sarah in nyc

This was quite an extraordinary weekend. Just about one hundred people gathered to celebrate fifty years since the founding of Havurat Shalom in Somerville, Massachusetts. It could be that you never heard of Havurat Shalom or that you never were part of that community or even attended services there. Even if that is true, it is awfully likely that if you have ever been in a synagogue in the past few decades you have experienced something that germinated in that house on College Avenue. If you have ever sat through a service that included a nigun,  a wordless tune, to help set a mood, or attend services where synagogue members share in the reading of the Torah or attend a service where a community member delivers the d'var Torah , the sermon,   or attend an egalitarian synagogue where men and women have the same rights and responsibilities you have been touched by some of the experiments that began at Havurat Shalom. If you consult with a rabbah,  have create...

It's Friday and today there will not be a post about food. In a few hours, we are leaving to spend time marking an important moment in American Jewish history. My husband, not all that long after this photo was taken became involved in an experimental Jewish community called Havurat Shalom. This year marks fifty years since that experiment began. You can read one perspective on that experiment and community  here. The article focuses on the author's experience there, which expresses just some facets of the place. But if you are at all involved in living a Jewish life today ripples from the pebbles tossed into the Jewish waters then are part of your own Jewish practice.  The innovative approach to prayer, to thinking about Jewish practice that was part of the DNA of Havurat Shalom certainly informs my work.  We are looking forward to spending the weekend with dear friends. Although I haven't posted in several days...

We are essentially eating a Shavuot menu for Shabbat. Inspired by my friend Iscah, I got a little creative with the challah shapes. here they are, post -baking. Tonight we are eating one standard braid and one flower. The blintzes get a blueberry sauce. Those diners committed to the full dairy experience get sour cream. Our non-dairy protein comes from the annals of ancient cookery, I made pickled cod. You can't get more old-fashioned than that. Pickled fish is perfect for three days of Yom Tov. You set it up and stick it in the fridge and it is tasty throughout the holiday. The color was dreary so I added slices of the red carrot to cheer the dish up a bit.  I am serving the cod in this dish. It was my mother-in-law's. It made my husband really happy to see this casserole in use. When this casserole was new, in the 1940's there might have been other people making pickled cod for Shavuot. Continuing on the theme of old-fashioned...

Although the Torah commands us to count the Omer, the fifty days between Passover and Shavuot I have never ever managed to actually count all of the days. My husband jokes that we always get the first day right ( because it takes place during the second seder).  This year I did better than I do most years because one of my  Facebook friends has posted the day of the Omer (most days). Although I am lax about counting the Omer, I am pretty stringent about serving dairy on Shavuot. My elementary school teachers told me that the reason we eat dairy is that in anticipation of receiving the Torah the Jews knew there would be rules about which meat is Ok to eat and which is not acceptable. In order not to break any of the rules they ate dairy while awaiting the Torah. Even as a kid I knew there was something just a bit hinky about the logic in that explanation. a couple of years ago my friend Debbie, always a great source of wisdom explained to me th...

People will often ask me how long it takes me to make a garment. Four or five years ago I was shopping at Metro Textile. As always, I bought some yardage off of some of the hundreds of bolts arrayed in the store.  As always, I also poked around in the remnant bin by the door while Kashi, Metro's owner, tallied up my purchase. I love the sense of possibility in a remnant bin. I see and touch and select fabrics that I otherwise never would think of purchasing. One of the remnants was this, less than a yard of light green with threads of not exactly the same shade of green woven through the weft. I was completely smitten by the fabric and knew that it was meant to be a simple pencil skirt. The cost of this length of fabric was negligible. Kashi might have even thrown it in for free if I had made a large enough purchase of other stuff. That fabric sat in my stash for four or five years. My sewing pals call that marinating.  Every few months I would pull tha...

This was a weekend jam-packed with events. Our youngest graduated from college. Why, yes, he is wearing a Pac-man suit and a gold lame shirt.  You can't see the gold shoes he is wearing. he taped a manilla envelope filled with resumes to his mortarboard and handed them out during graduation. If you are looking for someone to do post-production sound design then our boy is your man. As the recessional of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance played my husband and I sang about how we are now done paying college tuition. Sunday was both my birthday and Mothers Day. I have great sympathy for people born around Chanukah or Christmas. I also share my birthday with my son in law. When we arrived home after the graduation, this beautiful bouquet was waiting for me from my sister-in-law and brother in law. I woke up and my older son presented me with this. It was my 57th birthday. Before my father turned fifty-seven seven he used to riff about how it was his Heinz bir...