sarah in nyc

We are celebrating my husband’s birthday tonight. This morning when I spoke to my mother I asked her how old she thought my husband was. She thought for a long, long time and then came up with an answer, 42. My husband is youthful, but 42 was a long time ago. My husband has ambivalent feelings about celebrating birthdays. He tends not to like stuff. So I haven’t bought him a big gift. I have carefully planned tonight’s meal. There are elements of the meal that I will not be writing about because my husband is an occasional reader of this blog and I don’t want to spoil any surprises. I am willing to talk about two elements of the meal. There has been a bit of buzz in the internet lately about “bone broth”.   It’s soup. Tonight I made a chicken soup with several trays of chicken necks and a tray of chicken gizzards. I also put  a couple of mammoth parsnips, some skinny carrots and onions and whole spices in a cheese cloth envelope in the crock pot. I put everything int...

Yesterday   I love the line of nearly identical cars in bright colors..   Just a dusting on the building across the street, and in the intersection the UPD man is busy delivering packages. Later in the day, navigating the corner gets a bit more difficult. There is just a dusting of snow in the air conditioners and window sills in the courtyard. Last night only emergency vehicles were allowed on the street.   Today   Kids head to the now open park to go sledding. The streets have been plowed, but as usual the corners are tricky to negotiate.   Snow capped air conditioners.   Even the water tanks are snow capped today.   After several hours with no heat or hot water, things are back to being cozy in our apartment. Time to get back to work.

I spent the last couple of days in Boston with my mother. My mother has had a series of strokes that have left her both physically and mentally diminished.   My mother chose her apartment for the views. I’m not sure how much of those views she actually takes in these days. While I was there I was struck by the quality of the  winter light. While my mother is usually pretty well oriented, at one point she asked me in Hebrew whose apartment she was in and who was paying the rent.  I told her that it was her apartment and that she was paying the rent. She was surprised that she lived in such a large apartment. A   I keep taking pictures of my mother’s things on her window sill. These objects collected over the years, some purchased by my parents, others gifts to them  are as much a portrait of my mother as an actual image of my mother.     I am so looking forward to Shabbat with my family. one of our guests is a college frien...

I have been working on the non identical tallitot for the non identical but  similar twins.     This is the atara for one of the twins. I lay the atara on top of a piece of couched embroidery so you can see another example of couching.   The beams of light that come out of the Hebrew word for light will be further emphasized with more embroidery. I like how this photo shows clearly how the silver thread is stitched down to the blue gros-grain  ribbon with tiny blue stitches. This twin wants a really simple tallit.   Her sister wanted a tallit that is a bit more visually complex, but in the same colors of blue and silver. This is the text I’m using from Psalm 104. The twin’s grandmother is making the bags for the tallitot. I had a really lovely conversation with her this morning talking through the process of how to make the bags. I think she will do a wonderful job. She sounded a bit worried so I suggested that she make a sampl...

Our dear friend Marcia invited us for Shabbat dinner.  It’s been a hard week.  Marcia figured that it would be and invited us, and our house guest for dinner.  When we eat together it is always a bit of a pot luck. Marcia is doing most of the meal.   I’m bringing flanken ribs.  It’s my youngest’s last Shabbat at home before he goes back to school. I mixed pomegranate molasses, mustard, tamarind paste, liquid smoke and balsamic vinegar in a bwol and rolled each piece of meat in the sauce before cooking it. When I heat the heat up I will put more sauce over the meat.  I expect no left overs. I am also in charge of dessert. Marcia’s husband loves chocolate. So I made a chocolate custard spiked with ground coffee that I then put into the ice cream maker.  Here are the dry ingredients in the pot. Here is an action shot of me pouring coconut milk into the dry ingredients ( cocoa, sugar, cornstarch and a pinch of salt) Yes that IS a gorilla...

With this and that. This is some of the this, adding color to Isabel’s invitations, and the reply cards, and the thank you notes. This is more of the this…   Couching silver cord to cover letters for an atara.   The cord is too fragile to use for embroidery, so I’m hand couching it. I could have done the couching by machine, but ultimately it is easier to work in small spaces when you work by hand. Couching is a fancy word for stitching down  decorative cording with tiny stitches.   And an inexplicable that: I have tried three times to purchase the Family Circle book from this series that is about clothing. Each time I have gotten this volume from the series…. on gardening. No, this is not all that useful for me living six flights above ground level.  I am going to put it in the give away bookshelf in my building’s basement. And this is the breakfast I have been eating most mornings. It’s sort of the opposite of a smoothie. ...

This morning, just as I was taking these photos from my living room window, my friend Herta breathed her last breaths. Herta was 95, she would have turned 96 in August.   I met Herta in 1986 when I began working at my synagogue. I was warned about Herta before I met her. I was told that she would find every error that I would make and call me on it. I was also told that when she complained she was nearly always right, and that it made good sense for me to listen to her. The advice I was given was correct. At first, frankly, Herta terrified me. Eventually she became fond of me. I always thanked her for correcting my errors. Herta was born in Berlin. Yesterday her  niece told me that in the family they used to say that Herta was brought up by the German army, that is her mother and her aunt, who were much fiercer than Herta was.   Herta’s Hebrew tutor was Regina Jonas . Regina Jonas asked Herta if she wanted to have a bat-mitzvah. It would have been the firs...