starting Sara Beth's tallit

Sara Beth is the girl friend of the son of dear friends. All of our sons should have girl friends like Sara Beth. She is smart, kind, beautiful and funny. She also asked me to make her a tallit.

During the summers she works in a Jewish camp in Georgia. The tallit needed to be comfortable in the Georgia heat. She felt that a scarf shape would be easier to manage and keep on her body. The Torah mantle I did in memory of my father was around when I met with Sara Beth. She loved the beading. She also loved the look of the tallit I had done for my older son, a black tallit that my son wanted to look like "outer space". I had hand embroidered stars for the stripes.

The fabric we chose for this tallit is a rough woven silk, called "Silk Linen" by the folks at www.supersilk.com. In planning the tallit I had thought that I would double the silk in making the tallit. Yesterday I cut the yardage and realized that the two layers would just be too hot for Georgia summers. So now instead of hiding raw edges inside the tallit, I have to think about nice ways to edge the tallit. I think I have some black satin ribbon in my stash. That may do the trick.

I began beading the stripe section of the tallit yesterday. It's just a fun thing to do. like so many of the things I make, the combination of a dark base and sparkle is not something that my camera likes to take pictures of. As you look at the photo you need to see the black as a really saturated black and the beads with quite a bit of sparkle.

If you have any tips about how to improve my photos, just let me know.

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Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to read a batch of recipes and the

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ M

Chanukah

Last night we lit the first candles of Chanukah. We were joined by our dear friends Alfie and Judy. My husband met them during his college years. I am new to the game since we have only been friends since 1982. I made latkes, lots of them. I took the opportunity to use last night as a dry run for the latke dinner with our kids later in the week. Our kids are eaters. My my original plan was to make the latkes in the air fryer but I realized that it would take too long to do the many small batches needed. Instead I baked the latkes in a hot oven with lots of oil on my baking sheets. I made potato latkes. As a kindness to my husband I did the blasphemy of leaving out the onions. I did add shredded carrots for texture and lots of smoked paprika and black pepper for flavor. I made carrot, apple and dill latkes. I also made summer squash latkes with amba powder and sumac. Unfortunately I had baked them at 350 and not 400 which I discovered is the sweet spot for crispy oven baked latkes. Th

sarah in nyc

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