I am now the mother of retired children

Years ago, a European born relative when asked what her daughter did for a living replied " My Deborah teaches retired children." We just loved the possibilities present in that Malaprop. In our family parlance retired children could refer either to children with developmental disabilities or to adult children.

Today, our youngest turned 21. I am now the mother of retired children.

He is now older than I was when I met his father. The birthday tiara was a 16th birthday gift from his older brother . My youngest has worn it every birthday since.

Since today is a big birthday, there is of course a birthday Shabbat dinner. I did not photograph the chicken, but it was made with New Orleans mustard ( a gift from dear friends) and Lebanese pomegranate molasses.

Making this dinner I was very aware of the very particular food likes and dislikes of the birthday celebrant.

Sweet potato spears and despite the fact that I am still sick ( Yes, I am now on antibiotics. No, it isn't pneumonia) I made an effort for my youngest.

The pigs in blankets were not that difficult to make with filo dough.

The lemon meringue cake will be cut into squares for serving. It involves lots of not very difficult steps and three stages of baking. The intended recipient was really pleased with both additions to his birthday dinner.

My youngest will not be eating the salad made with roasted tomatoes. He is not a big fan of vegetable matter, but the rest of us will enjoy the roasted tomatoes on greens.

During the past few sick days i worked on the fire tallit.

All of the text is now complete.

After copying out the piyut/liturgical poem four times, I still really like it. next week i will begin to assemble the tallit.

Shabbat Shalom!

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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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