sarah in nyc

This autumn, for some reason I am particularly hungry for trees that have turned color. This bright yellow tree is on my block, across the street from my building. As I did my errands today I found other bits of fall color.There is a new development a couple of blocks away on Columbus Avenue. I call it suburbia because it is filled with big box and mall stores.  There are some trees in suburbia. I loved the reflection of the foliage in the lobby of one of the buildings in suburbia. This tree is at the edge of Morningside Park. I was relieved to finally see some red leaves. I also want to show you something that is something of an endangered species in my neighborhood.  This is an original, completely un-renovated doorway to a late 19th century  working class apartment building.  Often buildings show the signs of well intentioned but poorly thought out renovations. many buildings of this vintage have the industrial glass and metal doors that look...

I always miss fall foliage. We have sort of a pallid version here in Manhattan. This is what I saw from six flights up this morning. When I went out earlier in the day the plaza in front of the 96th street subway station showed a bit of autumn color. So there it is, just like the song, “Autumn in New York”. My mother had a Lane Cedar chest. Most of it was filled with out of season wool blankets in the summer, and the “good”  wool blankets that were taken out only for important houseguests. The moveable shelves were filled with carefully packed away baby sweaters. Many of them were made for my oldest sister by my parents Halifax friends. My daughter wore some of these sweaters when she was a baby. My mother had asked me to send them back to her when my daughter outgrew them. I plan to lend these sweaters out to my mother’s great grandchildren.   I just love this set. I will wash it when there is a baby on the way, whenever that happens. This swe...

On on the board of my building. One of the tasks I do each year is decorate the lobby for Halloween. Before I took over the job the decorations were al store bought. The decorating itself was a nice communal activity but I didn’t love the idea od spending money on store bought decorations. Each year, with the help of the kids in the building I come up with a theme.  The goal is to create something that is easy enough for kids to do, costs nearly nothing and looks appropriate for the season. This year I also looked up ideas on Pinterest. I had found a tutorial on making spider webs out of garbage bags.  I ad also seen something about creating flocks of bats. I asked neighbors to donate the needed supplies. Parents and kids came at the appointed time and got to work. Usually early in the process it feels like this year it just isn’t going to work  and I try to figure out an alternative plan  for decorating the lobby. About half way through it is a chaotic s...

The tallit bag and atara were being picked up today. The seemingly difficult part of the atara, doing the calligraphy was done with ease. the part that ought to be simple,edging the piece had me stumped. One of the nice things about having a hard deadline is the piece just had to get finished. For a little while I just felt completely stuck and was unable to figure out how to edge the atara. Finally, I edged the piece with three rows of couched cording. The result is both sturdy and pretty. Elizabeth picked up the tallit bag and the tallit with the new atara. She was in a rush and ad requested that I just leave the work with my doorman. I did. For me my favorite part of working with the client is seeing their reaction when they first see a piece. Elizabeth was kind enough to come upstairs to look at my work with me. I know it made a rushed day for her even more rushed, and I am grateful that she did. Elizabeth was really, really happy. I hope her husband will be pleased as well....

Yesterday my daughter invited me to join her at a sample sale. The sale was from one of her favorite stores. My daughter’s birthday is next week. My daughter works in the schmatta trade. She has always loved clothes, less for the fanciness of the labels but more for their style. She has an intuitive sense of how to take seemingly random garments and make them work together. There have been several birthdays when I have given her a treasure from the thrift store. I was able to do this even when she was in her early teens when one would assume that a girl would be most driven to wear only brand label whatever the most popular girl in school is wearing.  I don’t want you to think that I was attempting to pass off a cheapskate gift as something wonderful, but I would select an outrageous fabulous garment and my girl would just get why it was a treasure. So yesterday, I took my daughter up on the offer of the sample sale and suggested that the purchases be her birthday gift. My da...

  There aren’t too many weeks that go by without my baking bread at least once, and usually more often. I am a strong believer in bread baking fitting comfortably into your day. Laurie Colwin in her beautiful book Home Cooking writes a fabulous essay on baking bread that pretty much sums up my attitude about bread baking. ( Parenthetically, my copy of the book was a stupendous house gift from my friend Anne.) At this point challah, and pita and bagels and peasant breads and pizza are all comfortable parts of my bread baking repertoire. I adore sour dough bread. But each time I read a recipe for how to set up a sour dough starter my head starts to ache. According to most of the books I have read setting up sour dough sounds like it is almost as much work as taking care of an infant. Awhile back I took a book out of the library that promised a method for making home baked bread with a time expenditure of only twenty minutes per day. The method in the book described setting...

This tallit bag is a gift from Elizabeth to her husband.  The text on the inside of the cover comes from the Kuzari and was used by Elizabeth and her husband on their wedding invitation. The text translates to In my going out towards you Towards me I found you I needed to finish off the raw edges of the metallic linen. I also wanted to frame the text. Now that I own such a great collection of ribbon I knew that I had exactly the right thing. I was then ready to do the preliminary construction of the bag. I wanted the bag to have a bit of heft. I happened to have a piece of a thin quilt that exactly fit the bill. I made a sandwich of the outside and the inside of the tallit bag filled with the bit of quilt. I sewed around the outside perimeter to secure the sandwich. The raw edges then had to be finished off. The top edge of the pocket part of the bag got edged with the red sari brocade. At first I had thought that a wide version of the gold metallic striped gro...

The other day I received an email from a friend. They are cleaning out her late mother in law’s apartment. They found this wedding dress would I want it for my work. I had assumed that the dress would be in bad shape. In that case I would be happy to cut it up and use it in my work.  What I discovered was a dress that was slightly discolored but in nearly perfect condition. Apparently it was purchased from Henri Bendel’s in 1952.   I think my daughter, as slim as she is is too large for this dress. I called a  wedding dress gemach in Brooklyn.   Gemach   is a contraction of the phrase g’milat chasadim   the doing of good deeds, and is a community organization with  a mandate to do good. We will rendez-vous  in the garment district next week and I will give the woman who runs the gemach the dress Some Brooklyn bride will be wearing this dress at a wedding soon. This morning one woman got to services early and was happily working away at...

Like every other child of my generation I grew up watching Shake & Bake commercials on TV.  Shake & Bake seemed like magical way to make chicken, so goyish ! so American!   Not surprisingly, my parents never, ever bought Shake & Bake. My parents used to make breaded fish but never breaded chicken. At some point in my early adulthood I discovered the delicacy that all other American children must have known, cornflake chicken. Cornflake chicken is insanely easy to make. You can find the recipe on the outside of every box of cornflakes, even the generic kind. I am not going to bother to tell you how to make it. Breaded chicken is one of those foods that little kids love. Because I shared my home with little kids for so many years it was part of the rotation of chicken variations. Remembering the Shake & Bake commercials that aired during the Carter administration with the kids calling out the tag line with heavy ( probably fake) Southern accents at the ...