sarah in nyc

I’m not just cooking these days, even though it sometimes feels that way. I put in some work on the bag that will hold  Danielle's chuppah. I’m piecing ribbon using metallic stitching. This is what the grosgrain and satin ribbon look like  so far. I’m going to add the blue and metallic braid soon. The top picture gets the color right. the bottom image gets the textures right.  I guess you have to meld the images through the magic of IMAGINATION. I also put in a fair amount of work into my son’s Comicon costume. We have no photo  of the jacket today because my son’s  slobby mother dripped some grease onto the jacket. My son washed out the grease spots and the jacket is now hanging to dry. My normally blasé son is excited about the results. Given that it’s Friday, I had to  surprise(!) cook. The butcher was selling flanken ribs at a nearly silly price ($3.99/ lb) so today is Caveman Shabbat. I know that my youngest will really eat tonight. I also ...

There are moments that can occur during the observance of a holiday that change how you experience that holiday each subsequent year. Those of us who attend Yom Kippur services each year read over and over again  our desire to be inscribed in the book of life. As we say the confessionals each year we hopefully think about our own lives in the balance. The Yom Kippur of 2009 that message was made all too real.  Rafi Lehmann, the son of our dear friends, was across town at Mount Sinai in the ICU.  he had been there for the previous three weeks. On that Yom Kippur Rafi’s family had to make the terrible decision to remove hi from life support. “Who shall live and who shall die”, indeed. Last year, during Yom Kippur we knew that my father in law’s death was an any minute sort of a thing. Rafi’s death was  by any reckoning a tragedy. My father in law was 97 and had lived a rich and full life. This year, the life of no one I knew was in the balance. Yet my experie...

  The text of this piyyut/liturgical poem has been running through my head for the past couple of days Open the gates of heaven to our prayers the gates of mercy the gates of prayer the gates of supplication the gates of the desired time the gates of the time of asking the gates of full healing the gates of holiness the gates of holiness the gates of Torah…… And for your listening pleasure,

When we were growing up, my mother often declared supper on Saturday night and Sunday to be zeh v’zeh Hebrew for this and that. Meaning that we could just go into the fridge and concoct something to eat out of what was hanging around. Today felt like my entire day was a zeh v’zeh sort of a day. My older son and I made bagels. That is he did the first knead and I formed boiled and baked the bagels. I decided to make this batch poppy seed because my youngest loves poppy seed bagels. I picked up a small bag of poppy seeds at the spice store down the block. The overly seeded bagels are the result of a failed experiment. I assumed that I ought to put the poppy seeds in a plate and then plop the boiled bagels into the plate to coat the bagels.  Those black bagels are a result of the poppy seed overkill. A much better method is to sprinkle  the seeds from the little bag while the bagels are still wet. I’m also do lots of pre Yom Kippur laundry.  The following is proof t...

The High Holiday season means that work weeks are compressed.   There is a whole lot more cooking to be done, and everything else needs to be squeezed into two fewer days. Sometimes this makes me feel overwhelmed. Other times I get filled with energy and work really well.   My youngest wants to attend New York Comicon dressed like this character King of All Cosmos . My son is planning to make the neck tube on his own, but he asked me to make him the jacket and sash.   He goes to school just south of the garment district. we decided to meet on the corner of 39th and 8th Avenue and fabric shop.   My son hates shopping. Even choosing between two pairs of pants on line gets him quickly overwhelmed.   I got there early and realized that the whole experience would be easier if I swatched just a few fabric choices and  let my son choose.    In the few minutes I had I quickly looked through the stock at three stores but had th...

Means lots of ironing.  Three of the table cloths in this stack that I ironed today are heavy linen . The pink one is relatively small, 52x 70 inches but the others  are  larger, I think 90 and 120 inches respectively. The cotton cloths are not all that difficult to iron.  The linen cloths  take a fair amount of upper body strength.   I also ironed the napkins we used during the holiday as well as  other decorative cloths.   I was also very touched to use this embroidered cloth. My sister embroidered it while she was in high school.  The kit had been purchased by a friend of my mother’s who died far too young from cancer.  After Ruth died, my sister got the cloth.   It was a big undertaking. The design was a fairly standard one and was sold  in kit form for decades. This cloth had the design printed on heavy linen. It’s more common to find more recent versions printed on cotton or a cotton poly blend. ...

This morning I woke up with a start at 8:27. There was so much to do to get ready for Rosh haShanah. After a quick breakfast and downing just part of my coffee and a quick shower, I got to work.  First, I set up the challah dough. My older son madly began peeling vegetables for the tzimmis.  I hacked up the meat and put the sweet and cour tzimmis up to cook. Tzimmis needs a long slow cook and it had to be out of the oven before it was time to bake the challah.  Moving the giant roasting pan in and out of the oven I was really grateful that I lift weights regularly. Cooking is not for wimps. Yesterday, we acquired two more guests.  They are both hearty eaters. that meant that I had to re calibrate the meals. I decided to make a  chicken soup garnished with  matza balls to fill our guests up a bit before the meal. My husband bought fish  so I could pickle it and serve it for our lunches. This time, I used brown sugar and cider vinegar to pickle th...

This week we invited two couples each of whom have  been so present in my kids' lives that I think of them as being aunt and uncle to my kids.  There is something so dear when people choose to become so involved with your children. I decided to go with the Chinese way of  of adding more food to a meal , by adding more dishes to the meal.  One of  our guests is a vegetarian .   Early this morning my oven was full.   Two pans full of chicken with pomegranate molasses was on the top shelf.  A pan of rice with  mushrooms, chestnuts and cardamom was baking on the same shelf  with the broccoli in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Herbes de Provence.    On a regular Shabbat my job would have been done. I needed to make sure that there was enough for our vegetarian guest to eat. Tofu in spicy peanut sauce is baking in the oven.  I also thought that an additional vegetable would be a good thing. I roasted an eggpla...

    I know this looks like frozen blocks of mystery meat.  it’s not. It is one of the great taste pleasures of the  High Holiday season. Yesterday, my older son  and I made stuffed cabbage.   I have seen in classic Jewish cookbooks that stuffed cabbage is traditional for Sukkot. I grew up with stuffed cabbage being made only for the High Holidays. I know that these days that sweet meat is common. But I grew up with meat cooked sweet only for the High Holidays.   Most of making stuffed cabbage isn’t hard. For me the hardest past is steaming those cabbage leaves off of the cabbage. The last time I made stuffed cabbage the cooking gods must have been smiling on me.  Those leaves just fell off of the cabbage. This year those leaves did not want to come off the the cabbage.  I finally just let the half peeled cabbage sit on hot water over night.   My Romanian born doctor told me that in Bucharest, where she grew up they pick...

This morning was a bright dry cloudless Tuesday. Just like the one eleven years ago. Like the Tuesday of 11 years ago it is just before Rosh Ha Shanah. Before Passover we obsessively clean our homes. Duriong the time before the High Holidays be are supposed to be doing   Cheshbon nefesh  soul math or an accounting of our souls, and actions. Amazon.com Widgets Starting the month before Rosh ha Shanah we blow shofar at the end of morning services. I was asked to blow shofar at my synagogue this year. So usually mid morning I take out my shofar and run through the tones in order. I empty my lungs into that  shofar. Sometimes the tone I produce is high , clear and bright. Other times the sound i produce is lower is tone. Occasionally, and unfortunately I produce a spitty muffled sound.  I love how my heart feels after i blow shofar. I'm not even talking about a spiritual feeling but the pure ...

One of my favorite blogs, Dressaday blog has a feature, called The secret lives of dresses .  in those blog entries, Erin imagines the life of who might have worn a vintage dress from one of the many vintage dress sites on the web.   Vivian just gave me a batch of dresses from her mother, Ruth.  I knew Ruth for  at least twenty five years. The Secret Lives of Dresses blog entries are written about clothing  worn by women unknown by Erin. Knowing Ruth, the stories told by these dresses is pretty easy for me to see.   This is the oldest of the dresses. it boasts a Miami Casuals label.  you can see that it was similar to the dresses in this Miami Casuals advertisement from 1956. Miami Casuals sold to Florida department stores, like Burdines. Miami Casuals tended to make dresses in a limited number of basic shapes , but they were very inventive with  embellishment. you can see the couched cord floral motif  that is further ...