might talk about how difficult it is to achieve balance in life, finding room for both old things and new things.

But, I'm tired. So instead, here is an advert from a magazine directed at Very Orthodox Jews in northwest London. I promise it's genuine.

Edit, Thursday 27 August 11.23pm

Because a couple of people have now said to me "eh? Krefttik? I don't get it!" I feel I ought to explain what was so obviously hilarious to me about this ad. 1) Who on earth calls a food product Krefttik? It sounds like something you should be using to regrout your bathroom. 2) *What is it*? We know what it's not! But... so many options are left. I think it is a fish omelette. Any other ideas? Google is of no help in the Krefttik Quest. Clearly I have to go to Kol Tuv and find some.