sarah in nyc

Why, yes there has been a whole lot of challah baking going on around here. I had assumed the last batch I had made last Friday would last us through the rest of Sukkot, but I was wrong. My youngest son started this batch last night and we let it rise overnight in the fridge. I shaped them this morning and baked them this afternoon. Each strand is made up of the dough rolled out to a large rectangle and then covered with spices and cocoa and then rolled up and braided. All week my sons and I have been tag-teaming the bread baking. One of us starts the dough and another one of the three of us forms the bread.  There have been some really delicious breads during the week, an impressive array of tiny pretty rolls, some pits, and some baguettes. My youngest mentioned to me last night that baking bread is a nice way to impress someone without a massive amount of labor. We also in our family use the bread baking to be kind to one another during these stressful times. S...

The Jewish holidays mean lots of dinners around here. The dinners call for tablecloths and napkins in addition to all of the food. The aftermath of the holidays always includes masses of laundry and ironing all of that napery. I suppose that it isn't irrational to ask why I don't use no-iron tablecloths like most of the universe and why I don't just use paper napkins. But old linens just seem to show up in my house. I could keep them all boxed away and use an easy-care tablecloth and we would still eat a lovely meal. However, bringing out my mother's Madeira napkins and using them is a way to connect with the things my parents loved. I still haven't been brave enough to use the cloths that came with these napkins. I used the napkins with this tablecloth because I liked how the flowers were embroidered in the color of honey. I thought the cloth would show off the honey in my parents' apple shaped honey jug. I have no idea who BL who embroid...

First the drama. This morning I was making our challah. I was pulverizing up freeze-dried apples in my coffee grinder to add to the challah dough when the outlet the coffee grinder was plugged into started shooting out sparks and then our kitchen and dining room went dark. Yes. I went to the fuse box to flip the appropriate fuses but alas that didn't work. Our super came up to assess the situation and then sent an electrician to fix the damage. I had a giant bowl of challah dough that was ready to be shaped and no working oven. I put out a distress call and my downstairs neighbor let me bake in her beautiful oven. I gave her one of our challot as a thank you. While the drama was ongoing I rejiggered our plans to serve meatballs and figured out a cold meal to serve instead. But with electricity restored, meatballs and roasted potatoes are back on the menu for tonight and are cooking as I type this. Yesterday felt like the first day in eons that I wasn't either cooki...