Kever Hunters, San Francisco edition

This is my first time in San Francisco. We have had a giant painting of a view of the Bay Bridge hanging above our couch for the past 17 years. We inherited the painting from my husband's Uncle Irving who lived out most of his adult life in Los Angeles.

The painting is a bit unusual in that it lights up. With the lights off you see the view of

the bridge by day and when you turn off the living room lights and turn the lights in the painting on,you get to see the same scene at night. The painting straddles the line between lovely and kitschy.

One of our Shabbat dinner guests told us that he thought that the painting was the view from California Street. Today after doing a few of the obligatory San Francisco tourist activities we decided to go searching for the spot where our bit of the city was painted from.

We first went to the Ferry Terminal.

We loved seeing this familiar landmark from our painting. We went inside and discovered that it was an elegant food market similar to Quincy Market in Boston only more California chichi. We ate lunch and continued on our quest.

We spoke to the concierge in the lobby of a building near the base of California Street who suggested that we go to the bar of the Marriott Hotel across the street. We knew the view was from higher up the hill,but thought that if we failed we would try the view from the Marriott.

We located California Street and hopped on a cable car going up the impossibly steep hill. As the cable car travelled up the hill bits of the image we know from our painting began to pull into view.

It was incredibility exciting. We could see that so many new buildings have been built since our painting was painted (I am guessing in the 1940's), we weren't sure we would actually be able to find our view.

We got off the cable car at the top of the hill. We stood at first one corner of the intersection and then another and then realized that the painting was of an even higher point,from a high floor of the Intercontinental hotel.

We went inside and spoke to the concierge. We explained our quest. He suggested that we go to their penthouse bar,Top of the Mark. We weren't exactly dressed for drinks at such a fancy hotel but the concierge assured us that we would be fine.

We took the elevator to the top floor of the hotel. We explained our quest to the hostess. She suggested that we sit in the 'Weeper Seat'. The hostess was right. It was exactly the right spot. We called our order son who was home and asked him to send us a photo of the painting.

We shared the photo above with our waiter. He was really impressed.

The cocktails we were served were really strong. We called each of our kids and told them where we were.

Given that they are our kids,and have developed a taste for dopey adventures along with their silly parents, they enjoyed sharing the moment with us.

We had the best time doing something that probably isn't in any of the San Francisco tourism books.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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