sarah in nyc

 This morning I read a discussion on Facebook about approaching the year anniversary of Covid lockdown. Sara suggested that we should think of this year less as lockdown and more as staying home. My friend Bonnie  Zaben suggested that this time is awfully similar to the rituals of Shiva and mourning. We don't wear shoes, we don't daven in public, we don't worry about personal appearance. We aren't attending concerts or the theatre. The Jewish year of mourning lasts just eleven months. At the end of that eleven months, we emerge lighter and less burdened by our sorrow. I wish that were as true of Covid. We approach the anniversary of our staying home. We still don't know when our time of confinement comes to an end. The scaffolding and netting that surrounds my building seem especially apt during this time of staying home. Regardless of the state of the world, it is still Shabbat tonight. I made red chicken for my husband. Sumac, cayenne pepper, sweet paprika, hot pa...

 Yesterday I had a tiny adventure. I went to the post office to mail a baby gift (and a big sib gift). In normal times this wouldn't count as an adventure of any size, but in pandemic days I am chalking this one upon the adventure side of the spreadsheet. It was cold and damp. I can choose to have my glasses entirely fog up having me look and feel like Mr. Magoo or I can remove my glasses and hope for the best.  There seems to be a moment when the moisture equalizes and one can wear glasses that are mostly not fogged up. For some reason, the only way this can take place is if you also go into someplace warm while out. All of this is a long way around way of explaining why I couldn't take any photos during the first part of this tiny adventure because there is no reason to take photos when you can't see anything. As I walked home from the post office things were so grey that it looked like I was walking through a black and white photograph. I love the composition. I regret t...

 I have been spending entirely too much time on making this dress for my great-niece . . I made it sort of following a vintage little girl dress pattern from the 1980s. The front bodice piece was missing from the pattern envelope so I faked a replacement. The fabric is a sweater knit that I had purchased for making dresses for the little girls in my life. The bodice and the cuffs are lined in soft knits. The lace collar comes from the stash that had belonged to my friend's mother. The father of the little girl who will be getting this dress knew the owner of the lace collars.   My goal in making dresses for little girls is that they feel as comfy as play clothes but be the sort of garment you might put on a little girl to have a fancy lunch with her elderly great aunt. The neckline was a little wide so I added some elastic to the back neckline. The dress will still be easy to pull over a head but won't be a torment to put on. I still remember my terror of putting on a tight tu...

 A couple of you asked to see me in the fabulous thrifted Babette jacket. Getting my picture taken is always a bit anxiety-inducing.   First, here is a photo of the jacket fresh from the washing machine, hanging to dry in our bathroom. Just a moment about the fabric. I suspect that it is woven in Japan. Each stripe is woven in a different pattern. Weaving this stripe pattern, even on a mechanical loom is complicated work. The jacket looked pretty good just hung to dry. It was wearable but a bit of pressing would just sharpen the jacket up. I also want to point out that a lesser designer would just match up the stipe patterns left and right and call it a day. Yes, that is how home sewers often identify a garment of quality.  But what the designer has done here actually takes more artistry.  Thought has gone into the visual composition of this jacket. The fact that the jacket isn't identical right to left keeps your eyes dancing across the surface of the jacket. H...

 Living as we do in Covid-land, face to face contact with people who don't live in my house is a treat. Today, the woman I call Tanta Marcia (Because she does all of those nice things to me that a beloved aunt might do, and the rest of the world knows as Marcia) and I had made plans to have lunch together. We decided to meet at the nice vegetarian Indian restaurant that always makes me feel like I am eating at my Indian Bubbie's house. The restaurant, Ayurveda, feeds you until you are full. There isn't a menu. They feed you what they cooked that day. You get a platter filled with little bowls of food. "Are you sure you don't want more???" At a time when all of us are in need of comfort, Ayurveda serves comfort up in giant portions. There are two small tables set on either side of the restaurant door. Marcia sits at one and I sit at the other so we can eat in a socially distant way and still chat. We talk about what is going on in our lives and suddenly I hear ...

 In turbulent times like ours, keeping my life to familiar rhythms is a comfort. It's Friday. I made challah. As I type this the challah is baking. I made chicken. I used the garam masala my older son gave me as a gift a couple of years ago. The oranges I bought early in the week are sadly, tasteless. I cut up two of them and tucked them under the chicken. perhaps baking will help the sad oranges yield up a bit more flavor. I don't know if they did but the chicken smelled incredible while cooking. I will carve the chicken at the table. I made our vegetables with kookoo szabo, the Iranian herb mix, and powdered sour grape, also an Iranian flavoring. I have no idea if the two Iranian flavors will play well together. The proff will be in the tasting Our challot are baked and look good despite being baked at too high a temperature. I am looking forward to less turbulent times. In a couple of minutes, I will light candles. Shabbat Shalom!

 Today I attended yet another Zoom funeral. The woman who was buried and most of the people you see here are very dear to me. I don't know what you see when you see this photograph. I see a web of friendships and kinship that goes back a century in Boston. There are funerals with eloquent eulogies. This was not such a funeral. Instead, the story of love, of old friends, of playing in the streets of Dorchester together during the Depression, of houses opened to refugee relatives and friends racing through backyards in Quincy, of caring for one another during hard times of one kind and another was told through the hard work of filling in this grave. For a woman of few words and many good deeds, perhaps this was the proper funeral. And from my neighborhood two signs. This was painted in the early days of lockdown. Today I spotted this stenciled onto boards covering a restaurant across the street that has gone empty for a couple of years. I don't know if the letters were scribbled ...

 I am going to ignore the elephant that has been in the room since the terrifying events of January 6th. As we head towards the one year mark of the start of Covid 19 and the upending of life as we know it, I wanted to take this moment to give thanks. Early on in the pandemic, aside from the terror that we would all fall ill and die, another big cause for anxiety was acquiring food. This anxiety was exacerbated by the fact that the early weeks of the pandemic coincided with the time when we start to do the giant food shopping that we do every year before Passover.  I didn't know if we would be able to buy meat for Passover. I didn't know if we would be able to get all of the other things we needed for Passover. During the weeks before Passover, we ate as little as we could because we didn't know if and how we could re-fill our larders. Friends frantically messaged one another to try to source basic foods.  We all did research on who would deliver to our neighborhood, who ...