An Event- full weekend

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 birthday. My father, when he stumbled on a riff he liked used to play with it, often. Phone calls would be peppered with mentions of his upcoming Heinz birthday. That riff was part of the table conversation, for months.

My sister decided to write the PR department of Heinz and tell them of her father's love of Heniz products, his love of his pickle pin from the 1939 World's Fair and the upcoming Heinz Birthday.

After reading this post my sister reminded me that she got in touch with the folks at Heinz because my father had lost his beloved 1939 World's fair pickle pin. my sister was hoping that her call would produce another pin. Although the 1939 pickle pin was not replaced the nice folks in the PR department at Heinz helped to create a memorable day for us.

The lovely people at Heinz responded with a large package of Heinz swag as well as coupons for Heinz products. My mother, sister, and cousin then put together a Heinz themed birthday dinner for my father. The whole concept was so silly it merited my coming in from New York for the great event.

I remember hot-dogs and baked beans on the menu. I also remember my mother ceremoniously carrying in a tray filled with Heinz condiments.

There was a whole lot of Heinz swag.

The occupant of the highchair is now a partner in a law firm and is now the father of a beautiful baby.

My father's boater is decorated with the Hebrew letters that add up to 57. he is cutting up the cake, baked in the shape of a Heinz label.

I loved that my son chose to remember this great moment of silliness.

In the afternoon my husband and I went to the theatre.

If you can get tickets to this production you should go.

After the play, we took the subway uptown to the Yeshiva University campus.

One of our favorite restaurants is there.

There are people who choose restaurants for their ambiance. Golan Heights looks like it started life as a pizzeria in 1978. They probably haven't redecorated since. They serve excellent Israeli street food. Our daughter and son in law met us there and we all ate out happy fill of schwarma and kofta. I believe this is the third Mothers Day dinner we have enjoyed there. Altogether, a really happy weekend.

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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