On California time

I'm writing this post in the back yard of my sister in law and brother in law's home.

This is winter in Santa Barbara.

Since I last posted, we walked across the Golden Gate bridge.

I had no idea until I was actually on the bridge that it was ornamented with art deco flair.

We had spent a long portion of one of our San Francisco days trying to finde compression stockings because I had stupidly left mine at home.

Those of you who have to wear medical grade compression stockings know why this purchase was so essential. The third medical supply place we went to had what I needed. I wasn't thrilled

when the first pair I pulled on developed a hole as soon as I put them on. One would hope that a pair of pantyhose that costs as much as a nice dinner out for two would have a bit more stamina. UGH!!

We spent a couple of days in Marin County which is probably lovely but it was cold and rainy the whole time we were there.

This is the adorable Airbnb where we stayed in Marin.

It was a little enchanted cottage run by an incredibly sweet woman.

We flew here on an airline that WASN'T JetBlue.That means we suffered the indignities of modern flight, but luckily only for an hour.

My sister in law's home has many wonderful things about it. One of my favorite things about it, aside from it's inhabitants is the sunset.

Even the house itself glowed.

Here the front windows reflect the sunset.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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 re...

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sarah in nyc

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