A Busy Friday

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 the time to get only two swatches. The last fabric I had found was at Kabbalah Man’s. my son liked the swatches and was willing to go with me to Kabballah Man. I warned my son about the complete chaos in the store. he liked my choice and we also chose a fabric for the character’s sash.

I decided to make the jacket in the quickest possible way. I folded the fabric in 1/4 and then made the following cut.

If you cut open the center front, you end up with a simple jacket shape.

I even got started on the sash.

Clearly all of this needs to be refined, but it’s a good start.

After my son left me at Kabbala Man, I fell irrationally in love with a length of mis-dyed stretch lace. the color was somewhere between brown and purple. At $3/yard buying it was a no brainer.

I made this.

The shape is pretty demure. It even has cute little set in sleeves. But given the busy pattern and the fact that it’s lace, demure seemed a wise choice. The dress is shown, and will be worn over a black lace slip that I made a while back.

I edged the neck with a serged and turned hem. The sleeves and hem are finished with a zigzag stitch. It could not be simpler. So for about $4.50 and 45 minutes I have a dressy dress. Not a bad investment of either time or money.

I also cooked. After lots of Rosh HaShanah meat meals I was ready for lighter fare. I made noodles out of semolina flour,

and made Lokshen Mit Kaese, noodles with cottage cheese and egg, salt, lots of pepper , and this time some paprika.

I also baked challah.

There are two regular braided challot and I made three round holiday ones. one is for the meal before Yom Kippur. the other two I will bring to Neila, the last service on Yom Kippur. We will share the challah right after the final shofar blast.

I’m also making marinated carrots, eggplant and a green salad. I’m in need of vegetables.

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!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

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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A Busy Friday

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