The CJA Kick off Dance party was a well attended successful event, that featured not only some snazzy dance music, (which my children enjoyed), booths where  CJA beneficiaries could hand out brochures and the like,  but also a complimentary  kid friendly lunch of barbequed hotdogs (veggie dogs as well) with fresh buns and bagged chips.

My children had so much fun dancing at the party that I took the opportunity to sample the surprisingly extensive pareve dessert selection at the back of the campus gymnasium.  There were (to my great delight) no less than three different kinds of chocolate cookies—each with a different texture, colour and weight. Myself, and others carefully sampled all three kinds, one of which was in fact from  Gunn’s Bakery, and we (the Cookie Reviewers) concluded that all three  had obtained “Thumbs Up” status (even Martha Stewart would have been pleased with the CJA on this one!).

I assumed that there were no further offerings at the Desert Table until lo and behind my eye caught the sight of a tray of Lemon cookies. As Marla Vittera said on sampling a lemon cookie, “I don’t usually like lemon, but this cookie is quite tasty. Almost has a cake like quality to it. Rich and chewy.”

While we were “de-briefing” over the lemon cookie, we spotted one last chocolate chip kmishe breut (also from Gunn’s we think) and decided that it was our number one hit!  There were, however, two more treasures found in large tin pans at the very back of the room—chocolate and almond biscotti. The jury is still out on which biscotti was our collective favourite.

However, in the course of writing this article, I have begun to wonder what exactly is the difference between kmishe breut and biscotti?  Is Biscotti really just Italian kmishe or is Kmishe really just Jewish biscotti? (Faith Kaplan. a maven at large on these issues tells me that the correct word for "kmishe" is "Kmishe Breut (almond bread) and that although in Winnipeg we call it kmishe, elsewhere it is referred to as Mandel-breut).

In between nibbling on cookies, I did have a chance to scan the room and see that people, many of whom were parents with young families, all appeared to be enjoying themselves. And that’s the whole point isn’t it? The CJA campaign got off to a great start.

As Eliaine Golstine,Director, Financial Resource Development for the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg  said, "We had about 700 people. People made contributions to the campaign that day. There were parents who made gifts in the name of their children. The volunteers were fabulous." 

Next Year, if there’s another Dance Party, I’ll be back and so will my kids.