Some things that have been giving me joy in these dark times

 Times are complicated these days. I have had to put myself on a news diet to avoid being completely stressed out. So in that vein, I just wanted to share some things, some small and others not so small that have been giving me joy these days.

I bought an immersion blender a few months ago. (No, not this one) I know I am late to the game but I am a late adopter of appliances.  For the past long while, my usual breakfast has been fruit and nuts. Sometimes I cook them in the microwave and other times I would grind them up in my food processor. I used to call the mixture a fruit roughy as opposed to a smoothie.  I then realized that if I were marketing my breakfast I should call it a fruit porridge. These days my fruit porridge is made up of cranberries, a tiny clementine or apple and almonds and chia seeds and depending on my mood either fresh ginger or a few shakes of cinnamon.  The immersion blender makes quick work of the task and cleaning just the business end of the immersion blender and a wide mouth jar is quick as well.

These days I have been making lots of soups. Last night we had an unexpected guest so I made a pot of orange  vegetable soup made with pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots. The immersion blender makies pureeing the soup an easy task especially because you don't have to do the messy transfer of hot soup to the food processor. I bought another immersion blender to use for meat.

Home baked bread. The more often I make it the easier a task it is.My husband could live on bread alone. I figure it may as well be good bread. This particular loaf  had a rye starter and was made with lots of semolina flour. I will usually bake two to three loaves during the week ( not including challah). Right now I have a barley loaf starting.

There were two other things that really gave me joy this week. They both fall under the same category but I am not exactly sure what name to give such a category except the rewards that come from long connections between people.

My pediatrician when I was growing up was Dr. Karp of the fabulous eyebrows and his brilliance as a diagnostician. I was a kid who was often sick with mystery illnesses and Dr. Karp kept me functioning, and sent me to the world experts on this or that disorder to rule out really dire conditions. Dr. Karp had an elegant wife, Leona who dressed in the style that I now think of as Park Avenue quiet elegance. Nothing was flashy but there would always be something about the fabric or the cut of the garment that made my heart stop, even as a small child, and of course beautiful shoes.

Dr. Karp had children who were older than I was and while I knew their names, ( Dr.Karp always spoke of them with pride) I didn't really know them. I met his daughter Nancy at my mother's Shiva. I mentioned a dress that I had been handed down from her when I was seven or eight. It was a slate blue tiered velvet dress with a large carousel horse embroidered on it. The dress also was filled with small details that just delighted the wearer ( like a cotton batiste lining in PINK). In those days there were dresses that we wore that pleased our mothers but were uncomfortable to wear, dresses made out of scratchy wool or giant itchy crinolines with uncovered edges that left welts on our soft hips. That blue carousel horse dress pleased our mothers but was a delight for a child to wear. It felt like a special dress. We could see how much care went into the design.

At my mother's Shiva Nancy and I connected over the dress, and we have become friends.  A week or so ago, Nancy sent me a message. She was cleaning out her closet and wondered if I would want her mother's Missoni dress. Of course I said yes. I also worried because Mrs. Karp was thin and I am not that thin.

The dress arrived. Amazingly it fit.

The fact that this dress had been Mrs. Karp's has made it truly precious.

This object is both just a dress and also something about long connections between families. You see me wearing a pair of cowboy boots in these photos but what I see in my mind's eye is Mrs. Karp's long elegant feet shod in a pair of sleek beige suede pumps with the texture of velvet. 

The other incident of the past week which is about the same theme of long connections but with different ingredients is about Halifax. Nini, of the Nova Scotia themed tallit had made plans to be in Halifax for the inauguration.She asked if I could connect her to a Shabbat meal.

So, let me unpack this a little bit. Nini spent part of her childhood in Halifax. Her mother was my dear friend Shawna's Hebrew School teacher.  Shawna and Nini were in Young Judaea together.  Nini moved to Philadelphia after her Halifax Years and has been living there ever since. She is part of the same Jewish community as some of our dearest friends.

The year my father died, we did the Sedarim with my husband's best friend. (Yes, I did all of the cooking and prepped the house for Passover). Nini invited us for one of the lunches. We discovered the Halifax connection  and  the fact that the two of us had been traveling in the same circles for decades and it was just surprising that it had taken us so long to meet.

So, Nini was going to Halifax. I put her in touch with Nancy. My parents adored Nancy's parents.  My mother taught Nancy how to read Hebrew.  Nancy would visit us while she was in graduate school in Boston. I have fond memories of being little and playing with her bracelets while she was chatting with my parents. 

As an adult I have forged my own friendship with Nancy. That friendship is about our relationship and also about Nancy's relationship with my parents and that of her parents and mine. So there is a whole of of  love that goes bouncing back and forth.

Friday, Nini sent me a photo of the beautiful Shabbat meal that Nancy had provided. Each item was labeled in Nancy's beautiful deeply familiar handwriting. If you know anything about Halifax Jews, you will also know that this meal wasn't just tin foil containers but there were also extras that turned the meal into a beautiful feast. Then I noticed one item that Nancy had made for Nini, it was my mother's Cholesterol Death Kugel. 

Nancy cooked for Nini as an emissary for me, for my family. She was conveying a message of love that traveled through so many channels back and forth across the decades. Sometimes a kugel is JUST a kugel and sometimes a kugel an album of love and relationship that can't be expressed in words.