By Patti Weiss Levy

Patti Weiss Levy and her daughter, Allegra Levy, in Hong Kong.

This past Rosh Hashanah found us very far from home, visiting our daughter, who is spending several months working as a singer in Hong Kong. As happy as we were to celebrate the Jewish New Year with Allegra, we sorely missed being with our son Aidan. It also felt strange not to be attending services, as always, at our shul, Congregation Beth Israel.

At least Allegra’s friend Matt, a nice Jewish ex-pat from Chicago, had invited us for a holiday dinner. Knowing this, I’d carted from home a big braided challah, a pair of Shabbat candles, and a bag of extra wide noodles to make kugel. Yes, they have noodles in Hong Kong. But who knew if I’d find Manischewitz?

We agreed that, for once, the meal alone would suffice as a celebration. But when we woke up that morning, Allegra reconsidered. “I feel weird we’re not in temple,” she texted to me.

“Me too!” I texted back.

So we set off in search of Ohel Leah Synagogue, the center of Hong Kong’s Jewish life.

We traipsed down endless narrow streets and alleyways in the brutal heat, but couldn’t find it. At last, arriving at the right address but seeing no sign, we asked an Asian uniformed guard. He pointed to a posh apartment building sequestered behind formidable iron gates.

That was a synagogue? Who knew?

An officious, Israeli-sounding man interrogated us. Who were we? Why were we there?

So what if we were two perspiring alta cockers and a nice Jewish girl in a polka dot dress? He demanded to see our passports and thoroughly searched our bags.

Satisfied at last that we were “there for the right reasons,” as they say on the TV show The Bachelor, he said that services had just concluded, but we were just in time for the kiddush.

I assumed this meant a thimble full of ritual wine and some challah. Then we stepped into a vast banquet hall, where several hundred people were seated at tables for ten.

And so the feast began.

I thought it was a simple vegetarian meal with assorted salads, but soon the waiters carried in platters groaning under pounds of brisket and potatoes, and when we’d eaten our fill of this, out came plump roasted pullets. Then honey cake with non-dairy ice cream for dessert.

Oy! How would we ever eat at Matt’s now?

After belting out the Birkat Hamazon, the rabbi came over to greet us and said that his very first congregation had been in Norwich, Conn. Small world when you’re a Jew! Nu?

We spent the afternoon trying to work up an appetite, then walked to Matt’s for dinner. This meal, though, would be far less traditional.

I brought my Manischewitz noodles to help Allegra make a lokshen kugel from the recipe on my web site. But it turned out they expected me to whip up some matzah ball soup as well.

Noting this, Matt proffered a round cardboard canister of matzah meal.

“Do you have shmaltz?” I asked, referring to chicken fat, traditionally used in the dough. “Seltzer? How about an onion?”

None of the above, he admitted sheepishly. But he did have some dark green duck fat rendered from the duck stock that he’d made, which would serve as the base for my soup.

I didn’t have the recipe I always use, the one handed down from my great-grandmother. But that was the least of my challenges. Matt didn’t even have measuring cups or spoons.

Yikes!

Without a recipe, several key ingredients, or the necessary equipment, I’d simply have to improvise. No matter. At least they had eggs and the matzah meal. Using baking powder to add leavening and onion powder to infuse flavor, I did my best to achieve the right basic consistency. And to my relief, the balls I made puffed right up and floated to the top of the pot.

The chopped duck liver that Matt served with matzah may not have been quite kosher.

Neither was the brisket that he slow-roasted on a gas grill, nor his tsimmes – created from carrots, dates, and purple Chinese sweet potatoes – exactly what Grandma used to make.

But we consumed it all at a table on the rooftop of his building, by the light of the moon and the white Sabbath tapers that I’d brought. And as we sang the blessings over the candles, wine, and bread, I would honestly say that I’d never felt closer to God… or home.

Patti Weiss Levy of West Hartford is a former staff writer at The Hartford Courant. Her weekly blog can be found at www.NiceJewishMom.com.

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