sarah in nyc

 I have had the honor of blowing shofar at my synagogue since the year my father died. I practice during the entire moth of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. When I practice, I do a run through with each of the shofarot you see here. One was a bar mitzvah gift given to my nephew, the other was a bar mitzvah gift given to my son. The black one is easy to blow. the paler one is difficult to blow. Each time I practice I do a run though first with the difficult shofar and then with the easy one.  . We Jews like rules. There are lots of rules about shofar blowing. I try to blow with the same power that my father did. As a small child I was told that the three different sounds of the shofar correspond to a wail, and then sobs and finally completely broken up sobbing. This year I learned something new. I learned that the long blast represents God's mercy and the shorter blasts represent God's judgement. I can produce a long shofar blast. A previous year I read that one needs to m...

 Jess's tallit   Is heading towards the finish line. The pinot/corner pieces will be made out of woven strips of the ribbon that I embroidered both for Jess's tallit as well as for other recent tallitot. I wove the strips together last night over a bit of fusible interfacing. Eventually, it looked  like this. You are getting some additional photos just because I am feeling really pleased with myself. All of this sewing is being interspersed with holiday cooking. The tzimmes tat was cooked in this graniteware roasting pan is now in the freezer. not visible is the 7.5 lbs. of flanken meat that are under the vegetables. I am feeling especially fond of this pan because it has been working hard all week. Not pictured is the brisket that I cooked in there yesterday. Both the tzimmes and the beef are now frozen. Today I used the same roasting pan to sweat the leaves off of two heads of cabbage. Yes, there is stuffed cabbage making in my future. And of course the cabbage wil...

 Because people know I sew I often am given random  collections of sewing things. The tool below, came into my life last summer. I had no idea what it might be useful for until this summer. This tool has two excellent uses. First of all it is quite as a good sewing machine screw driver. One needs a really stumpy, short handled screwdriver to open up the cover to the bobbin case. This does the job well and is just stumpy enough to get into tight spaces. The looped handle also gives this tool a second excellent use. This little tool is also an excellent bodkin. A bodkin is a tool that allows you to thread elastic or ribbon through a narrow casing. I sewed elastic to the top of the loop and easily threaded the elastic through a casing. Normally, I use safety pins as bodkins but sometimes a safety pin can decide to open mid task which can result in lots of cursing. I don't know if it is possible to buy a similar combination mini screwdriver/bodkin but if you find one, get it. Belo...

 How long does it take to sew a seam?? Well, that depends. I have been trying to sew two strips of ribbon onto Jess’s tallit for the past two days.  I have been plagued by the dreaded terry cloth or rats nest of thread on the underside of the fabric. Not only is the loopy knotted mess of fabric ugly, it's also weak and does a bad job of holding two pieces of fabric together. So, how do you fix this sewing machine malady? Sometimes all you need to do is insert a new needle. That didn't work. The next thing to try is to open up and clean up the bobbin case. Often the trouble is a teeny bit of errant thread.  The process of opening up and cleaning out the bobbin case is time consuming. Sometimes you can find that little crumb of thread easily. Yesterday and today it took close to a dozen frustrating tries, unscrewing the needle plate. disassembling all of the bobbin parts and then putting everything back in place to test out the machine,see if EVERYTHING was cleaned out and ...

 It has been a busy week. Hanoch came up from Philadelphia to tie his titzit. Yes, he was really happy with the tallit. He had purchased really beautiful tzitzit in Jerusalem. He was really happy with the result. I am still working on the atara and will ship the tallit as soon as it is completed and stitched in place and I have trimmed all of the loose threads from the tallit. We celebrated my sister's birthday. And tonight I made Shabbat dinner. I soaked dried limes in boiling water and then broke the hard shells before stuffing them into whole chickens. The dried limes pack a flavor punch. I know this doesn't look terribly pretty but it should taste wonderful. I didn't take a photo of the roasted vegetables or the semolina that I made.  But I did make two pies. I made a blackberry pie that is topped with an almond milk custard that has been flavored with rum. There is a little drizzle of pomegranate molasses to cover the less than beautiful color of the custard. I also ma...