sarah in nyc

Our friend's son and daughter in law just had a baby. We are very fond of the family. I decided to make the new baby a dress. Yes, you have seen this orange flower batik before.  I made a dress for my cousin's new baby out of the same fabric.  The fabric had arrived at my house, a complete mystery. I have no idea who left it for me, but i am really fond of this 1970's batik. The trim on this dress is all cut from the dress I had made earlier in the week.  I love how the two hand spun fabric play nicely together.  I think the fabric inspired me to have a late 1970's moment.  The sturdy fabric made sewing the giant applique flowers easy. And now for a moment of color theory. I took these photos of the dress today against a dark background.  Yesterday I took pictures of the dress against an orange cotton.  I know, the dress looks hideous against the orange. This dress was fun to make. The baby's father grew up in this neighborh...

I had planned on making my usual white flour challah enriched with some gluten. I realized as I began kneading the dough that my flour bag was nearly empty. I am still replenishing my grains after Passover. Actually to say that more correctly I still haven’t bought any grains after Passover. I usually have a bunch of whole grains in my pantry and had I had some around I would have ground them up in the coffee mill. I had reached the point of no return in my challah kneading. I did have a bag of wheat germ. My husband eats oatmeal every morning. I added lots of both. The challah dough texture got a little heavy, a little extra muscular… The folks eating at the table are welcome to complain. It’s a little warm today and the loaves over rose a bit. I like a challah with a defined braid. So I fixed the problem. Here is the undefined challah. Here is the fix. Actually, that is a simulation of the fix, I am a righty. But simulation or not, you just...

My mornings begin these days with morning minyan. I usually take my camera with me because I like to capture a bit of something that appeals to my eye. In retrospect I realize that what I have chosen to photograph makes my neighborhood look far lusher and more beautiful than it might to most people walking down Broadway. I was in love with the quality of the light. I love the thin translucent  leaves of spring. The health food store leases it’s sidewalk space to the flower vendor. By yesterday, we had come to the end of the challot I had baked for Shavuot. I made bagels. A couple of years ago a cousin had eaten some of my bread and asked it if baking it required complicated equipment. This is all you need beyond a cup, spoon, bowl, and baking sheet for making bagels. You use the spatula to lift the boiled bagels from the boiling water ( with added brown sugar). The baked bagels need to be tested by my sons to see if they taste good. This b...

I do know that it has actually been beautiful out. But I have been spending my time indoors getting the apartment ready for the influx of STUFF coming from my mother’s apartment.  We have been working on getting rid of things that we don’t love, don’t need in our lives. This has not been a stress-free process. Today is Friday, dinner needed to be made for tonight and I put the chicken in the oven before I left for services this morning. I also need to get some of the cooking done for Shavuot. I was also asked to give a D’var Torah tomorrow, so a whole lot on my plate and not quite enough time to get it all done. As I was getting to work today, the doorbell rang and it was a cheesecake delivered from a cousin. It was an edible condolence card. I am touched beyond words and will eat it on Shavuot tasting every bit of love and comfort in every bite. When we picked up our youngest from college one of the things he brought home was It isn’t something that normally comes ho...

This week has been something of an adventure. Monday morning my sister drove us to Boston. My husband and I started packing up the stuff we wanted to take back to New York almost as soon as we walked in the door. We took a break to have dinner with one of our parents’ dear friend who is himself in declining health. He gave us a poem he had written about our mother. I think perhaps because my mothers decline was so long and so difficult I have been fairly un-weepy during this period of mourning. But this poem had me sobbing. We knew the movers were coming on Tuesday morning and there was a ton to do. So we packed and packed until 3:30 am when I fell asleep so I could wake up at 6:15 to go to morning services. After services I napped because my husband gave me no choice in the matter. I am grateful that he stepped in and was bossy and insisted that I sleep. After I woke up it was back to work. I had ordered to giant rolls of bubble wrap to be delivered to ...

I will begin with the other stuff. Other stuff #1 Yesterday we rented a car and drove to pick up kid # 3 from college. His school is about an hour and a half away. We started out journey in great spirits. But, most of our trip was like this. Door to door it was eight hours including packing up the car and a stop for dinner. Having child # 3 home is a pleasure. He is even doing his own laundry. Other Stuff #2 I had purchased a soft as a cloud cashmere v-necked sweater at a thrift. The color on it’s own is just plain evil on me and on my daughter. I turned it into a cardigan. This is how I did it in case you forgot. 1.Fold the sweater in 1/2 Be sure to align the side seams. If you peek inside the sweater you can line those seams up perfectly. If you like to do things in a complicated way you can do lots of measuring from the side seams and use a billion pins. If you have a flat surface and live in a place with gravity just put the sweater down and align the side seams a...