sarah in nyc

One of the nice things about being an adult is that you get to cook the things you feel like eating.   When I looked in our fridge to figure out how to flavor this Shabbat’s chicken I spotted half a cabbage. I decided to make stuffed cabbage flavored chicken.   I shredded the cabbage and put it in the bottom of the roasting pan. I topped the cabbage with the chicken and added a couple of cans of diced tomatoes and spiced as I do stuffed cabbage with cinnamon, allspice paprika, ginger, brown sugar  black pepper and sour salt and raisins. By the time the chicken was done the pan was filled with lots of watery looking juice. I asked my son to cook it down until it was somewhere between the viscosity of maple syrup and honey. My son was happy to comply.  He had initially suggested adding something like couscous to absorb the liquid.  he’s right, it would have worked, but I wanted the meat liquids to be thick and syrupy, and not at all starchy. My son...

Y’s grandmother was sent this blouse from her Romanian cousins when she was twelve. Y’s grandmother died just a few months ago. we wanted to include the look of this fragile hand embroidered blouse on the pinot /corner pieces of the tallit.   I have been mulling over exactly how to do this for the past couple of months. reproducing the embroidery by hand wasn’t really an option. The stitching floats over too much space to be durable enough for pinot. I had thought that I would hand paint the design. I do however know my limitations. these sort of simple rigid geometric design is really hard for me to paint freehand. I sometimes do what I think of as dumb sewing to get me working. while I was making myself a nightgown I decided to use one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. I realized that it was awfully similar to the hand stitching on the Romanian blouse. While it isn’t identical to the original, it looks similar enough to work. I may embroider the ...

I’m part of a couple of different internet based sewing discussion groups. One topic that often comes up is what to teach kids who want to sew.     Invariably, a few of the discussion participants will outline a very structured  step by step curriculum. It’s a structure that assumes that the teacher sets the curriculum.   Frankly, I have trouble wit that idea. I can understand that if kids were expected to learn how to sew as children so they could more easily move into manufacturing jobs in the garment industry, learning a standardized sewing course makes a certain amount of sense.  But given that kids are learning how to sew purely for their own pleasure, it seems to me that it makes a whole lot more sense to teach sewing based on a child’s interest.   The standard first project is a pillow case, but suppose your student has no desire to make a pillow case but instead wants to make clothing? When I teach sewing I follow my students’ interest...

I met Judith about thirty years ago. She was a film student at NYU.  I was working at a social services agency in the Village. The mother of one of Judith's friends was the receptionist at the agency so Judith would stop by to visit. I always enjoyed hanging out with Judith.   We weren’t exactly friends but our paths kept crossing as so often happens on the Upper West Side. We had lots of friends in common. We often had delightfully intense conversations on Broadway. We When Judith made this film A Healthy Baby Girl I made sure to see it.  More recently, Judith asked me to help with with some issues relating to the deaths first of a dear friend and then of her mother. For the past many months Judith has had the unhappy job of clearing out her mother’s apartment. you might have seen her video that appeared on the New York Times site on  Mother’s Day Love and Stuff . Passover, Judith was able to adopt a baby girl.  I am just telling the barest outline ...

What are we eating you ask?   Beef made with this coffee and spice rub. I was recently either in Whole Foods or Trader Joes and saw a package of coffee/spice rub for meat. this is what I put into mine, some ground coffee, cayenne pepper, cumin, turmeric paprika black pepper and allspice.  This is what the meat looked like after it was cooked. And then sliced and covered with a vaguely barbecue sauce, honey, olive oil, mustard, liquid smoke and pomegranate molasses. I made a quinoa taboule. ( Cook quinoa with olive oil. in a food processor grind up one at a time, cucumber, tomato, lots of mint and parsley. Combine in a bowl,  add lots of fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper and cumin.) I still have to make salad and our guests are bringing dessert.   My older son made the challah. If any of his old occupational therapists are reading this they should take pride  in the nice job he did braiding these challot. Shabbat Shalom!

OK, when George Bush senior talked about a thousand points of light in that convention speech he was basically trying to get local religious charities to take over the social services responsibilities of the Federal government.  Often when I make a piece of Judaica I try to have it catch the light in a room and throw it back into the eyes of the viewers. A very different sort of points of light. One of the ways that I get that effect is by using threads and paints all with different reflective qualities.   Here is Y’s atara. the silk itself has a bit of a subtle sheen. I painted the letters with paint with added bits of pearlescent and metallic powders. The pomegranate is painted with similarly shimmery paints and then over-stitched with various metallic threads. The atara is bound with a ribbon yarn, stitched down with a bronze colored metallic thread and edged with gold cording. I then ran a line of hand chain stitching in a light blue thread with a bit of silver L...

I am the queen of quick and dirty sewing. I can usually make myself a dress in about 20 minutes flat.  In garments I make for myself I am willing to tolerate a certain amount of  wonky not quite right. My friend Shelly called me a few weeks ago and asked me me if I would be willing to make her a silk shell to go with a beautiful embroidered silk jacket that she was planning to wear at a wedding. Shelley had gone shopping for an appropriate top to wear with the jacket. What she found was expensive and badly made. I agreed to make her the top. I understood that this would not be a quick and dirty sewing job but careful  and precise work. Shelley and I went fabric shopping together and at Rosen & Chadick. Shelley chose a beautiful navy blue four ply silk. for those of you who don’t know all that much about silk… Four Ply Silk Four ply silk is a heavier version of silk crepe made with four ply yarn. A four ply yarn is made from twisting together four individ...

 I love readiong old sewing books. they are often a good source for learning how to draft garments.  Often there are directions for pattern drafting in old elementary school hand craft books.  For many years i have been satisfying my need for old sewing books by buying books on Amazon.  lately i have been searching through the troves at Google books for  terrific books. Yesterday I stumbled on a truly wonderful craft book written by Jane Wright McKee called, Purposeful Handwork. The book made me immediately regret that Jane Wright Mckee wasn't my kindergarten teacher. She has such a completely delightful and delighted approach to working with kids.  Amazon.com Widgets The book then follows with dozens and dozens of delightful projects to do with little kids. How can you not love a teacher who talks about school the way this teacher does here. One caveat though. This book was written in 1922... There are items that...

As my parents were planning my sisters’ wedding and mine, at some point the discussion turned to dessert.  Each time my father would say in a plaintive voice,  “You know what I would really like? I would like Jewish cake for dessert.” What my father meant by Jewish cake was strudel. I remember his describing how some Jewish cooks of real skill would roll out the strudel dough out on a table cloth and then use the cloth to roll up the pastry. My two other sisters made other dessert choices at their weddings.  I was amused by how much my father wanted “Jewish cake”. I also didn’t particularly care what was served for dessert, so Jewish cake was served at my wedding. My father was really pleased. I also made sure that “Jewish cake was served at my youngest’s bar-mitzvah six month’s after my father’s death. I have never made strudel on my own. I had made it once about ten years ago as part of a class on Jewish cooking in Klezkamp. Strudel was one of those things I had...

Because I learned how to sew informally, that is I taught myself my acquisition of sewing skills is uneven.  There are some things that I do easily that most people who sew think of as being difficult. there are other skills that are on the face of it much easier but I have serious trouble doing.   Yesterday I was sewing this tallit stripe onto Y’s tallit.  it took me four tries to get a one foot strip sewn down properly. I had chosen to sew the stripe onto the tallit with a complicated multi part stitch. Each time ripping the old stitching out was a truly horrible job.   If Y or her family are reading this they ought not to fret about all of the old thread schmutz. It will be easy to clean up with a bit of masking tape.   Today however, my work went swimmingly. I added strips of really nice gold and blue braid to the edge of the stripes.   I was recently at Paron Fabrics. I know that  most sewing stored in America sell fabric and n...