sarah in nyc

One of the great wonders of the internet is Google Books. It is possible to download for free a huge number of books and publications.  An even larger number of books and publications is available for pay but I figured that I may as well read up as many of the free books that interest me before I start shelling out money to feed my serious reading addiction. Through Google Books, I have had the opportunity to read  about a year's worth of the journal American Shoemaker , I pored over many issues of   The Garment Worker  where articles were written in English, Yiddish, and Italian.  I am particularly fond of The Dry Goods Review.  My latest old publication love is The American Hebrew. I began my reading in the fall issues of 1920 and have gotten up to the early summer of 1921. It has been quite exciting and often deeply stressful reading. WWI had ended just a few years before. While a great deal of Europe was devastated in the post-war...

It finally feels like fall. My daughter is celebrating her birthday with us tonight.  Her actual birthday is in a few days but she will be far away on a well-deserved vacation. My older son made much of the meal. I was charged with making dessert. My daughter adores pumpkin. So tonight's meal includes Pumpkin non-dairy ice cream studded with spicy candied walnuts. These nuts are dangerous. They seem to fly into my mouth when I am not paying attention. I also made pumpkin pie with a nut crust in a rectangular pan. I began making pie in a rectangular pan because for some reason my husband much prefers to eat pie in this shape rather than the traditional round pie with triangular slices. It turns out that rectangular pie is now a thing in the world of food blogging. It is known as hand pie. You can call it anything you like. The pie on its own was not that beautiful. This issue needed to be addressed. I made a vanilla custard...

We bought this pretty little side chair from a country auction house on our way back from dropping our son at summer camp several summers back. The wicker seat soon needed to be replaced. A couple of years ago in a burst of pre-Passover energy, I attempted to re-cane the chair. While doing the re-caning I soon realized why it is so expensive to have chairs re-caned. my not terribly good job began to fall apart. Amazon.com Widgets A recent sleepless night yielded a solution to the problem of what to do about the pretty little chair. I am now the owner of lots of spools of ribbon. I decided to weave a new seat out of ribbon. It was a few hours of work, but it was far less hard on the hands than the cane. The ribbon does not have to be soaked in warm water to become flexible. I was trying to figure out where I had gotten the idea of using ribbon to weave a seat and I guess it must be Shaker chairs.  I was so inspired by my success that I decided to try my hand o...

I think my challot were as sick of all of the past few weeks of holiday and staged a protest by not rising. Amazon.com Widgets Each challah is a brick. They will probably taste good but they sure are dense. All of my kids and my daughter's intended will be joining us tonight so I made meringues, or as they are known around these parts,  whities. Tonight's whities have been enhanced with bittersweet chocolate, raisins and rice crispies. I scratched a dress making itch yesterday by turning a funky panel of black and white striped double knit into a dress. It took a little while to figure out the stripe placement so the dress was flattering. four long darts provided shaping. I am especially pleased that the stripes match and at every seam too. This is probably a first for me. I wore the dress to a meeting last night. I love the early 1970's vibe the dress gives off. I felt very efficient and smart at the meeting. it must have been the dress. ...

Last week a few of my friends posted that making etrog jam or booze was dangerous because of all of the pesticides used in growing etrogim. I carefully read the post. I then decided to make etrog jam anyway.  Before you actually make the jam you boil the sliced rinds in water, toss the water and boil again, five times.  If you want to live on the edge, you can come by for a spoon-full of etrog preserves. And a bonus shot of a bike on my block. Amazon.com Widgets

After a month of three days in a row of Yom Tov I feel like I have awakened from, not exactly a slumber. After all you can't bake four batches of challah, make tzimmis and stuffed cabbage, chickens and lamb along with all of the other parts that make up a meal while sleeping. But I do feel like I woke up and hadn't quite realized that a month had passed. Amazon.com Widgets The holidays were lovely and meaningful this year but the season that begins after the High Holidays is ironing season. There are more table cloths to be pressed. But the job feels less onerous at the moment. Our napkin drawer had become uncharacteristically empty. It is once again filled.  The linen napkins await the iron. I was also able to tend to tasks that had been put off because of the holidays.  I mailed a birthday package to my sister. The post office is around the corner from an old Horn and Hardart building. It took me years to notice the beautiful art-deco decoration on ...