In this topsy turvy time

The weather these days keeps bopping back and forth between balmy and filled with the promise of

warmer weather and springtime,

and days like this.

that make you feel like winter will never

ever come to an end.

We delivered some things to a friend who was in the hospital across the park.

We were rewarded with bits of beauty on our way.

Later in the week, we met a friend for a balmy walk in the snowy park.

We passed this statue of Daniel Webster and remembered a beautiful walk we had taken on the grounds of his New Hampshire home with our kids many summers ago.

We left the park and wandered home. This van reminded me of my aunt's Russian neighbors in Jerusalem who called my Aunt Sophie, "Mrs. Sofa". It was just the best name.

If anyone ever called me such an excellent name you can be sure that all of my passwords would include that name.

We passed an architectural rarity, an original glass door awning. The original door is gone, replaced by a smalled less grand modern one.

The house next door has the original door and stoop but not the awning.

The garage doors were probably the basement kitchen entries.

Today is Purim. Normally we are a family that goes all out for Purim. This year we didn't feel quite so celebratory. I did however make something that feels vaguely Persian for Shabbat dinner

I cooked chicken with butternut squash, pomegranate arils, and pomegranate molasses.

I am hoping that next year we will once again feel like celebrating. This brilliant video might help.

Shabbat Shalom! and Chag Sameach!

Comments

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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