Two funerals and a birthday

I know that it has been a while since I posted. We went to Boston last weekend to celebrate the bar mitzvah of a family friend. I may post about the weekend in a different post. Two disparate topics in one post is all I can manage today.

Yesterday was a busy day and filled with big emotions. We began the day at the funeral of a young man who was a Hebrew School classmate of my older son's. I had such fond, fond memories of the sweet, funny, kind and exceptionally bright young man who also had terrible struggles. I kept remembering the young man both as a delightful child full of promise and the suffering that he and his family have been through for the past many years. I sat with two women whose children attended preschool with the young man. We three held one another in our sorrow.

Yesterday was also my husband's birthday. My husband is not someone who wants things. When we were at Bingo---the kosher version of Costco I spotted a large package of steak at a wonderful price. I suggested to my husband that I buy him the steak and cook it for his birthday. He was delighted by the idea.

I put the steaks in the freezer and got in touch with my husband's dear buddy who lives in Philadelphia. I invited our friend to join us for the birthday dinner. I told our friend that his making the trip would be the best gift for my husband. Our friend traveled two hours each way to celebrate with my husband.

My husband will often joke that I am terrible at keeping secrets. Actually, if I am told something in confidence I will not spill the beans. My husband not knowing that a special guest was showing up, invited our sons to the steak birthday dinner. I wasn't sure if I had enough steak to feed the potentially expanded invitation list so after the funeral I stopped off at the kosher butcher and bought some ground lamb and a package of pastrami. As soon as I got home I got to work.

I made spiced roasted potato wedges. I baked the pastrami. That is nearly no work but it does make the pastrami extra delicious and crispy.

I also baked mushrooms in olive oil and champagne (we had part of a bottle in the fridge)

I made lamb kibbe. I didn't have ras al hanout. I decided that if you combined the very New Englandy Bell's Seasoning and Fiery Jamaican curry together they might add up to something vaguely Middle eastern. I also added some chopped dates to the mixture. My spice calculous was correct.

I didn't take photos of the steak, the bread I had baked or the salad.

I did however, take photos both before and after a dusting with confectioner's sugar of the chocolate almond cake that I made---topped with my husband's favorite black berries.

There is a tapioca thickened berry glaze holding the berries in place

This was the gift that gave my husband joy---to eat a meal especially made for him with people that he loves. There will be other parts to his celebration ---a festival of celebration that we have dubbed Pop-fest.

This morning we returned to the funeral home to attend the funeral of the 97 year old mother of a long time friend. Our friend's mother lived a long and full life. The funeral was a gathering of people who have been part of my life since I moved to New York. We have mourned and celebrated together more times than I can count.

It has been poignant to bracket a birthday with two funerals.

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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