sarah in nyc

 Just a terrible day, for women, for men, for babies and for children in this country. My head is a swirl. I am thinking about friends who I sat with when they got pregnant when it just wasn't the right time for them to take on the responsibilities of signing on to become mothers. ( And please, spare me the lectures about just don't have sex unless you are willing to take on that burden when you and I both know that men can easily just ghost the woman or pretend that they weren't actually involved. ) I am thinking about people from my parents' generation who entered marriages that were toxic for all involved (including --and especially the children) because the woman became pregnant. Who among us hasn't been in a relationship where we realized after a few months or a few years was just not a good idea? I don't understand the rationale of chaining people together for life just because they had sex and perhaps a condom broke. When I was growing up there were a fai...

 Like most of you, my Facebook feed comes with a fair amount of clickbait garbage. The other day though, a link to  this index  of 500 Judaica objects showed up in my feed. This is a most excellent rabbit hole to search. You will have to forgive me the website locks the images so I will simply post the links. This  pierced metal tallit bag from Fez  looks remarkably like an evening bag. You can click through (using the arrow icons) to the two other tallit bags.  This bag is similar- here you see more of a connection to fancy decorative bookbinding . This set of arba-kanfot  is remarkably similar to the arba kanfot that Tanta Marcia'sgrandmother crocheted for her intended as an engagement gift.   I designed a tallit bag around the arba kanfot. The bag wears the arba kanfot. I am actually intrigued by the low-cut set shown by the Rothschild collection. It actually may be a more useful shape for women wearing arba kanfot. Flip through the  ...

 I finished Caleb's tallit earlier today. I apologize in advance for the number of photos of this tallit.  Caleb's tallit has two big themes. The first is the pillars of fire and cloud that lead B'nai Yisrael through the desert. The other big theme is the character of Caleb himself who makes an appearance in his Torah portion. Below is a back view of the tallit with the sides folded up over the shoulders. Here you see a side view of the tallit on the pillar of fire side. The frame around the corner piece ( pinah ) made up of copper metallic ribbon (fire) overlaid with black Petersham ribbon (cloud) that has been embroidered with gold metallic thread (fire). I am so happy with how the black ribbon and embroidery stripes just feel so much like a traditional woven tallit. Here you can see the front view with both the cloud and fire at the same time. Below you see some photos of the cloud side of the tallit. And now the fire side. In case you don't obsessively memorize ever...

 First a quick round-up of tonight's dinner. My husband had gone to Costco and the while usually you can get kosher chicken in a few different cuts, whole, chicken thighs, chicken bottoms, or breasts, the only offering this last visit was drum sticks.  Any of you who have spent any time hanging out here with me on this blog know that I cook often. I cook chicken most Shabbatot. I tend not to be an anxious cook. A raft of chicken drumsticks had me stumped. Adding to my anxiety is the fact that tonight's guests have never eaten at our table before so I can't even coast on the memory of past excellent meals. I worried back and forth if I should do something crispy and breaded or if I should go for chicken simmered in some sort of sauce. Part of my anxiety is that while drumsticks were my favorite chicken part when I was a young child, not particularly skilled at knives and forks--drum sticks had a handle and even my fancy mother let me just pick up the drum stick and eat it....