A Bit of Nature in the City and a Bonus DIY

Even though we live in the middle of Manhattan, there is usually enough nature around that it does not feel oppressive.
The beautiful church around the corner has the feel of a country church. Actually, it was built as a vacation church for church members who vacationed uptown in the late 1800’s. Yes, my neighborhood used to be a resort community.

Continuing on the same nature in the city theme, my husband went for a walk in Riverside Park late in the afternoon.

Looking uptown, you get the iconic view of the George Washington bridge.

I like that the Hudson always smells a bit like the ocean. That ocean smell always make me feel like I’m home. I grew up hearing fog horns at night.

The community garden was in full late summer blowsy bloom.

Before the real-estate boom, our neighborhood was dotted with community gardens. They have mostly all been turned into condos. This garden in Riverside Park is one of the last ones left.

I just loved the late afternoon light glowing through the flowers.

When my husband and I first started going out he used to talk about how much he loved late afternoon light. he really has convinced me about the beauty of golden afternoon light.

I don’t know if this photo captures the crazy proportions of this flower. it looks like a stage prop from the Wizard of Oz.

On our way out of the park we caught a bit of this performance of Shakespeare at the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Memorial.

And now for the DIY hand lotion. If I were a cleverer writer there would be an elegant transition. Instead, you get a clunky transition but a good recipe.
Because I work with fabric, I need to keep my hands smooth. If my hands are dry then I snag fabric as I work with it. Also dealing with fabric tends to pull moisture from your hands.
Every few months, I make myself some strong hand crème.
This is what goes into it.

The Shea butter is soft and a little greasy. You need to pair it with a fat with a much lower melting point. Cocoa butter melts at body temperature. It smells like chocolate but it is hard to apply when it isn’t hot out. It’s about as hard as paraffin.
I put a bunch of each into a Pyrex measuring cup and heat it up in the microwave for a minute.

After a minute in the microwave it looks like this, I break up the lumps and let the magic of heat retention do the rest of the melting job.

You can see the specialized tool I used for stirring, a butter knife.

Then I add essential oils to the mix. This is what I used. The result smells a little like an old timey scent they might sell in the gift shop of a Colonial reenactment tourist attraction. You don’t have to use the oils I used.

I poured the result into a variety of tins and set them into the freezer to set.
Here is a completed tin of hand crème.

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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