sarah in nyc

 Most people I know who make kasha make it according to the recipe on the Wolff's kasha box. It involves toasting the kasha in a beaten egg in one pan and sautéing onions in fat in a different pan, (and of course chicken fat is best in this case). You then heat up chicken stock to boiling in a third pan and pour it over the toasted buckwheat. The kasha cooks in the stock and while THAT is simmering away you boil bowtie noodles and add them to the cooked kasha. This creates a delicious kasha. My father swore by this kasha making method. I rarely made kasha because the thought of having to use four pans to make one side dish just seemed like too much of a bother. Our many summertime visits to Netcost, the Russian supermarket, got me hankering for kasha again.  I don't know exactly how I learned that often Russians don't use a stovetop to make kasha but bake kasha in an oven. I ended up stumbling into a much easierand less cooking pot intensive method of kasha making. My fathe...

My friend Racheley lived in Boston between fifth and seventh grade while her father was getting a graduate degree. Bother of her parents taught in my school and we became close during those years. After Racheley and her family returned to Israel we lost touch. We may have exchanged a few aerogrammes but perhaps not. Racheley and I reconnected on Facebook a few years ago, and we got to visit in person in 2018. We have reconnected as if there wasn't a break of decades. The one thing that Racheley has mentioned missing is the color of New England autumn. I totally understand that longing for the deep reds and oranges of the leaves in the Boston fall. Living in Manhattan there are years when my eyes don't get enough fall foliage. each year that happens it feels like a loss. I NEED that color the same way that a body NEEDS enough vitamin C to survive. So for the past several years, every autumn I search out color to send to Racheley. This past Sunday, our friends Alfie and Judy sugg...

  This wonderful coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading skeleton has been installed in front of a local Georgian coffee shop around the corner from my house. The people who own the coffee shop have been enjoying setting up the skeleton in various amusing poses. I am between commissions right now (two are beginning any minute) and my draggy cold seems to be thinking about leaving my body (finally!). So, I have been tackling some tasks that have been on my "tuit" list for a while. "Tuit" is a term I have learned from some of my sewing buddies---the things that eventually one will get to it. Dyeing my sad grey boots red was one of those tasks. The other was tending to my purple cotton sweater. Years ago, I found a lovely heavy cotton sweater with pretty covered and embroidered buttons in a local thrift store and I thought that it would be perfect for my mother. It was perfect for her and she wore it for a few years until she died.  The sweater was made by Evie. a mid-rang...