Food Friday and tying up the loose ends of my week

This was my view as I began my workout this morning.

It is mornings like this that make you understand why Hopper painted the way he did. It wasn't just that he was lonely and depressed and was married to a difficult woman, he was also just painting what he saw.

It's Friday so there is lots to cook, but I also have lots of work to get done. I have been working away on Linda's tallit.

Linda is celebrating a birthday of significance. she sent out lengths of ribbons to friends and to family and asked them to write greetings to her on the ribbons. My job is to turn the ribbons into a tallit.

Linda is a math teacher and is precise and gives excellent directions. unfortunately, not all of the people who love Linda share these qualities. I am at the point of working on this tallit where I have to make the wonky -not look wonky.

I had to add an extra bit of ribbon to the panels, because what what looked equal on paper did not work out that way in real life.

I added a row of gold embroidery to the second ribbon to keep it visually interesting and not look like the error that I was fixing.

I have been weaving ribbons to edge the atara and to serve as the corner pieces.

This is oddly satisfying work.

The fact that I had dropped a bunch of walnuts on the kitchen floor meant that I had to rinse them off. I used THAT error as an opportunity to make some candied walnuts. They are delicious and addictive. I put them away so I would not eat them all.

I made fruited pumpernickel bread for the two pot lucks we will be attending this weekend.

We are eating chicken in two varieties. The chicken legs were rubbed with jerk spices.

The chicken thighs were made vaguely Indian with turmeric, mustard powder, cinnamon, allspice and dates.

I also added a few more layers of color onto Hannah's tallit.

And as a final Shabbat bonus, a bit of beautiful masonry by night.

Shabbat Shalom!

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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