sarah in nyc

I am always struck how the foods of the high holiday season are sweet, but not just sweet. The sweetness is overlayed with a bit of spice or sourness. Like life itself, like our memories it's all a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface. I started our holiday cooking by getting the cabbage ready to stuff. This used to be a task that led to lots of cursing and torn cabbage leaves.  I finally, after maybe thirty years of making stuffed cabbage figured out that the secret to peeling cabbage leaves is to ruthlessly core the cabbage. As you steam the cabbage keep cutting away at that core. The leaves will fall away with ease. Stuffed cabbage needs a long slow cook. You prepare the pan by adding the tough center ribs of the cabbage leaves to the bottom of the pot. it keeps your precious cabbage rolls from burning. This is also a dish where every bit of the cabbage gets used. There is no waste.  After many hours of simmering in the oven you end up with th...

This is probably the least appealing food product name I have ever come across. The brand name "Harmless" makes me instantly suspicious. What are they hiding? These dishes were in the thrift store. When I got married they were my first choice for dishware. My future husband did not share my love for these dishes. I have lived a fulfilled life without them and did not take them home.  This shirt was also in the thrift store. I didn't take it home. My youngest is very fond of our rendition of Whistler's Mother done in crochet. This faded print did not ring his chimes. I am always fascinated by the packages of dried fish in Asian markets. I have been threatening to buy them for at least twenty years. My favorite are the tiny snack sized cellophane packages with just two or three fish. These too stayed on the shelf. I didn't shop at this food truck , I did love their tagline though.

When Martha met with me a few months back to begin designing her tallit she brought me a sketch she had made on the computer. She said that she had gone through an experience that caused her to think about shards of divine light. The sketch was an array of white rods on black. Martha had also decided on a verse for her tallit. הַמְחַדֵּשׁ בְּטוּבו בְּכָל יום תָּמִיד מַעֲשה בְרֵאשִׁית (God ) renews in His goodness each day, always, the act of creation The line comes from the morning prayers. That line would be the text on the atara/neckband. We had decided on using a back silk matka for the tallit. The matka drapes like wool but it's silk. I had begun my work by stitching Martha's vision of sparks of the divine. This is a mix of machine and hand work.  I made two stripes of this sort of work that needed to be joined to the main body of the tallit. Most tallit makers who applique or sew their tallitot together (as opposed to the design being woven in) leave...

One of the regular visitors to my husband's office was Baruch who is a fundraiser for the Lelov Chassidic community. Before the Holocaust there were many different Chassidic rabbinic dynasties each tied to a particular place.  My husband hadn't heard of the  Lelov Chassidim before Boruch began visiting. My husband was struck by Baruch's fine qualities as a human being. He seemed to be both deeply sweet as well as smart and knowledgeable about Jewish texts. (Just wearing a beard and a big hat and peyot isn't a guarantee of any of those things.) Over the years my husband would talk about his visits with Baruch and had clearly become truly fond of him. A few weeks ago we received an invitation to Baruch's son's bar-mitzvah .  The invitation didn't ask for an RSVP. My husband asked if I were willing to go. I knew that the celebration would be sex segregated. I would be on my own in the women's section. I was willing to go. The bar mitzvah was last nigh...

Despite not having posted in several days, it doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. I re-covered a set of dining room chairs for  my dear friend known in this family as Tanta Marcia. The  Queen Anne dining set had come into Marcia's life through marriage. I had to marry the traditional style of the dining chairs with the contemporary couch and the rustic Oriental rugs and get all of the colors in the room to play nicely. A couple of weeks ago I helped Marcia select the fabric from one of my favorite internet home-dec retailers ( fancy stuff at cheap prices!!!). I do admit that I was a little bit bossy but clearly this was a good choice for the room.   I came over after dinner earlier in the week armed with my fabric shears, a screwdriver and my staple gun. By the end of the evening all of the chairs were covered.  (Ignore the passive voice, I covered all of the chairs)  I have also been working away on the sparks of divine light tallit. Once ...