For Purim: Hamantaschen meets cancel culture
An alert reader sent me this, and I have to say it’s one of the more depressing and yet funny things I’ve read in a long time. It’s not the Babylon Bee, either. It seems that Orwell’s Minitrue has taken on the task of rewriting recipe history.
Yes, food articles about recipes. The particular example given is a recipe for hamantaschen, the Purim cookie (the Jewish holiday starts tomorrow evening) that has symbolic meaning but basically tends to sound better than it is. The original article was entertaining; the expurgated culturally-approved one reads like the boring history textbooks I recall from my youth.
Here’s an excerpt from the original, now apparently disappeared down Winston Smith’s memory hole:
Full disclosure: I am not Jewish. But as someone who attended roughly three Bar or Bat Mitzvahs a weekend during 1992, and as someone who cooks professionally, I thought I could at least weigh in on the Jewish cookie department.
Hamantaschen are a triangular-shaped cookie made to commemorate the Jewish celebration of Purim. The story of Purim involves a bad guy, Haman, a nice Jewish lady, Esther, and her ultimate victory over his plot to destroy the Jewish people. Hamantaschen are shaped to resemble Haman’s 3-cornered hat and traditionally stuffed with sweet fillings made of poppy seeds, dried fruits, or fruit preserves (among others). Sounds tasty, right? But upon reflection, Jews and non-Jews alike on the BA staff could only call up childhood memories of dry and sandy hamantaschen that left your mouth coated with a weird film. “The filling was the thing that you thought might save it, but there was never enough,” says assistant editor Amiel Stanek. “And when you did get to the center, it was jam all the way up to the top,” senior editor Meryl Rothstein chimes in. Point being, it was an imbalanced cookie experience.
So I set out to convert the haters.
The new approved version, whisked away by Winston’s pneumatic tube to be placed in the archives (until displaced in the next purge):
Editor’s note 2/10/2021: The original version of this article included language that was insensitive toward Jewish food traditions and does not align with our brand’s standards. As part of our Archive Repair Project, we have edited the headline, dek, and content to better convey the history of Purim and the goals of this particular recipe. We apologize for the previous version’s flippant tone and stereotypical characterizations of Jewish culture.
Hamantaschen are a triangle-shaped cookie made during the Jewish festival of Purim, a holiday that commemorates Esther’s victory over Haman and his plot to destroy the Jewish people. Hamantaschen are shaped to resemble Haman’s 3-cornered hat and traditionally stuffed with sweet fillings made of poppy seeds, dried fruits, or fruit preserves (among others). Sounds tasty, right? But achieving the right balance is not always easy to pull off.
These literary and cultural revisionists are crazy, and they’re everywhere these days.
Don’t let them know it – but Purim is a holiday that might trigger some Iranians into feeling bad.
[NOTE: By the way, what’s with the constant use of the word “pneumatic” in dystopian novels of the first half of the 20th Century? The Minitrue of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four used a transport system described that way, and Huxley’s Brave New World kept describing well-endowed women and cushiony chairs as “pneumatic.”]
[NOTE II: I actually haven’t had much traditionally Jewish food in my lifetime. But “dry and sandy” actually does describe nearly every Jewish dessert I’ve ever had, with the exception of this yummy stuff – particularly the version made at Rein’s Deli in Vernon, Connecticut.]
Although I am not Jewish myself; I have enough friends who are and have tasted over the years those Hamantaschen that fit the first description very well. It is a spot on description of a less than tasty experience.
Then one day a few years ago I had some that were home made by someone who loved to bake. She even made her own jam filling for them. OMG! they were like tasty bits of heaven! I will never eat another store-bought Hamantaschen again.
That first description is spot on while the second (hmm? should I call it “lack of description”?) tells me nothing.
I thought I recognized the little triangular-shaped cookies which just appeared in my cafe’s bakery display. Hamantaschen, I said to myself.
However, I wasn’t so good to name the Jewish holiday.
The filling problem reminds me of why I don’t like jelly donuts. Such a tease. Well, I shouldn’t eat them anyway.
Enjoy!
http://www.eilatbakery.com/
On Pico, bet’n Beverly and Robertson.
Some are excellent, even fabulous.
Some aren’t worth a second bite.
It’s basically a filled cookie and can be of various sizes—a “purse” (taschen means purse, pouch or bag in German; in Hebrew they’re called “Haman’s ears”) filled with delightful (or awful…or decent or uninspiring) fillings: sweetened, ground poppyseeds (an Ashkenazi classic, based on Eastern European pastries); or mixed fruit (sometimes with chopped nuts); a mixture of dates and walnuts or other nuts (a Mizrahi/Sephardi classic, based on oriental pastries), etc.
More contemporary “designer” varieties contain dark chocolate and/or creme patissiere (sometimes with chocolate chips), or lemon curd, or white chocolate, etc. For those who absolutely MUST have Nutella, well, it is a depressing thought, but there you go….
And there are also those who make them savory (onions potato, spinach/chard and feta, etc.)
I have never heard of them made with Marmite/Vegemite but I suppose it’s possible….
Sizes vary as does the amount of filling used. A general rule of thumb is the greater the dough-to-filling ratio, the better the product. Some may, taking a lead from the UN, stress “proportionate”.
Prices can be reasonable or ridiculously high, which is why home-baked can be popular (if one has the time and inclination—or one’s attitude toward tradition is rock solid):
Basically you cut your flattened dough in circles (smaller or bigger, as you wish), put a dollop of filling in the middle and fold three sides of the dough circle up and inward to make a more-or-less inch-or-more-high equilateral triangle (though the claim that the shape was inspired by Haman’s American-revolutionary-style tricorn hat seems a bit fanciful). There’s usually an opening in the middle of the resulting triangular pastry which can be pleasing from an aesthetic point of view, as well as practical (e.g., no confusing chocolate with lemon curd).
Some close up the pastry entirely so that there is “no filling visible”; but in such cases, the closed variety usually has a distinct filling.
As with most things, it is best not to eat too many. On the other hand, it can be hard not to eat too many. (Yes, life is beset by challenges.)
And no, not a great holiday for diabetics, generally, or Keto types.
Nonetheless, enjoy!
Pneumatic…re the transport system, might have to do with the very extensive pneumatic tube systems in Paris and other cities, used for the delivery of mail and small packages.
re women, may have to do with preferences for those a little on what we would now consider the hefty side…maybe they bounced a little?…couldn’t say.
I don’t recall “pneumatic” in 1984, it’s been too long for me. But I believe that one is very straightforward. I recall seeing small versions of those systems in dept. stores as a child and being very impressed.
This is a big system.
I do remember being a little surprised by Huxley and his pneumatic women. I always assumed it referred to they way they moved in bed. It also has a mechanical connotation, as in “air driven piston power.” So we have a hedonistic society where sex is more about mechanics than love placed in contrast to the Savage and his literal self-flagellation.
“…what’s with the constant use of the word ‘pneumatic’ in dystopian novels of the first half of the 20th Centry?”
I laughed out loud (as the kids say) when I read that, neo! I remember wondering the same thing when I encountered those words in those novels. Huxley, especially, seemed obsessed with it. I sincerely spent a fair amount of time trying to cipher it out myself back when I encountered it. My guess was Huxley meant to imply sex and female sexuality had been reduced to something unemotional and mechanical?
Regarding the food article rewrite: it is this type of overreach that gives me hope. I have to believe there are a bunch of 13 – 16 year olds getting together and mocking this type of decorum. Like the “Not Ready for Primetime Players” and “National Lampoon” and “Mad Magazine” and bands like “The Clash” and “Ian Drury” and a thousand others, they will grow to be the creative pioneers who lead us out of today’s Puritanical, gray, soulless culture.
From online Merriam-Webster:
_________________________________________
Definition of pneumatic
1: of, relating to, or using gas (such as air or wind):
a: moved or worked by air pressure
b(1): adapted for holding or inflated with compressed air
(2): having air-filled cavities
2: of or relating to the pneuma : SPIRITUAL
3: having a well-proportioned feminine figure
especially : having a full bust
_________________________________________
I recall being surprised by pneumatic in Huxley too. Maybe the expression was more in use back then. I don’t hear much pneumatic anything anymore.
Besides, I can’t imagine Huxley writing “stacked” or “quite a rack.”
David+Foster,
Regarding women a little on the hefty side, when I began studying German I remember piecing together that a Yiddish word I had heard for years that described “healthy” women must likely comes from the German word for “juice” and that’s when I understood “zaftig” must literally mean, “juicy.”
And yes, a “taschen” is a pocket or tiny purse. “Taschengeld” is “pocket money” or “spending money.”
huxley,
I wonder if that 3rd definition came about due to Huxley (Aldous, not you)? I don’t recall ever hearing it used that way in any old movies or other literature, and the way Huxley used it came across as futuristic, like Burgess’ many reworkings of words and their meanings in “A Clockwork Orange.”
TommyJay,
The city of Prague had/has a system going back more than 100 years that connected the homes of the well to do in the city to the post office (and, likely, other resources).
And, of course, Mr. Musk is building a human scale system for quick transport under L.A. traffic, or from L.A. to New York, or New York to Paris or Earth to Mars, or something.
I wonder if that 3rd definition came about due to Huxley (Aldous, not you)? I don’t recall ever hearing it used that way in any old movies or other literature…
Rufus T. Firefly:
I don’t either. However, googling “pneumatic woman” gets quite a few modern hits, usually in reviews of books, movies or art.
(1) What on earth was disrespectful about the original article? Nobody is allowed to have fun any more.
(2) Is the cookie dough flavored, or are we talking about plain sugar cookies with filling?
(3) Iranians, having exchanged Zoroaster for Muhammad and the hidden imam, should in theory not be too touchy about Haman.
‘Archive Repair Project’ — Well there you go.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I think that’s exactly why Huxley used the word “pneumatic,” come to think of it. Also, remember how Ford was elevated to a sort of deity in Huxley’s book? “Our Ford…” “Ford’s in his flivver, all’s well with the world”? So there was something about automobiles that was special in that culture, and “pneumatic” is connected to that.
I wonder if the USAAF Pneumatic Life Vest – aka “Mae West” has any connection to the use of the term.
According to the online OED, the earliest known cite for “pneumatic” as a humorous word for “having a well-rounded figure, esp. large-bosomed” is from O. Henry in 1910; also T. S. Eliot in 1919 and A. Huxley in 1932.
@geoff+b:
First use of the term apparently 1940 during Battle of Britain, so I think you’re onto something.
Pneumatics was a technology people saw more in every day life back then. Message tubes, inner tubes, inter tubes oops.. those came later during the early Gaian Era when Algore (may he forever sequester our Carbon) invented them in a dream.
Pneumatics was a technology people saw more in every day life back then. Message tubes, inner tubes, inter tubes oops..
Zaphod:
I’ve been recalling Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” which featured some weird alt-future/steampunk technology based on pneumatic message tubes and ventilator ducts.
Then there was “The Future is Zeppelins” which we saw in Indiana Jones 3 and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” (underrated IMO).
I’m pretty sure monorails are part of this, but I haven’t worked that out.
Hammantaschen is like every other traditional Jewish food: some is awful, some is yummy. Depends on who is making it and where their tastes like.
Gefilte fish from the jar is awful. Homemade and even the frozen loaves are quite yummy!! Noodle Kugel — dry, flavorless, from the store, and from some people’s kitchens, but then some people make yummy, really rich noodle kugel. Rugelach is another one that can be tasteless and dry, but then sometimes it can be really delicious.
I suspect “tasteless and dry” comes from someone who specializes in tasteless and dry food across the board. (Like an unbanned person in my family….) EVERYTHING they make is tasteless and dry… Not just the traditional Ashkenazi holiday favorites.
Gefilte fish from the jar is awful. –Lee+Also
Gefilte fish in a jar left as a science project at the back of the refrigerator is an abomination.
My stepfather, the classical music prodigy discovered by Stokowski, did this and we went through a couple of weeks of wondering why everything, including milk straight from the carton, tasted weird.
@Huxley:
Have a look at this video of the Wuppertal suspended monorail type thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TqqdOcX4dc
Perhaps not but it seems obvious that Bon Appetit is simply being proactive. Enact their own private Ministry of Truth or face their inevitable cancelation, when SJW happen upon the horror of politically incorrect recipes.
Certainly the food police are busily examining every offense regardless of how innocuous, such as the recently canceled Aunt Jemima Syrup and Uncle Ben’s Rice.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.
To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
Back when I was active in my synagogue, the Men’s Club made latkes for Chanukah. They were horrid; dense, not done in the center, oily hockey pucks. When I made them at home, with shredded potatoes and fried in a thin layer of oil (rather than being soaked in oil like a french fryer), my latkes were light, fluffy, and delicious. And when I made my own hamentaschen with an apple butter filling, they were also light and delicious.
I suspect that the folks who make bad hamentaschen and latkes probably can’t cook anything else any better.
Pneumatic tubes have been used for years for mail delivery and document delivery within an office, and still ARE used for the drive-up windows for banks.
The original is so right. Invariably, there is too much cookie, and not enough filling, and what is there follows a corner bias… nay, prejudice.
Pre the invention of Crisco, would all these delicacies have been fried in Tallow? Obviously not Lard.
Subject of some interest as I’m not a fan of seed or vegetable oils which require more than a simple pressing to extract (i.e. anything involving solvents is Right Out).
Whenever I see a traditional recipe in any country or in any style, I’m mildly curious how different the ingredients have become since roughly ca. 1900.
Apart from the healthiness angle, there’s the taste angle. If the taste had changed subtly over the last hundred years, how would we even know?
Zaphod:
As I recall, Real Beef Tallow was the magical ingredient in the One True McDonald’s French Fry.
Since McDonald’s renounced Tallow for its sins, McDonald’s fans remain lost in the desert, yearning for the heavenly Fry which will restore them.
Zaphod:
Ashkenazi Jewish food (which is mainly what we’re talking about here) featured very few fried foods. One exception was the latke. Ashkenazi Jews not only didn’t have Crisco, they didn’t have much access to vegetable oil. The main fat was chicken fat.
I don’t know how anyone else feels about it, but to me Ashkenazi Jewish food is leaden and doughy, and the pastries (as I said) are dry and sandy. Sephardic Jewish food, on the other hand, is fabulous. Basically, it’s Middle Eastern food, and Ashkenazi food is eastern European food with some extra dietary restrictions. I basically don’t like eastern European food, although there are some exceptions.
@Neo:
Interesting! Chicken fat, of course.
In my low carb / keto / down with seed oils journey I did read somewhere that Crisco was a bit of a hit early on because it solved a bunch of tricky Kashrut issues. And the Oracle confirms this:
https://blogs.yu.edu/library/2015/12/07/kosher-cooking-with-crisco-hanukah-1911/
“The most important thing a Jewish visitor can do in Budapest is to eat what we elsewhere call gefilte fish, but locally is called Stuffed Carp: a whole fish with bones removed, with a filling of ground fish and spices surrounded by the carp’s own meat, accompanied by a sweet-and-sharp sauce (horseradish and fruit compote) unique to Hungarian cuisine — unlike the insipid, pallid lumps of gefilte fish consumed by Jews elsewhere.
Hungary’s gefilte fish stands as the last living memorial to one of the most talented communities the world has ever known.”
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/07/12/hungarian-suicide-song-redux-n130940
The main fat was chicken fat.
neo:
As a hopelessly Gentile barefoot boy in Florida, I was a big fan of “Mad” magazine, which was a sorta hopelessly Jewish NY humor magazine.
I kept running into references to something called “schmaltz,” usually displayed as a liquid with bubbles in it. I figured it was like Seven-Up.
Not chicken fat.
A Jewish communist from Brooklyn set me straight on that after I got to San Francisco.
He put in a few decades doing Social Services there. Then bought a nice house on the Big Island in Hawaii for retirement.
It’s Time for a Rhyme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EkgC_Z0YTo
huxley: Moxie and halvah
Wow! Rein’s Deli, Grew up 5 miles from the Deli. Loaves of rye bread that tasted like no other. The tongue sandwich on rye with a bit of mustard and the big dill on the side. Everything in the Deli was top-notch.
The original article wasn’t even remotely antisemitic or offensive. The editor’s rewrite however is both. What’s offensive is that there really are anti-semites, on both left and right. But telling normal people that they can get in trouble for criticizing Hamentaschen is a way to alienate the non-antisemites.
}}} By the way, what’s with the constant use of the word “pneumatic” in dystopian novels of the first half of the 20th Century?
I’m only speculating, but I’m guessing it’s an element of factory, industrialization, & de-humanization which the writers are instilling into the mind-pictures they are creating.
Pneumatic is clearly a factory-based word, and anyone who knows it is going to think in one way or another of machinery.
They are putting it in to stick the dehumanized factory gestalt at the back of your head, akin to Robert Heinlein’s proscription for adding a certain flair of “oddness” to your writing, by tossing in an word in an unusual context: “The door dilated…”
Plus it adds a touch of both factory and grinding action to the mindset, tied to the pictures of mail tubes so common in the past (when those things were written), and now mostly experienced at drive-up banks these days, unless you’re at one of the unusual “big city” places where they are still used:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Washington%2C_D.C._Miss_Helen_Ringwald_works_with_the_pneumatic_tubes.jpg/800px-Washington%2C_D.C._Miss_Helen_Ringwald_works_with_the_pneumatic_tubes.jpg
I will cite the amusing alteration, though, in that the doors of Star Trek, which are hardly dystopian, and feel a part of freedom, are also clearly pneumatic…
Huxley said,
“I’ve been recalling Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” which featured some weird alt-future/steampunk technology based on pneumatic message tubes and ventilator ducts.
Then there was “The Future is Zeppelins” which we saw in Indiana Jones 3 and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” (underrated IMO).
I’m pretty sure monorails are part of this, but I haven’t worked that out.”
Sky Captain* is a sub-genre of Sci-Fi/Fantasy known as Diesel Punk. Perhaps some would say a sub-genre of a sub-genre (being a further division of Steam Punk). The three original Indiana Jones movies are also considered by many to be Diesel Punk (at least a lighter version of it). Many lump Brazil in there as well but I’m not sure if it fits entirely. I’m not sure if Brazil’s milieu fits any categorization entirely. But that’s Gilliam for you.
The Hudsucker Proxy, The Rocketeer, and Dark City (a very under-rated movie IMHO) also have elements of Diesel Punk. I’ve always loved the Diesel Punk aesthetic myself, before I even knew what it was.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Dieselpunk
I agree with you regarding Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. I loved it and couldn’t understand why it didn’t take off, no pun intended. Apparently, the writer-director and his brother pioneered some crazy technology to make that movie on a much smaller budget and were given the go-ahead to do so. But the unofficial story is between the movie bombing and the shamelessly manipulative and duplicitous Hollywood culture, it all broke his heart and spoiled him on the entertainment industry. I don’t believe he’s made a movie since.
What does it mean to call a woman pneumatic?
When a female is described as pneumatic it means she has large breasts (possibly artificially augmented by plastic surgery). To my mind, there’s also the implication of her being both well-equipped and possibly available for bouncy bouncy / mattress dancing (slang euphemisms for sexual intercourse)
From Google
Huxley:
They were also a part of Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, with its retro-futuristic feel.
Remember, Dallas got the notice about winning the trip to Fhloston’s Paradise via pneumatic tube?
Pretty sure they popped up in other places in the film, too.
huxley @ 10:30,
McDonalds ditching beef tallow in their fryers was a huge mistake.
huxley @ 11:35pm,
It’s not unusual to see a small bowl of schmaltz on the table in Kneipen (taverns) in Germany next to a rack of Bretzeln (pretzels).
Fractal Rabbit,
One of my kids has written a steampunkish novel (over 400 pages!) in which zeppelins figure prominently.
If you find yourself near Orlando, Florida, The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure is a steampunk themed restaurant with surprisingly good food.
Rufus,
Is it available for purchase?
Rufus, I realized that it could be confused what I was asking: is your kid’s story available for purchase? Not the steampunk restaurant.
Fractal Rabbit,
Not yet. He’s on his second rewrite.
40or so years ag, when air powered fastener driving tools were entering the “common” world in shop construction, we had to distinguish between pneumatic and electric tools. (Rotary motor air tools had been around quite a while)
We often used pneumatic to describe air headed folk.
The high pitched whine of die grinders, drills, et cetera, when running under “no load” conditions, firmed up the comparison.
There was SOME retronym usage concerning acoustic guitars as well.
Playing “slash” on an acoustic garnered the name pneumatic guitar.
As fr as I know, the vocabulary was only used among tech folks in the entertainment industry.
IMHO, Merriam Websters has played so fast and loose with unagreed “usage”
updates they should be used ONLY with the same cautious consideration as Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
Hamantaschen are tasty! My mother made them with fruit filling, and so did I. I’ve used different recipes, and they’re all delicious. My kids don’t believe in any filling but chocolate, though. Oh well.
CaptDMO,
Weren’t there pneumatic tools long before 40 years ago? Elevators? Front loaders? Pumps?
@Rufus:
Front Loaders operate via Hydraulics.
Hydraulic Elevators not that common cf. the usual motor/counterweight type. They’re used for heavy freight or in buildings where design doesn’t allow a winding house up top. Usually don’t span many floors as require a giant piston. For same reason they are slooowwwww.
As well as tools, there’s a lot of pneumatic applications in actuators and industrial control systems — in other words stuff that modulates and controls other stuff happening — not necessarily the motive power force being applied to the work being done.
@Rufus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller#Industrial_control
Ca. 1930s for early pneumatic controllers.
Rufus:
Pneumatic nail guns, staplers, grinders, die grinders, sanders, jack hammers, chippers, riveters (Rosy the Riveter), rivet setters (aerospace), double diaphram pumps for water/oil and gasoline (gas stations – no arky sparky). Linear pneumatic actuators (air cylinders). Lots and lots of air/pneumatic tools. Hydraulic tools have more power capability (I was just the grunt field geologist/field engineer) but you also have air over hydraulic tools too. Power tools!
LaBouty demolition shears and excavator/track hoe attachments if you really want to process rad-contaminated big pipes, steel plate, and railroad track into convenient scrap sizes. “Torches? Torches? We don’t need no stinkin cutting torches!” Or crunch up concrete ……
@Om:
You’re the John Dos Passos of Pneumaticism. And I mean that in a good way.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Tying up some threads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Drill_(Jacob_Epstein)
Zaphod discovers how underground mining is done, with jack leg drills to drill holes for explosives. Why did underground hard rock miners develop silicosis? From breathing airborne rock dust before the use of water mists/cooling water at the drill bit/rock face to suppress the dust.
Pneumatic winches/tuggers too, no arky sparky, no fry you with electricity in wet well grounded work spaces. Too much of a novel? Go to the interwebs.
Fixed it:
“For Purim: Hamantaschen meets cancel culture” —>
“For Purim, Hamantaschen Meets Cancel Culture”
You’ll never make the NYT using colon. Not through the front door anyway.
Hamantaschen? Those were the treats handed out at the foot of the gallows, as I recall. Lekvar filling, if you please.
Let us enjoy the coming events.
Rufus 2/25 @ 10:26 AM,
Biergarten in der Fuggerei in Augsburg, if you ever get back to Germany:
https://tinyurl.com/wn5xar8s
Griebenschmalz (pig fat with crispy bacon bits), a thick slice of Hausbrot, and a tall Hefeweizen (wheat beer). Nothing better. Yes yes, I’m a bad Jew. But I do like hamantaschen with prune or compote filling, so perhaps there’s hope for me.