more table cloth ironing....and what makes it easier

This morning I ironed another batch of table cloths. They are from top to bottom, a vintage (I think 1960's) cotton Indian and block print purchased at B.Altman's. It belonged to my friend Alan's mother. I got it when they closed up his mother's apartment a few years ago.and moved her to an assisted living in the neighborhood. She died a few weeks ago. I love that cloth.

Next is a hand loomed cotton plaid that used to be my mother's. I remember using this cloth for meat meals while I was in high school. It shrank and no longer fit her table. We used to use heavy hand loomed table cloths for weekday meals and a more refined white cloth for Shabbat. My mother gave this cloth to me several years ago.

On the bottom is a 1940's cotton print cloth that had been my mother in law's. It is one of the many things that made it to our apartment as my husband has had the difficult task of cleaning out his parents' home. This cloth has not just strawberries, a '40's favorite, but also raspberries and cherries. it was the perfect cloth for my mother in law who always liked her guest to have lots of choice at the table. ( What if you didn't like chicken??? You could always have beef or chicken instead)

As I use these cloths and as I iron them I always thing about their first owners. And for what makes it easier to iron them??? a new discovery for me, heavy starch. My mother always preached the gospel of light starch. Heavy starch is a new discovery for me. I have gone to the heavy starch side. it makes the job of ironing table cloths much, much easier.

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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 re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

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A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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