sarah in nyc

 I have been working away on Benjy's Torah mantle. Creating this mantle has been all about managing an array of small tasks, some that are at first kind of terrifying. There are enough different tasks to do that I can shift away from terrifying and work on another bit of the job that I can manage at that moment. It had taken ( as I described in my last post) many phone calls to get the wooden form for the top of the mantle. Some of the mantle tops that I have used in my previous Torah mantles were ordered from J. Levine, the Judaica supply store that sadly no longer exists. I had had two made at a local lumber yard.  The former superintendent of our synagogue was a woodworker (and photographer, practitioner of origami, and a not bad calligrapher). I had commissioned him to make two mantle tops for me. John used 3/4 inch plywood because he wanted the mantle to be strong. That was actually a bit too sturdy for the usage but I was deeply touched by the love that he put into the t...

 My dear cousin and her family used to refer to an administrator who worked at the school I attended as the ברז, the faucet because he was so quick to cry. I didn't actually cry a whole lot this week but there have been many moments that certainly made ברז moments possible. Monday evening our older son left for Israel. He will be there for at least a year and a half for work. During his other long stays in Israel, he was either a kid in a program where he didn't have to make too many big decisions or he was in the Israeli army where most big decisions were made by others. This time our son is going as an adult. A few months ago I asked my son if he wanted to turn to my friend Ronna to serve as his Israel Mom. Someone to give comfort when needed, someone to ask when he would need to tackle Israeli bureaucracy or occasionally provide a meal. A different kind of a young man would have told his mother to butt out. Our son got in touch with Ronna. Ronna grew up in my father's ...

 This was my lunch today. It is a slice of home-baked wheatgerm bread topped with sliced tomato, herbs de Provence, and shredded cheese.  Two months ago if I had made this lunch for myself I would have sent this photo to my friend Miriam.  This photo would trigger memories of  English muffin pizza made with an English muffin, a slice of American or muenster cheese, a bit of ketchup, and if we were feeling extra fancy a sprinkle of oregano. That simple lunch of our childhood was at the same time the height of mid-century ultra-processed fake food and actually kind of delicious. Those toaster-oven made lunches of our childhood also were the E-Z Bake Oven seeds of both of us becoming serious cooks. Sending Miriam this photo would have sparked a discussion and unleashed a waterfall of memories between the two of us. Perhaps we might have shared a recipe or two, memories of our mothers, or pushed one another to re-try one of our other childhood favorites. Miriam is no lon...

 People try new recipes for all sorts of reasons, wanting to impress a beloved or wanting to get through all of the recipes in a cookbook. Tonight's dinner, is a chicken stew with limoo ( dried limes). Earlier this week my husband and I watched a documentary called  Most Likely to Succeed  about a handful of high school students that were voted most likely to succeed and the film followed their lives for ten years. One of the young women in the movie ended up in Dubai near the ned of the movie. She visits a shuk and picks up a package of limoo, dried limes. She asks the shopkeeper what one does with limoo and he suggests that it is excellent in a chicken stew. We actually own a large bag of limoo. We bought it after an adventure in Brooklyn during the height of the pandemic. That first pandemic summer our youngest was still living at home. The isolation was making him depressed and anxious. Depressed and anxious was the new normal during those months anyway. On a hot afte...