Food Friday- fall edition

My parents used to create Shabbat dinner in bulk food units.One week they would make a vat of barley with mushrooms. Another week they would make a brace of chickens. Yet another week would be challah week and they would make a dozen or so challot. One of those food units was our favorite, kasha. Each Friday they would pull out that week’s meal from the freezer.

I associate kasha so completely with my father that I rarely make it.

For a while my father alternated making kasha with varnishkes, or bowtie noodles and noodle free. He noticed that the kasha made with varnishkes always got finished. After that, out kasha always came with bow ties.

 

Kasha making is not difficult. you can make it like my father used to and just follow the recipe on the Wolff’s kasha box.

Like all peasanty recipes it is flexible. This time I forgot to add sautéed onions and mushrooms. We will live without them. Before I serve the kasha I will pour out some of the chicken juices from the warming pan into the kasha. It will make it extra yummy.

 

We are also eating chicken with sumac and I believe a kale salad. We have some spiced  cocoa meringues that I had made for my sister last Friday that will serve as dessert.

 

There is still a bit of autumn color here on the Upper West Side.

 

This little maple tree is in my building’s courtyard. it replaces a tree that was blown over during Hurricane Sandy. Our building bought a teeny sapling to replaced the felled tree. It’s pretty astonishing how quickly a maple can grow.

 

And back to the 1920’s dress ( I changed the topic in case you didn’t notice.) I removed the gathers and re-sewed the dress without them.

 

Those side extensions, with the help of our friend gravity settle into graceful drapes.

 

Those drapes work better fro my shape than the gathers.

I still feel a little like June Cleaver in this dress. I have to remind myself that I’m being ironic, but given that it was a challah baking day and I have spent lots of time wearing an apron…it’s hard not to feel like  I really am a post WWII housewife.