A socially distant dinner in the park

I had made these mushroom and tomato focaccias yesterday. Two of us had eaten half of one of them for lunch.

The big one was intact.

Our older son called and said that he was in the neighborhood. My husband suggested a socially distant supper in Riverside Park.

I packed up the rest of the focaccia, cut up a watermelon, and packed up dishes and silverware to take with us. Our younger son would join us when he was done with work.

We started out supper in the playground where my kids and I had spent a huge amount of time when they were little.

As the day turned to dusk, we were asked to leave and the gate to the playground was locked.We walked up to Riverside Drive and saw our youngest ready to join us.

We continued our dinner by a bench on Riverside Drive. you can see that our older son who no longer lives with us is more than six feet away.

The bugs had come out, and as usual, found my husband delicious. If you look just past the street lamp you will see a large branch downed by last week's storm. It made a sweet archway over the sidewalk. We did have to duck under it to get to the bench.

My husband was done eating so once again was masked.

Eating a meal together at home or even in a restaurant would have been nicer.

But eating together, even at a distance was lovely.

It was so muggy that my son's usually straight hair was wavy.

Just because I made dinner last night, doesn't mean that we don't have to eat today. I started our challah right after breakfast.

Here it is braided.

Here it is after baking.

I didn't do anything fancy with these loaves. Two are four-strand braids and two are two-stranded braids, for no particular reason at all.

I made meatballs.

These will be served over homemade basil-black pepper noodles.

I boiled the noodles with red pepper flakes in the water.

Our vegetable matter will be a simple salad.

I am slowly working my way through a long to-do list.

I am very nearly done chain stitching around the letters on Max's tallit.

Our virtual Shabbat guest left off a completely blackened by tarnish kiddush cup because I had offered to polish it.

My father taught me how to polish silver when I was really little. I know that some people are terrified about the prospect of polishing up a tarnished piece of silver. My in-laws were so scared of polishing silver that they gave me silver dishes that had been given to them as wedding gifts that hadn't been polished since their own wedding.

After ten or so minutes our friend's kiddush cup looked like this.

I love that I will see this cup tonight on my computer screen as our friend uses it tonight to make kiddush. Our friend left a beautiful bottle of wine as a gift. I am loving this entirely virtual transaction.

Right after I finished kneading the challah I cut my husband's hair. I actually like his hair a little wild looking, but it isn't my choice so I snipped away as he requested. After I was done he checked out his hair in the mirror and declared it not a bad job.

As we make our way through the pandemic it can be hard to keep on keeping on. We are in a new not quite normal where our guests arrive at our table via Zoom. Sometimes it is hard to connect. Sometimes it is hard to hear one another. Singing together is kind of terrible because it is impossible to be in sync. Never the less, as the weeks stretch on, each week I am more grateful to our little virtual band of loved ones around our table.

Shabbat Shalom!

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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