Two silver linings of the pandemic

First a bit of catch up. I normally do a Food Friday post. I wasn't able to because I had a bit extra scheduled into my Friday. So for those of you who expect to see what we ate, here goes...

All long Broadway there are fruit push cards every few blocks. During non-pandemic times the pushcarts had a small often quirky selection of produce. The owners usually buy what is left over at the big wholesale produce markets. The gorgeous blackberries might not last until tomorrow but are a great price.

I was always a frequent customer of the Turkish man who ran the cart at Broadway and 96th street. Since the pandemic began, buying from an outdoor vendor has felt like a much safer shopping option than going inside a crowded supermarket. Clearly, I am not the only person who feels this way. All of the pushcarts in the neighborhood have expanded over the past few months growing beyond the original pushcart. Our Turkish vendor has deeded several stacks of produce cartons to the south of his cart and a few to the north. Perhaps, because restaurants are not as bus,y the quality and variety of produce available at the pushcarts has expanded. For the past couple of weeks, he has been selling beautiful leeks-- the likes of which I have never seen in a supermarket. We had eaten two different batches of leek soup.

Last week I was buying two big gorgeous leeks for a dollar and a half. The leek stock must be getting tired. The leeks on Thursday were selling for a dollar for three large but more exhausted-looking leeks.

I carefully washed the leeks, cut them up, and then did several soaks in cold water to be sure to get rid of every bit of grit.

I piled the sliced and washed leeks into my big roasting pan. I added a big handful of dried mushrooms and then added the chicken.

My youngest who used to not care at all about food quizzed me about what spices I would be adding to the chicken. The whole chicken leek and mushroom combination seemed kind of French to me so I suggested herb de Provence, black pepper, and the juice of a couple of lemons. My son approved of my flavoring thoughts.

I put the pan into the oven and went to do my workout.

When I was done the chicken looked like this.

I served the leeks and mushrooms on a separate platter from the chicken.

This dish is like adding 1+2 and getting 17 as the answer. The whole meal tasted really fancy but wasn't difficult at all to do. The house smelled heavenly all day. This is a meal to impress people you love.

Today I went on a long walk/visit with my dear friend S.

The two of us are well-matched walk partners. We love looking at the same things.

As we walked together we talked and talked.

The conversation wandered as we walked north and then south.

We each pointed out stuff worth looking at.

I dropped my friend off at her house and walked home and noticed things that I knew she would take note of.

We hope to walk together every Sunday. As we head into this pandemic winter, we need to figure out ways to make use of some of the gifts created by this hard time. Walking with my friend weekly is one of those pandemic gifts.

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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