And now onto the Passover prep portion of our programming....

Some of my lovely readers have been asking me how the kiddush went on Shabbat. The little lunch for 150 or so that my friend Sara and I cooked was lovely. Several people commented on our excellent choice of caterer only to find out that we had made all of it (with the exception of the challah rolls).

I also want to shout out to the excellent maintenance staff of our synagogue. They are a crew of burly macho men who can set out a platter of food for a crowd in a truly elegant way. The sides of salmon were placed diagonally on square white platters and were lovingly decorated with slices of cucumber, lemon wedges and sprigs of dill. Each dish was thoughtfully presented. Even my exacting mother would have been impressed. My mother taught me that even unappetizing food is improved if presented nicely but delicious food is raised to even better heights with nice presentation. The men outdid themselves.

Right after Shabbat ended I began cleaning my kitchen. Sunday my daughter joined me to help me do the big Passover switch-eroo. It was just the two of us working away and we got the job done in something like three hours.

The Passover meat dishes are all put away in their proper places, and so is everything else.

Yes, you are noticing a bit of crazing in the center of our big roast platter but given that these dishes were made in the 1920s, that is to be expected.

My first task after switching over the house was to start the soup. I went to buy root vegetables in the local market.

I hadn't planned on putting leek in our soup but after finding such a gigantic and gorgeous leek I knew that it had to be added to the soup. I could have defended myself against a potential mugger by wielding the leek. But luckily my neighborhood is much safer than it was forty years ago and there was no need to defend my self against a potential attacker. The leek was

cut and well washed before being added to my soup. In addition to the onions, carrots, celery root turnip and parsnips there are just over 18 lbs. of chicken bones in my pot.

The soup is still simmering away. Tomorrow is soup straining day. Wish me strength.

Today my downstairs neighbor brought me to a new Mecca of kosher shopping, Bingo, a Glatt Kosher sort of Costco.

The Bingo building also housed a Polish and Slavic bank and a health center.

The store is huge. The produce is gorgeous and well priced. The fish was priced comparably to Costco. I bought three first-cut brisket for 6.99(!) per pound.

This is just one of them, I didn't think to take photos until after I had sliced up two of them.

To bags of sliced brisket are now awaiting their star turn on the first night of Passover in the freezer.

In addition to the sorts of things one expects to find in a kosher market, like meat and produce and dairy Bingo also sells toys for kids.

I didn't take photos of the matza covers available for sale or the plastic wine cups made to look like

silver ones.

The prices are so good that locals who are not necessarily Jewish shop there as well.

I couldn't find EVERYTHING I needed for the holiday, but I did get most of what I needed and I wasn't horrified by the total of my bill.

Our beet eggs are now marinating away in preparation for Seder.

I loved spending the day with my friend. I loved wandering the streets of Boro Park with her. it is such a joy to walk in a neighborhood willed with locally owned stores.

My cooking and food shopping are done for the day.

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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