Daily Podcasts Video Research

How many Junior’s cheesecakes can a Victoria waterlily hold? Now we know.

JL;DR SUMMARY In a lighthearted intersection of horticulture and Jewish culture, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden participated in the Waterlily Weigh-off, a quirky competition that measures the strength of lily pads by placing weights on them. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

BrooklynJewish CommunityShavuotAlan RosenJewish Culinary TraditionBrooklyn Botanic GardenJuniors CheesecakeWaterlily Weigh OffVictoria WaterlilyLocal Culture

Places mentioned

Brooklyn, New York, United States
"But on Thursday, the lily pads got their fill of the food mostly closely associated with the Jewish holiday. In fact, they were positively straining under the weight of cheesecakes from Juniors, the Downtown Brooklyn bakery operated by the same Jewish family since it opened in 1950."
Denver, Colorado, United States
"The food fest came during The Waterlily Weigh-off, a friendly competition organized by the Denver Botanic Gardens for the past three summers."
Birmingham, United Kingdom
"Gardeners in Birmingham, England, for example, placed 11 bottles of gin (and seven bricks) atop their lily pad, totaling 75.4 pounds."
Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
"At the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a lily pad nicknamed Paula Bunyan held 71.51 pounds of various Minnesota-related items, including a Vikings football and a tater tot hot dish."
Polk County, Florida, United States
"A pad at Bok Tower Gardens in Polk County, Florida, took on 183 pounds of Florida oranges and additional weights,"
Madrid, Madrid Province, Spain
"while a lily pad Desert City in Madrid held 59 pounds of potted cacti decked out with googly eyes."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 60004
Cairo Source ID 42
Retrieved 2025-08-25 05:30:57 UTC
Curated 2025-08-25 08:31:05 UTC