sarah in nyc

My oldest turned twenty six today.   I am hosting Shabbat/Birthday dinner for her and for some of her friends.   She chose the menu. It’s a Caveman Shabbat. I made beef flanken ribs in a  smoky pomegranate mustard marinade.   As per her request I also made jerk chicken wings. She requested pumpkin pie. I obliged. The pie is being topped with maple-pecan  non dairy ice cream which is being made as I type. Inspired by my friend Iscah, rabbi educator and artist who sculpts her challot into fanciful shapes including pigs, I made pumpkin shaped challot. Here they are before baking And now, after.. And here is my daughter on her first birthday. She’s even cuter now.

When I gave birth to my oldest there was a bunch of us all having babies at the same time. Some of the group were first time mothers, like me. Most of the group were pregnant their second child. One of the great thing about having your first while hanging around with more experienced mothers is that you learn how to be a mother from some really good teachers. One of the women in that group was Susan.  Susan is the sort of person who was Color War captain in summer camp. She’s enthusiastic,  she is a trooper. Susan and Michael’s first child, Eric had  a rare blood disorder that made him often very, very sick. Their second child Rebecca was just younger than my daughter. The two girls used to hang out together in synagogue, as did that whole batch of babies until Susan and Michael moved to the burbs. When my oldest was quite small, Susan told me that when Eric was small she took him to the park every day. He was so sick that he couldn’t get out of the stroller to ...

Yesterday I was working on the dress that I’m wearing to the wedding. But one can’t attend a wedding without a gift.   I gave the bride and groom the option of either something off their gift registry or I could make them something.  they opted for the made rather than purchased gift. It was a smart choice.   The text is familiar to anyone who goes to synagogue on Friday night, it’s Lecha Dodi likrat kallah p’nai Shabbat nikabla Come my beloved to greet the bride we will welcome the presence of the Sabbath I painted the letters on the linen damask. And then I did a crazy thing. I chain stitched all of the painted letters. I do not suggest doing this unless you really love the recipients. You may think about chain stitching all of the letters if you were paid handsomely by the hour. Otherwise it’s a really dumb thing to do. I do love both the bride and the groom.I listened to a whole lot of episodes of the Moth Radio Hour and This American Life as I...

My cousin is getting married in a week and a half. It’s a black tie event. The bride comes from the land of sparkle, Long Island.   Several months ago my youngest was looking over my shoulder as I was internet fabric shopping. This sequin encrusted fabric was on sale. I was on the fence about buying it.   My son strongly encouraged me to buy it. I have had this fabric sitting in a bag on the shelf for months but I haven’t done a thing about making the dress. I had been mentally designing this dress, thinking about and discarding a variety of options. Because this fabric is sheet I decided to layer it over a tan scuba knit. I know it’s a boring color but it’s meant to be that way. The fabric has so much going on.   After a whole bunch of dithering, I decided on the dress design.   It’s a really simple off the shoulder column dress. I have often mistakenly cut the necks of my dresses too wide and have inadvertently ended up with an off the...

When I graduated from college I moved to New York. My first full-time job was at the 92nd Street Y. When I say full time, that isn’t quite correct. I had a buffet of part time jobs at the Y that allowed me to put a roof over my head.  I loved the variety in my work week. I think that the book keepers at the Y must have hated me because I was working at so many different pay scales all at the same time. One of my jobs was running an every day after-school group for kids ages 3-6.  Tonight one of my favorite kids from that group is coming for dinner. I haven’t seen him since he was 5. This is what we will be eating tonight. we hare having pomegranate chicken. I cooked the chicken with freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice and then topped the whole thing with pomegranate molasses. I added the pomegranate seeds  and they will soften when the chicken is reheated. We are also eating curried rice with mushrooms and apricots.   For dessert I made a cranberr...

I get that for most of the world’s population the next sentence  sounds whiny and spoiled.  Today was the first day since Yom Kippur that we have had phone and internet, a working oven and heat all at the same time. I am really happy to have all of my first world pleasures. I have also been doing lots of work on a piece that involves lots of hand embroidery. Yes, I will post pictures, but not today. Doing so much slow work gets me itchy to make a fast garment.   I had purchased this bright drapey sweater knit at Fabric Mart . I had purchased this fabric in a different fun print and had made something I love. But the cold weather made me want a sweater dress.   I made another hunchback dress mostly because they are so simple to make.   This is what the dress looked like cut out , before I sewed up the seams. This time I remembered to make sure that it was wide enough. I remembered before cutting that a knit  on the bias has less stretch tha...

I had taken these photos during the time that our internet was on the fritz.  When I began my morning workout the sky was an amazing grey. During the 90 minutes of my work out the sky entirely changed. My windows face west. The brick reflects the early morning light in a really cool way.                                        

It’s been a less than stellar week.  Clearly I’m having a better time of things than my dear friend in Israel whose husband suddenly died . I guess you could say that I am having a week of first world problems. Our phone and internet have been spotty to nonexistent since Yom Kippur. They both seem to be back, sort of, today. I have had crazy allergies which have made simple things like breathing not so easy. We had no water in our apartment this morning and the gas was turned off in our building for a chunk of the day. So, I get it. My family is fine. None of us has Ebola. My husband is alive ( worried and cranky because of the stock market tumble, but alive)   People we love are coming for tonight’s dinner. One of our guests loves chocolate so I made him chocolate almond  apricot non dairy ice cream.   Maybe it will make all of us feel better.

After visiting Central Synagogue, we hopped on the subway to 29th street to the church known as “The Little Church Around the Corner”. We had a wonderful tour guide. One of the fascinating things about churches is that the buildings themselves can  deliver  a strong theological message--not just a general religious one but one that is particularly denominational.   I know that my usual topic is Jewish ritual art, so if you do not want to read about theological splits in the Protestant church then just skip this post. I grew up not far from the spot of land where the Pilgrims first set foot on this continent. The Puritans were essentially  interested in creating a further reformation of the Anglican church.They saw the lushness of the churches and the vestments and even the church service to be on the slippery slope to what they saw as the great evil, Catholicism. The Puritan desire to seek the divine through the austere expressed itself architecturally. The...