Max's tallit nearly done and Food Friday

 

The eyelets are still left to be done and I haven't caught every thread that needs to be snipped but this is what I can show all of you.

Max is Tanta Marcia and Fetter Fred's great-nephew. Most of the bar-mitzvah kids I work with come from really nice families. Families where people are kind to one another. Max's family has a whole other level of niceness going on. 

Max was very clear that he wanted his tallit to be visually fairly quiet. At first glance, this looks not all that different than a standard tallit.

As you look more closely, the details begin to emerge. (Actually, not all that different than a conversation with Max himself, where at first he seems like a regular twelve-year-old and then after a bit of conversation you realize that he is a really special human being ).

I have discovered over the years that if you layer ornament, as I do with the decorative stitching here, it actually reads as quieter than having just one layer of decoration.

All of the layers of embroidery settle into a pleasant hum. The stitching on the ribbons around the pinot/corner pieces are not identical to those around the atara/neckband.

There is a nice conversation going on between all of the elements of the tallit.

There are miles of embroidery stitches, miles of three different metallic threads I have lost count of how many different kinds of stitches went into the making of this tallit, and yet it still reads as quiet.

And now on to domestic matters. This morning my husband realized that it is Elul and time to visit the graves of his parents, aunt and uncle, and grandparents. He invited me to come along. Dinner wasn't going to cook itself. I declined.

My parents LOVED cemeteries. The adored old Jewish cemeteries. My father's work took both of my parents to cemeteries often. However, we didn't have the tradition of visiting our own family graves. My mother-in-law in particular made sure to visit the family graves during the month of Elul. It also probably helped that lived a three-minute drive from the cemetery. So today, my husband went to visit his family that resides underground in Queens. I stayed home and cooked Shabbat dinner. Perhaps next year I will join my husband.

 I used my cookie rack method to cook some peppers.

I will peel the skins soon and slice the peppers after their time in the plastic bag sauna.

Corn is still in season, so another week of roasted corn.  Sweet corn's flavor is more intense if it is cooked dry. In my opinion boiling corn just dilutes the flavor. Last Shabbat morning my son ate an ear of left-over roasted corn for breakfast.

The mess left by the roasted vegetables isn't that difficult to clean up

The rest of our vegetables were roasted inside the oven. It's a late summer mix of tomatoes, and eggplant, mushrooms, and broccoli stems. The vegetables were topped with olive oil, cider vinegar, Herbes Provencal, and a bit of honey. I tasted the mixture most of the way through and it needed a touch of sweetness to balance the flavors.

Our protein for the week is 

chicken cooked with a hawaij rub with raisins, dried apricot, clementine juice, and a bit of orange juice.Hawaij pairs well with a bit of sweetness. It brings out the mellow in the spice mix.

Rosh HaShanah is in two weeks. It is traditional to send out wishes for a good and blessed year. Until this year I have thought of those greetings as a more or less proforma activity--a Jewish cultural equivalent of "have a nice day".

This morning I made a card to send out to some dear relatives. I selected a line from the liturgy that I felt expressed my hopes for them for this year. I surprised myself with the depth of emotion that I felt as I put together the card, how I meant every bit of every word. As I send out greetings over the next few weeks and I respond to wishes sent to me hoping for a good year I know that my wishes will be  deeply felt --not like a Hallmark card but with feelings deep in my heart.

Shabbat Shalom!