As the Jewish Holidays approach.

The Jewish holidays are fast approaching and in less time than it takes for a tray of pigs-in-a-blanket to vanish at a Roslyn Bar Mitzvah, they'll come crashing down around us. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take off Wednesday or Thursday to celebrate the Jewish New Year. Before long, however, I do know that Uncle Slappy and Aunt Sylvie will arrive from Boca and will set everything straight.

There's a fly in the ointment this year, unfortunately. Con Edison (whose founder Thomas Edison was a notorious anti-Semite--he consorted with Henry Ford and was a subscriber to Ford's tracts published in Ford's infamous "The International Jew") has found a gas-leak in a pipe leading into our co-op. Fearing another building explosion like the recent one on Park and 116th Street in Harlem, they've shut everything off going into our building. This means that neither our stove or our oven are functioning. And this with the High Holy Days upon us.

My wife takes her uxorial duties quite seriously and has rapidly scrambled to come up with a plan B. Is it possible, she began fretting shortly after Con Ed's edict was taped to the front door of our co-op, is it possible to cook an entire holiday meal on a George Foreman grille and a microwave?

Last night from some dark recess of some hard-to-open drawer she pulled out a sheaf of dog-eared papers. Buried within was the recipe book that came with our grille and she began planning.

"Here's a recipe for Coq au Vin a la George Foreman," she defiantly informed me.

"Coq au Vin? How is that even possible?"

"George Foreman fought until he was almost 50 and has five sons all named George. Anything is possible," she assured me.

"I don't understand the physics of it. How does the wine sauce stay on the grille?" I might as well have been asking a wall.

She dove deeper into the recipe book but studied it in silence. I suppose dinner, which I'm sure will be delicious, will be a surprise. This, of course, will set Uncle Slappy off. He looks forward to my wife's spectacular Holiday chicken dishes all year. His particular favorite is a meal from the old country that my wife cooks to perfection--Chicken Kiev. It's the poultry combination of a coronary and heartburn in one cutlet.

There's no telling what she has settled on or how she will pull it all off. Cooking a big Holiday meal for a dozen people with nothing but a grille and a microwave.

Who knows? She could be making Bouillabaisse.