Small Things, Big Stories

Read the newspaper: War. Riots. Wildfires. Crime.

Read the novels: Family fights. Divorce. Alienation.

Read the magazines: Trauma. Therapists. Cleaning Ladies.

And now — read the SisterSchmooze: A slice of sweet potato. A long-retired guitar. A palm frond hidden in the sand. Ordinary things — humble, even forgettable.

But sometimes the grandest truths are tucked inside the quietest moments. Sibling love disguised as mischief. Music that connects friends and generations. Faith unearthed in an unexpected piece of art.

Put aside the newspapers, the novels, the magazines. Join us in the little moments, see the everyday objects that hold a lot more than you’d think. Because it’s in those small things that you’ll find the realities of real life. And that’s where you’ll read stories that are bigger than the headlines.

Emmy Leah digs deep to find…

A Tale of Sweet Potatoes

Emmy Leah Stark Zitter

Sweet potatoes. Humble, unpretentious, but incredibly healthy, chock-full of iron, vitamins, and minerals galore. You can roast them, mash them, bake them into pies, toss them into soups, or kugel them for Shabbos and Yom Tov.

And if you’re creative (and quirky) enough, instead of baking, broiling, frying them, you can write your sweet potatoes into a Schmooze.

Our sweet potato saga begins many years ago, in my husband’s home in Flatbush. My mother-in-law a”h wanted her children to eat healthy. She had no luck introducing carobs instead of carbs, Shredded Wheat instead of Sugar Pops, apple juice instead of Coke. But she did insist on serving sweet potatoes at suppertime.

For my then-teenaged, now-all-grown-up husband, Yaakov, this wasn’t a problem. Then (and now, baruch Hashem!), he wasn’t a fussy eater. Put it on his plate, and it was gone.