Southern Californians like to pride themselves in being innovators and concocting new ideas that the country soon follows.
Members of Temple Isaiah in Newport Beach combined a green Chanukah with the traditional blue and white celebration making it into a light aqua event, and an attempt to break the world record for the largest potato latke.
Potato pancakes -- latkes -- are traditional fare served at Chanukah parties and are usually about four inches in diameter.
Isaiah congregants shredded enough of the spuds to make a three-foot wide super supper latke, which they cooked up in a solar paneled oven.
Record setting by itself, it must have taken a fantastic amount of sun power to heat up an oven big enough to cook that giant pancake. Not even new kitchen ovens are that big.
Rabbi Marc Rubenstein said in a sermon to the 100-family congregation that focused on the environment, "We are our brother's keeper, and we also have to take care of the Earth."
A neat idea and a fun thing to do, but I’m afraid there will be no prize as far as latke purists are concerned.
Real potato latkes are fried; their’s was baked.
If anything, they should win a prize for baking up the world’s biggest potato kugel.
