First night and a quest

My future son-in-law is converting to Judaism in the next several weeks. We met to design a tallit together. His tallit will be both thoughtful and beautiful. he had decided on a fabric, a black silk matka.  It's a roughly woven raw silk that looks something like burlap and drapes like wool.It is one of my favorite fabrics for making a man's tallit.

Usually, buying the matka is easy. I call up the nice lady at Supersilk, and she fills my order. I have been buying from her for at least twenty years. Supersilk seems to be located in an apartment building in Queens. On at least one occasion my order was delivered the same day.

I tried to call Supersilk several times but the phone was not answered. Their website seems to be no more. I guess it has gone out of business. I am actually quite sad about this loss.

This morning I called Kashi at Metro textiles to see if he had the silk I needed. He assured me that he did. I had a hunch that he actually did not have the silk in stock. My hunch was right. Kashi spent several minutes trying to convince me that I ought to make the tallit in white instead. When that tactic failed he showed me some lovely black fabrics which were, in fact, lovely but not right for a tallit. the coating was lovely but far too warm. the wool gauze with a stripe was beautiful but too feminine.

Sadly, I left and continued on my quest. 

People have been bemoaning the contraction of the garment district for years. The district is far smaller than it was when I began shopping there thirty years ago. Today though it felt really depressing. Several stores seem to be on the verge of closing their doors. Even Kabbala Man who has been threatening to be going out of business for the past ten years may actually be going out of business for real. The shopkeepers mostly seemed bummed out.

I went into store after store. One store had several bolts of the fabric I needed in several lovely shades. They had one bolt of badly dyed black that just would not do. No, I didn't want shantung, I kept telling clerk after clerk.

Eventually, I found just what I needed for the tallit.

Now I can get to work.

While we were in Houston we spent an evening with my father-in-law's cousin.  I realized that she was the only person still living who knew my father-in-law's parents. My father-in-law rarely spoke about his mother Bella. Cousin Joan spoke about what a wonderful cook Bella was. Joan spoke of the wonderful vegetable latkes that Bella made, not just potato latkes, but beet, carrot, and squash latkes. Joan was a good cook in her day but she said she was never able to replicate those beet and carrot latkes.

Apparently, Bella had brought a suitcase of homemade kasha knishes to Joan's brother's bar-mitzvah. they were apparently highly anticipated and really delicious, and for Joan, a highlight of the bar-mitzvah.

I thought that it would be nice on this first night of Chanukah to try and create some of Bella's latkes.

I made three types, and I apologize to my friend Mark who believes deeply in the goodness of fried latkes. These were all baked. I really hate frying stuff. Mark shold remember that there is a strong tradition to ear dairy on Chanuka so these latkes all fulfill that requirement.

So this is what we ate.

On the left, zucchini and cheddar cheese latkes. On the right beet and goat cheese latkes. Both were good, but the beet latkes were kind of amazing.

I also made apple and cottage cheese latkes

and used the leftover stale cinnamon babke as the breadcrumby element in the latkes.

I don't know if my latkes tasted anything like his grandmother's. Bella died long before my husband was born. I am happy that Bella inspired me to think about latkes in a new way. 

We Skyped our youngest in for candle-lighting and a friend came over for dinner and candle lighting.

!חג שמח