Food Friday - all you can do on a short Friday edition

We changed the clocks so Shabbat once again starts early. Everything needs to get done 20 minutes before sunset. So before my morning workout, I got the meat portion of tonight's dinner going. The roast that looked big raw looks like enough for three or four dainty eaters.

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The seats at our table will be filled with one dainty eater and the rest really love meat and eat like they have been doing hard physical labor all day.

So a mess of wings cooked in a smokey date molasses and mustard sauce should keep my guests happy.

I have roasted mushrooms, tomatoes and slices of red pepper to add to our salad. My son made the challah last week.

I had to pick up a few things. I couldn't resist take a few more pictures of the trees on the block.

The ginko is starting to turn yellow. I loved the way the light hits the leaves.

I know one usually doesn't think of nature on the streets of Manhattan, and I know I keep taking photos of the trees on my block but they have this brief moment of glory, so I might as well record that moment and share it.

I love the reflection in the window of a parked car.

But work-work had to get done as well.

I am making progress on the Torah mantle.

Unfortunately cuticle scissors are not constructed for extended usage. I stop trimming letters when my thumb threatens to get blistered.

I also took time to mend my husband's jeans.

and to make dessert.

Tonight we will end out meal with an chocolate, apricot cranberry tart. The crust is an oatmeal and walnut crust.The chocolate is Israeli chocolate spread. The apricot was canned cake filling that was jazzed up with the juice of two lines and a swig of rose-water. The mix was bland and had none of the zip I expect from apricots. The additions helped a whole lot. I can't resist cranberries during this season.

This tart will get cut up into small squares for serving.

I have just a few minutes until candle-lighting, all in all it's been a productive day.

Shabbat Shalom!

Comments

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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