sarah in nyc

Yesterday was Tisha B'Av, the Jewish national day of mourning. It is the day on which we commemorate tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. It is the day that the destruction,  of both Temples. Various other tragedies are also marked on that day from the massacres  that took place during the Crusades, to the expulsion from Spain to various events of the Holocaust, all are remembered in some way on Tisha B'Av.  My friend Rachel Neiman wrote a wonderful essay , which you can read here Jewish Athletes and the Shoah . I followed one of the links in the article to the Yad V'Shem Central Data base of Shoah Victims. For the past couple of years I have been doing some genealogical research  with my cousin Oren in Israel. We had always known where our family came from. My grandmother, Toba Weisglass Levy came from near Czernowitz, in what is now Moldova. Her father, Chaim Weisglass, came from an ...

I collect old homemaking books from the early years of the 20th century. They offer tips on how to live your life in a thrifty way. The last 24 hours have seemed like a slightly warped version of those helpful books. I baked a batch of pita in the afternoon ( Made with some home ground hard wheat added to the white flour – making sure that the food my family members eat is wholesome.) I made a big salad using left over meat and vegetables from Friday night, check for wholesome and another check for thrifty. I did a marathon laundry fold last night.  We have had lots of company and I’m still folding laundry from my youngest’s return from camp.  I guess that gets a check in the tidy department. This morning I mended a sheet – thrifty. I also made this watchband – thrifty and smart. ( Smart in that 1940’s usage that has less to do with brain power and more to do with looking sharp.) I also cut a hole in a piece of plastic to act as a vent for our portable air conditione...

Our city adventure VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL       My husband was ill on Friday and was still feeling a bit peaked today . He was up for a small adventure. We took the subway to South ferry and then went to Governor's Isla...

We picked up our youngest from camp yesterday.  Campers typically stay up all night on the last night of camp. So this is my son’s first activity at home. I love the hands under the chin.   He is sleeping  in his favorite place in our apartment. I think he may have to take the couch with him when he goes to college. I don’t have a photo of my boys greeting one another after a year apart.  Trust me, it was a sweet moment. Some of dinner is cooking away…more on that adventure later.

    The answer is, we bought entirely too much food. This is our fridge three days later. I was smart enough to bring a bag of Zip-Lok gallon sized bags. People took home lots of food. Having the bags there made it easier for people to take food home comfortably and not feel creepy about it. We have been eating lots of pasta salad. Yes, it was good. Our daughter ate two servings last night. We have a few unopened containers of hummus in the freezer, two giant jars of herring in the fridge, unopened packages of cheese, as well as bags of random left over cheese, one giant industrial sized can of tuna in the pantry, and bags and bags of cut up pita in the freezer. We also have a gallon of dried fruit and a gallon of chocolate covered raisins, blueberries and pomegranate. I am not even going to talk about all of the crackers that we have left.   It was nice to feed our community lunch. One of the great pleasures of the day was working with my synagogue’s mainte...

Tomorrow, we are sponsoring Kiddush for our community in honor of our son’s return home. Kiddush for those of you who are not used to synagogue life is technically the prayer said before the Shabbat meals. It’s also the to the food one eats in synagogue after that prayer.  In some synagogues you might have a sip of wine and a dry cookie and call it Kiddush.  At our synagogue it’s basically lunch.   So I have spent the last couple of days putting together lunch for about 85 people.  It will be a mix of home cooked and store boughten food.   We also are having a full table tonight.   I decided to make an Eastern European specialty that my mother learned from the fine cooks of Halifax, NS. Apparently all of the housewives in Halifax used to make pickled salmon during the June salmon run.   My mother generally made it only for the dairy lunches we ate during Passover.  I generally make it when I need a make ahead meal, particularly ...

I often buy fabric online. I know that there are people who never buy fabric online. They worry that they will hate their purchase once they see it in person. Usually, I’m really happy with my online purchases. This was not the case with this fabric.  I had mistakenly assumed that the lozenges were tall and thin rather than wide. I also didn’t read the colors properly on my computer screen. I had thought that there was a rich red in the fabric. Instead it was a not very interesting magenta.   I hadn’t paid very much for the yardage but it bothered me each time I saw it in my stash. today I decided to turn it into a dress. My friend Ann deals with border prints by cutting off the borders and throwing them away.   I love border prints. I decided to make this into a cowl necked dress. I like how  you can get visually complicated shaping with relatively little effort.  I cut the back normally, as a fitted tank dress. For the front, I got a little tricky....

This is my older son’s first Shabbat at home in nearly two years. As per our family custom, he chose the guests and the menu.   Of my three kids, he is the one who loves food the best. My daughter is an adventurous eater.  This son though likes to figure out how flavors are built up and layered in a dish.   He wanted to make the chicken. it’s funny what he chose to make is the chicken I grew up eating nearly every Shabbat of my childhood.  It’s chicken sprinkled with Lawry seasoned salt.   My son had wanted me to make roasted vegetables, but he realized that it is really too hot to make them. They need several hours in the oven.  My son was kind enough to wait until cooler weather for that Shabbat favorite.   Instead I am serving his second choice, two kinds of eggplant spread. A spicy tomato laced one. I made it with a few dried chili peppers. it has a nice buzz of heat. I also made a blander smoky babaganouj or how it is kn...

It’s hot out, really hot. We needed to be out of the house. My son suggested a museum trip. he wanted to see the new Art of the Islamic world rooms at the Met.     We saw these doors for a raised lectern from a mosque. Some wonderful rugs including this one. I loved some of the pieces from a room of contemporary Iranian art. I loved how this mosaic mirror piece used both traditional forms and techniques in such a cool way. I don’t know if this shadow piece can be conveyed in my photos. but it was a laser cut piece of either silk or poly, about the size of a large wall rug..and displayed with light shining through the piece…the shadow was part of the work. The artist is part Zoroastrian, part Jewish. It seems and appropriate way to show who she was in Iranian culture. We also visited a related exhibit about the Byzantine world. of course I was most interested in the Jewish pieces in that exhibit. This was from a synagogue in  Ashkelon, Israel....

The holes on the back of this dyed dress, were actually quite alarming. I figured that I could repair or camouflage them, but I hadn’t quite figured out a plan of action.   As you can see, the situation was pretty terrible. My initial thought  was to hide the holes underneath black  crochet work or  black lace. I even made one rosette out of black lace. There were some smaller holes though, and I started darning them one at a time.  I did my darning while the dress was on the dress form. This actually made the job far easier.  I started with the smaller holes and worked my way up to the larger holes.   Given the Depression era look of the dress, working away on darning the dress seemed entirely appropriate.  I was aided in my efforts with a darning egg. The darning egg was given to me by a client who has become a friend.  It had belonged to her very handy mother.this is the first time I used the darning egg.  It helped ...