sarah in nyc

 A simple meal is in store for us tonight. It is chicken cooked with sesame free za'atar, a couple of oven baked sweet potatoes and roasted vegetables.The  pots and pans shown in the Bloomingdales advertisements always showed beautiful raw vegetables. Mine are actually cooked at this point but forgive the lack of photo. In the department of strange, when we went to Bingo to buy goodies for Thanksgiving, I also purchased  a bottle of mouthwash. I opened the bottle last night and noticed that it wasn't packaged for the United states, but rather for Indonesia. It's nice to know that my mouthwash is halal. This photo of the block just south of mine, taken in 1970, showed up on my Facebook feed.You can see my building peeking through in the background. I wish I could credit a photographer.  This summer I purchased a multi sized pattern in a thrift store.  It is a multi sized pattern which meant that I could keep making dresses for my great nieces over the years. I di...

  Here I am, well you see some of me, standing in front of my grandparent's engagement photo. My grandparents got married before WWI. In this photo I am wearing a cashmere sweater that my mother and aunt bought my grandmother for her seventieth birthday. I was with my mother when she bought this sweater in the early 1960s. I can't tell you for sure when the birthday celebration took place but it was before 1965. I rarely wear this sweater because the color makes me look ill, but I was wearing an orange dress beneath the sweater to mitigate the color.  I guess I have just been feeling sentimental. Friday night two of our guests are people that I know since elementary school. One thing that I discovered during dinner is that I have very strong memories of particular lessons that my elementary school teachers taught me. My classmates don't share those memories. I don't know why those particular lessons stuck in my head, but they did. I had lunch with one of those friends t...

 My dear friend Shawna loved Thanksgiving. She was a beautiful, elegant cook and baker and loved to set a beautiful table. We often celebrated Thanksgiving together, (along with the second Seder and the second night of Rosh HaShanah). Shawna put thought and care into everything that she did and understood the power of flavor to evoke memory AND also push the eater to experience something new. After Shawna died it seemed imperative that we continue to do Thanksgiving together with her husband and his family. So we do.  Our preparation begins with a trip to Monsey, to Bingo to buy the holy brisket. Is brisket not traditional on your Thanksgiving table? The core of Shawna's Thanksgiving meal was both turkey and brisket.  After every trip to Bingo I share images of some products that catch my eye or amuse me. Charley, Shawna's husband pointed out this keyboard. He didn't know that Uncle Moishy is the frum version of Al Yankovic. Uncle Moishy has had a long career of concert p...

 Between having trouble uploading photos all last week and how completely inconvenient it is to write and post from my phone I didn't post for much of our visit So I will attempt to catch you up on the rest of our Texan adventures. We loved downtown Amarillo. There are some wonderful Art Deco buildings in the center of town. A detail of the Paramount Theatre We have discovered that old Kresge stores are often little Art Deco treasures with decorative details created to match the location. This one has lovely brickwork. There are yellow flowers for Amarillo. The courthouse is a few blocks away. The library is on the same civic block. I just loved the children's entry around the corner. My own childhood library has the same sort of lovely welcome for children. All of downtown has been planted with trees that turn a glorious shade of yellow in the fall. We saw windfarms. I just love how the turbines look vaguely human. Groupings of the windmills look like they are having a meeting...