The 5786 Purim Gazette

Fresser Spends More Time in Atlanta

Annual Purim Gazette Editor, Professor Essie Fresser, has cancelled leading an AARP iceberg monitoring venture and will reside for the next two months in the toasty Atlanta Jewish Times suite of offices. While in residence, she will add new chapters to her latest book, “I Might Need It,” an illustrated memoir of her grandfather’s garage.

Will a Jewish Curling Team Come to Atlanta?

The Winter Olympics demonstrated the global popularity of the icy sport of curling, and a prominent Atlanta philanthropist wants to create local Jewish curling teams. Modeled after Atlanta’s numerous curling clubs, the philanthropist is keen to promote the frigid sport to Jewish youth who, he complains, “are too focused on keeping warm.” From a chilly seat in the Atlanta Iceforum in Duluth, the above-mentioned philanthropist, garbed in a snug puffer jacket, wistfully noted, “I’m ready to hire agile curling coaches who deftly guide 42-pound stones while sliding in awkward positions. It’s a strategically fascinating sport to watch!”
He enthusiastically added, “I’m also eager to sponsor a Jewish female curling team, and I’ve officially reached out to Atlanta’s Hadassah athletes. I’m sure fans will flock to see hardy local women who curl.” A delegation of devoted Atlanta curling fans will travel to Norway and Greenland to scout for topnotch Semitic curling coaches, like icons Lars Mendel Olsensteiner, Bjorn Shlomo Ericsonovitzman, and Hilda Sarah Svensonberger. “The right coaches,” claims the philanthropist, “will serve as role models who proudly wear Jewish stars, long underwear, and proletarian shoes.”
Coincidentally, the Atlanta Scholars Kollel, always attuned to the current zeitgeist, has hired curling coaches from Israel to train Lunch and Learn rabbis to lead their 2026 ambitious “Lunch and Burn” programs.

Warning: Thai Hamantaschen Hospitalization in 2025

On Purim, 2025, the Luce-Gottkes family of Randy and Lacey Luce-Gottkes, their daughter, Rosie, and visiting grandmother, Frieda, were rushed to Speedmont Hospital after an off-duty nurse, Lucky Stiff, who was out walking his new pair of matched Corgis, heard moans and groans emanating from an open window.
The Luce-Gottkes family had just returned to Atlanta from a Purim trip to Thailand, where they celebrated the festival at the Bangkok Chabad synagogue, donning colorful paper costumes and shaking desiccated red pepper-filled groggers. On the way back to their hotel, they were enticed by the aroma of food carts that sold unique-ingredient triangular pastries. The treats were so tasty, the Luce-Gottkeses ate their fill and bought more for a late-night snack.
Although they all experienced nightmares on the long flight home, grandmother Frieda assumed that it was likely the result of their wearing the unlined Thai costumes. However, the bad dreams were just the beginning, and by their first day home the whole family was weak and bedridden. Upon hearing their wailing, medically-trained Stiff assessed the situation and called an ambulance.
Released, after being hospitalized for nasal neuralgia, aural atrophy, swollen tongue syndrome, fuzzy lips, and tonsil trauma, (their mauve teeth and gums were handled later), Lacey stated, “Thank G-d we can still talk! It was touch and go with my mother-in-law. We’re staying home and eating local hamantaschen this year. Unfortunately, our Thai groggers were scanned in the Atlanta airport and confiscated after two K-9 dogs sniffed them and passed out.”

Archaeological Discovery at MJCCA Preschool

Toddlers in the MJCCA preschool playground ran to teacher’s aide, Mae Aye, and pulled her to see what they had uncovered. Digging in a moist patch of dirt with plastic shovels they found in a sandbox, the tots had come upon something strange. Aye, an Emory University dental school graduate student, was stunned to see what appeared to be a gigantic reptile’s tooth, right there on Tilly Mill Road. Aye immediately ushered her class indoors away from the discovery and texted the chairman of her department. That afternoon, Dr. Gho Sikh and his big-tooth majors arrived with professional extraction tools to carefully remove the discovery from its muddy home. Once the extraction was complete, the apparently prehistoric find was carefully capped and sent to CDC’s famous, state-of-the-art Nail and Tooth Research Department for carbon dating and plaque removal.
Within a week, Professor Willy R. Wohntee from CDC and Emory’s Dr. Sikh confirmed that the tooth is a fossil from the Late Cretaceous Period when giant reptiles cavorted in present-day Dunwoody, and they donated the discovery to the Fernbank Science Museum where it was added to the third floor permanent Tooth Gallery. A re-enactment of the discovery (with AI-generated child actors and a voiceover by teacher’s aide, Aye) was produced, to be shown in the Fernbank IMAX theater this month. Half-price tickets to the film are offered to school groups, and a docent-led tour of the Tooth Gallery is included. Upon exiting, students will receive complementary goodie bags that include plastic shovels, disposable gloves, and toothbrushes.

RICE Investigation in Alanta

An expose segment of “Sixteen Minutes” about a group of Jewish heavy eaters in Atlanta and a maligned chef is scheduled to air on April 31. The program will feature five Oglethorpe grads who hired popular chef Oliver (known as “Chef Liver”) a la Orange to lead home cooking classes. The culinary activities of the home cooks and chef were reported to RICE (Routine Investigation of Chef Engagements) by apartment neighbors who complained about the culinary group’s adverse impact on their hi-rise. They contacted RICE about the pervasive scent of garlic in the building, empty wine bottles overflowing the trash receptacles, and random pieces of aged cheese ground into the lobby carpeting. The angry neighbors blamed the offensive behavior totally on Chef Liver, and, in order to get RICE’s attention, they snapped accusatory pictures for weeks; every photo had a clear shot of an eggplant tattoo on the chef’s left bicep. Soon, Chef Liver was arrested — but for an international crime.
The scheming neighbors knew that RICE agents had been looking for individuals with eggplant tattoos for several months, after a fellow with an eggplant tattoo on his left bicep was among those convicted of the shocking Louvre heist in Paris. Connecting the nonexistent dots, RICE agents claimed that Chef Liver was part of an international eggplant-tattooed burglary ring that had spread to Atlanta. RICE refuted Chef Liver’s claims that vegetable tattoos are commonly acquired by students who study at Cordon Bleu culinary schools. Although substantiating photos of tattooed cooking interns were submitted by Chef Liver’s attorney as evidence that his tattoo was innocent — a common Cordon Bleu practice — RICE detained him and his five home-cooking students whom they assumed were also part of the international burglary ring.
The April expose on “Sixteen Minutes” will interview members of Chef Liver’s family. “We couldn’t convince RICE that my father’s eggplant tattoo is not gang-related,” daughter, Chiqi a la Orange, sobbed, so we went straight to the media.” The program will include a hedgy RICE response that appeared on X (formerly Twitter) about the chef’s tattoo-based detention. The Atlanta Jewish Times, which often monitors “Sixteen Minutes” for accuracy, was first to break the story.

New Crumb-free Matzah Products

Passover matzah orders with custom perforated designs may be ordered immediately after Purim from Crumb-free Matzah, which opened a factory in Atlanta last year. “Customers can work with our graphics department to design bespoke matzah with perforations in the shape of a family pet or even the logo of their favorite sports team or fashion designer,” said enthused co-owners, Matt Meyerowitz and Bo Belch, who showed AJT reporters special equipment built for the puncturing process by an undisclosed foreign country.
Of interest to consumers who are tired of buying standard matzah and who dread the common gastric distress that results from eating it for eight days and nights, Matt and Bo assure all consumers that boxes of ameliorating prune-filled matzah will soon be on grocery shelves. “For generations, we Jews have gratefully embraced the power of prunes, and I should know,” Meyerowitz averred, sagely.

New Mel Lon Balle Kosher Cookbook

Dapper culture editor, film critic, and former food truck proprietor, Mel Lon Balle, recently published his second cookbook, “Fab Food Fashioned From Fliks.” Selections from the table of contents list simple recipes suggestive of famous films, with apt descriptions.
“A Raisin in the Bun” — Frugal home cooks laud this inexpensive baking inclusion
“It’s a Wonderful Lime” — Enliven holiday dishes with tangy citrus fruit
“Pickles of Penzance” — Brining tips from a small country with a surfeit of cucumbers
“Salmon Samurai” — Secrets from a septet of warrior fishermen
“Star Bars” — Healthful snacks to eat after dark
“Asparagus Now” — This vegetable has natural superpowers, so eat it tonight
“The Gourd, The Bland, and the Ugli” — Select only the tastiest vegetable and fruit
“Latkes of Arabia” — Unknown Chanukah cuisine from Muslim home cooks
“Martini the Magnificent” — Teetotalling table tennis players love new mocktail
“Monty Python’s Life of Bran” — Michael Palin shares his colonic treatment regimen