sarah in nyc

Today was a crazy day in which nearly every task I attempted was made difficult through no fault of my own. Yes, we have food to eat for Shabbat. Some of the tasks got done.   There is life after shabbat. I found this thoughtful essay about tallit. tallit essay Amazon.com Widgets Shabbat Shalom to all.

While we were in Boston we spent time with a dear friend who met me when I was twelve. Our friend is really serious about Jewish stuff ( he is a rabbi)  and yet approaches it all with the most delightful sense of the absurd.  The result makes doing any Jewish ritual with him both profound and potentially outrageously funny.     When we visited, we brought  our friend an assortment of goodies from the Russian market across the street from my mother’s apartment. We brought “highly carbonated water with organic materials,  chocolate with the picture of a very surprised looking baby on the label, preserved cherries and a few other oddities we thought out friends would enjoy, perhaps for their  value as food but as much for the joy of reading the labels. In the same spirit, our friend gave me this from his pantry. Our friend grew up in New Orleans. He likes having this taste of home in his pantry. I also think that he likes the sheer perversity ...

Last Wednesday night I took the 11:00pm bus to Boston. I had a meeting Wednesdays night and  needed to be in Boston in time for my mother’s noon appointment.     In case you were wondering, there are taxis at South Station at 3:15 am.   One of my other tasks during my time in Boston was re filling my mother’s freezer. My husband arrived Thursday evening. Friday we picked up a rental car in Needham and went to the Costco in Dedham. In case you were wondering, there is no fresh kosher meat in that Costco but there are  kosher frozen capons.  Four chickens are now cooked and cut up into single servings are now in my mother’s freezer. Of course I bought her other foods and necessities at Costco, but don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the complete shopping list.   What flavor chicken you ask? Two were cooked vaguely Israeli with Zaatar, smoked paprika and lemon. Two were cooked vaguely French with fresh thyme, oregano and marjoram along with...

There are times when it is a little hard to focus on work.  Right now  I have some work on my plate, but I’m also trying to figure out how to take care of some other responsibilities in my life. Often trying to balance various needs makes me a bit unfocused.   For me, a good way to get my sewing mojo back is to do some prime the pump sewing. Making boxers for my youngest is a good way to prime the sewing pump and help get me back to work.   I made these boxers out of two of the  orange batiks that had been left for me by as yet unknown person in my lobby. I love how the two orange prints play off of one another.  The elastic comes from a giant roll that I scored for a song  a couple of years ago in the garment district.  The little medallion/join piece on the elastic comes from an Indian bedspread that has been used in a multitude of projects including several pairs of boxers and a few pillow cases.   The color, orange, is the col...

  This restaurant is around the corner from my house. It’s actually pretty good.  If you know Hebrew, you will find the name of the restaurant amusing. Ozen is the Hebrew word for ear.   I had assumed that the name had something to do with  Zen. My friend Marcia asked the owners the meaning of the name of the restaurant.  They told her that since they planned to sell lots of seafood they decided to name the restaurant after where fish live, the ocean, or how they heard the word, ozen. I’m glad that they are much better cooks than they are spellers. I love that the name of this restaurant gives me so much pleasure. The vegetarian pad thai is nice too.

My husband complains that I'm too critical and too cranky and that I ought to be more open minded.  One thing that I have been critical and cranky about over the past few years is the costume exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum. Amazon.com Widgets The curators and the folks that design the exhibits  don't trust the garments themselves to be able to carry an exhibit. They end up tarting up the exhibits to such an extent that it's difficult to actually look at the clothes and figure out what they might be saying, My other big complaint about the Met is that they don't know how to display the clothing well. They make it hard to actually see the clothing. Today one of my out of town sewing buddies was in for a visit ad we decided to go to the Met to see both  Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity  as well as  Punk . You can click through the pages I love my friends. it is a delight to spend any time with them. The impressionism s...

I remember reading articles in Jewish journals in the 1970’s  bemoaning “Gastronomic Judaism”, where people’s only connection to Judaism was through bagels and lox.   While I think that only eating Jewish food does not fully create a truly Jewish life I do believe that it can tie Jews into the practice of Jewish ritual.   Shavuot begins tonight. Shavuot celebrates out being given the Torah.  According to a midrash, in anticipation of the giving of Torah since Jews didn’t know the laws of ritual slaughter, they ate dairy. From this comes the tradition of eating dairy on Shavuot and the birth of the blintz. I often make blintzes on Shavuot. My other usual Shavuot meal is Cholesteral Death Kugel .  Last week I mentioned to my daughter that it would be Shavuot this week. She asked if I would be making kugel, and asked to join us for the holiday meal. Yesterday, my sister called me to ask for the blintz recipe.  Yes, it is pesky to make, but so goo...

Every time I go to the post office I’m struck by how pretty the brown stones are on the blocks  nearby. When I went to the post office on Wednesday I remembered to take my camera.          

Last Friday  the local NPR station had Mark Bittman on as a guest. he talked about giving a dinner party. He mentioned feeling anxious about "doing a dinner party". I was thinking that he was talking about having say, twenty people over for dinner.  Well he didn't mean having twenty people over for dinner, he meant two.   I don't put any worry into a meal until I get to more than eight at the table. We usually feed between six and a dozen people on any given Friday night. If I could fit more people around the table, I would feed a bigger crowd.  Usually the number of guests at the table grows organically.  Last Shabbat I sat next to my friend Mark. When the bar-mitzvah boy began to chant the haftarah I mentioned to Mark that it was my birth-Torah reading.  Mark said that it was the Torah reading for his bar-mitzvah.  Amazingly, Mark’s bar- mitzvah took place on the day that I was born. I invited Mark and his wife Carole to join us fo...