sarah in nyc

Today I cooked lots of meat. How much meat you ask? Three briskets and two giant London broils. All of them got the same coffee/spice rub All of the meat is now sliced up and in the freezer all three gallons of it. I also made a gravy out of the pan drippings. Now it’s time to think about dessert. My nephew is joining us for the first Seder. He is severely nut allergic. Passover desserts tend to be chock full of nuts, if they are good. If they are bad they are made with lots of matza meal. I made some of these coconut apricot balls for my nephew. I could only find Turkish apricots which are missing that tang that in necessary for good apricot flavor. I cheated and added a couple of shakes of citric acid. The smashed apricots and coconut is all that’s in these apricot balls, or as my kids call them, apricot turds, or doodies. Despite my kids’ name for them, they are delicious. Claudia Roden’s excellent Jewish cook book has a recipe for Sephardi fruit and nut cookies ...

This variation on the usual matza fried up with scrambled eggs is one of my father’s great culinary contributions to the world. It is essentially matza suspended in custard. The elements are simple but it is deep, deep comfort food. I made this pot full this morning before I went to morning services because my son asked me so nicely.  I could pretend that it is a difficult dish to make and make my son feel obligated to me and do my bidding for the rest of the day. But in reality, this is a dish simple enough to make before your brains are fully plugged in. If you have a heavy bottomed pot like I do you can cook this in the pot on low. If you have pots like my father did, nearly thin enough to read a news paper through, make this in a double boiler. I assume that this would be even more lush made with a dollop of heavy cream, but that is something I have never experienced. It is our usual Passover breakfast. Put some butter in a pot. Matza, assume 1 sheet per hungry breakfas...

Well, since the Haggadah says that in each generation one needs to see themselves as if they themselves left slavery in Egypt. Today was a slavery day. I took the easy way out and made the charoset in the food processor.  It’s a whole lot easier than 90 minutes of hand chopping( but less emotionally satisfying)  I was just too emotionally and physically worn out after my mother’s death to deal with the hand chopping this year.We now have a gallon of charoset in the fridge. The charoset recipe was developed by my father. It sort of started out with a base of Ashkenazi charoset and is embellished with ideas my father got from reading Maimonides, references to fruits in the Song of Songs and stuff my father liked. The quantities for everything is  lots. almonds walnuts apples figs ( it’s better to have a few varieties, and they are even better if they are pre-soaked in sweet wine) dates raisins prunes ( not a lot) apricots ( California is better but Turk...

Last night we switched the house over.  My two big kids and I worked from right after havdalah until 1:00am. My husband folded laundry, lots of laundry, while the three of us cleaned and covered surfaces.  I do need to mention how grateful I am that my daughter gave up a fun Saturday evening with friends to come home to work and that my son was, as always, a great sport and a great worker. My husband got through a veritable Mt. Everest of unfolded laundry We carried dishes and pots out of their usual places, pulled the Passover dishes and pots out of their hiding places. The during the year dishes are now all hidden away and the Passover stuff is ready for use.   I rarely dream. Last night I had several dreams. All of them were Passover anxiety dreams. I dreamed that someone was painting the hallway next to the bathroom so I couldn’t get there to take a shower and start my day. I dreamt that the furniture in my apartment was moved so I couldn’t get into my kitchen. ...

I know. You don’t expect to see a batch of boiled bagels ready to go into the oven in a blog post about getting ready for Passover.   But I am going my best to use up a 10lb. bag of flour before we switch over the house. for the holiday. I live with two guys who live on bread. Tonight’s dinner and the rest of the meals we will be eating between now and Saturday evening will be in the category of festival of randomness.   Tonight we will be eating codfish cakes made with some salt cod I found in the freezer. We will be eating whatever vegetables are left in the freezer.   A friend invited us for dinner tomorrow. I made a berry pie to use up more flour and the rest of a bag of mixed berries from the freezer. It’s an oil crust. let me see if I remember what I put in it, 2/3 C of oil, 2 C of flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and some water and a bit of ginger booze.   The filling is berries simmered with tapioca, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger...

  This morning I got a call from one of my childhood friends. My friend lives just a couple of blocks from my mother’s apartment. Soon after I got to Boston that week before my mother died, my friend came over with apple sauce for my mother and flowers for me and for my sister. She just sat and talked with me ,and with my sister. She brought over her photo album from her bat-mitzvah and we looked at photos of the grown ups,, many of who are no longer living, and our contemporaries.  Our classmates were wearing maxi dresses if they were girls, and the boys were wearing bell bottoms and really loud jackets.   We remembered who we were then and caught up on what various of our contemporaries were doing.  One of our classmates had died in his thirties, some of our classmates are living exactly the lives they had fantasized about, other have had more difficult paths. Some we had completely lost track of.    There was something so deeply comforting ...

My  husband and I did a small adventure yesterday to a new york neighborhood that is new to both of us. I took a couple of photos. I don’t know if any of them are particularly helpful in identifying the neighborhood.     After we got home I decided to work on using our last bag of flour before we switch the house over to Passover this weekend. This is a hybrid between tzibbile pletzel, onion board and Eastern European  favorite, and   pita zaatar. each sheet of egg enriched dough was sprinkled with a dried onions, poppy seeds, sumac, parsley,  smoked paprika and black pepper.   I got bored when I was nearly done an rolled up the last sheet of dough and then sliced the roll. I ate one board topped with mozzarella cheese for lunch. For supper we will have a tomato mushroom soup.

This is what things looked like from my taxi window on Wednesday on the way back from Costco. It was cold but you had the feeling that spring was right around the corner. After all, we had just had a couple of really warm days,. This is what is going on outside my window today. I come from Boston. I have lived through lots of March snowstorms. I have even lived through one May snowstorm.  I know that just because the calendar says that it is spring  it does not mean that the weather will be spring-like…but still….. I also wanted to report on process of bathing Mrs. Whistler. I took the frame apart and pulled the crochet piece off of the satin covered cardboard. the handwork had been affixed with glue and was easy to peel off. I soaked the piece in a bucket filled with hot water and dish soap. The piece  was really dirty. The water in the bucket turned dark brown. After many rinses the piece was still stained.   I then filled the bucket with cl...

We have been eating food lovingly cooked for us  during my mother’s Shiva. Each day we have been pulling out  various food units and heating them up for lunch and dinner. Today is Friday, time to make Shabbat dinner.  Yes, I know that Pesach is coming. But I have about 12 lbs. of flour that needs to be used up and two Shabbatot before we change the house over. So I made challah. I decided to make a smaller batch with only 2.5 cups of water and four eggs instead of the usual 3.5 cups of water and 6 eggs. If I were more scientifically minded I would have precisely figured out exactly what percentage to reduce al of the other ingredients. I am not, so I just added less of everything. They look good and will probably taste good too.   This my son’s birthday Shabbat so I made ribs. This is what I put on top of the ribs before they went into the oven. I am trying to use up open containers of condiments before Passover. We tried the Korean hot pepper past...

Yesterday was my youngest’s birthday. He is now old. A European born cousin once described her daughter as “Teaching retired children.”  Yes, our cousin misspoke and meant retarded.  But in the warped lexicon of our family, “retired children” have come to mean old, former children.  Given that usage, I am now the mother of retired children. My youngest is now a retired child. We are now beginning to talk about breaking up my mother’s apartment. We have been thinking about which family members want which objects so we can distribute things fairly.   My parents had a fairly large art collection. I think partially as their own reaction to the Holocaust, and partially because black and white etchings and lithographs were more affordable they have a large collection of very dark art. There are lots of pieces that depict the European Jewish world before the Holocaust and others that either obliquely or directly explore the Holocaust.   I asked my kids if the...