El Yenta Man rises before dawn most every day weekday to meet the masochists who pay him to make them cry, but if he’s up that early on a Sunday it can only mean two things:

The fish are biting or it’s the Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival. Tapped for his particularly useful combination of brawn and brains, EYM has been in charge of loading up trays of challahs, rugelach, corned beef and latke mix into the refrigerated truck for the past six years. He spends the whole day ferrying reinforcements as the booths sell out right around the time church lets out – everybody in Savannah wants to be Jewish on Food Fest day!

The whole shebang is 25 years old this year and I wrote a lil’ something over at the day job about these fabulous matriarchs:

Shalom Y’all balabustas Peggy Harris, Joan Levy and Ellen Byck. Photo by Jon Waits/jwaitsphoto

“25 Years of Noshing” from Connect Savannah

Come October for the past 25 years, the kitchen at Congregation Mickve Israel has erupted into a tzimmes. For those who know their Yiddish, that could mean a mess of traditional European carrot and squash stew dripping from the walls. But it also translates into the less literal definition: A big fuss. [Read the rest here.]

In the meantime, I’m making sure EYM gets to bed early all week – he needs his strength!