Experiments

 

We have been at a funny moment in the move towards springtime. The sky is sunny and bright. Dusk begins later and later but it has been really really cold.

I have spent all week

and I mean, all week removing the layer of lavender cotton from the embroidered wings. All week I have been ruing my decision to mark out the design lines for the tallit stripes in this way.

I have been using a mix of tools, a big needle, a crochet hook a pair of tweezers, and now a pair of needle-nosed pliers to pick out all of the lavender sheeting.

For much of the week, the wing looked like it was attacked by a cat.

My legs have looked like this for much of the week. Knots of threads have migrated all through the apartment.

I have been thinking, as I pick pick pick out all of the sheeting about the many many folk tales where the hero or heroine has a giant task to complete. I also thought about how if I had this task to complete twenty or thirty years ago I would have gone too fast and wrecked my work.  So I calmed myself and have been working away, sometimes sitting and standing at other times slowly working my way through the task.

As I type two of the wings are looking pretty much like this.

The end of the task is reachable.

I think that the second set of wings will go more quickly. I have developed some strategies that may speed things along.

Passover is looming. I found a package of stew meat that had been hiding in our freezer.

After breakfast,
it was a stew --in formation. Several hours later it looked more like this.

 Over the past few months, I have been thinking about the origins of cooking with matza meal. I had been wondering if the use of matza meal was somehow inspired by semolina flour. 

I decided to create a little experiment and make matza balls but replacing the matza meal with semolina flour.

I set my experimental mixture into the fridge for a couple of hours just as you do with matza meal. The stew was flavored vaguely Middle Eastern with hawaij and ras-al hanout kind of by way of Eastern Europe ( there are lots of dried mushrooms in the stew). The semolina dumplings are Eastern European  by way of France with Penzey's Parisienne herbs, black pepper, and ginger. The flavors make sense to me.

I just ate a cooked semolina ball. It is heavier than a matza ball but it is really pleasant. Years ago I had tried to make matza balls with white flour. They were disgusting--like globs of library paste. The semolina balls are something I might even serve to guests.

During this past week, I have been taking care of things neglected because of Covid. I finally went to the dentist. I took three pairs of boots to the shoemaker to get tended to.

Three more pairs came home today.

I have been wearing the pair at the top of this photo for more than thirty years.  

Shabbat Shalom!