sarah in nyc

 דרך ארץ / Derekh Eretz literally means the path or way of the land but is also the term used for being polite. I want to talk a bit about the protests taking place in support of Hamas and Palestinians on college campuses. I am not going to talk about the political and historical issues. There are lots of people who are much smarter than I amand are real experts on both the history and the politics. What I do want to talk about is  דרך ארץ/D erekh Eretz. If you watch old cartoons from the 1930s there are a few things that are striking. I am not talking about the beautiful hand drawn art-work. It was completely OK for completely racist depictions of Blacks, of Jews, of Asians, of native Americans and the list should also include nearly every other national and ethnic group. In those days those depictions were just part of what was thought of as funny. When my parents were little kids they both learned racist songs and chants in the playground and in school. It's just how life ...

Every year when I get ready for Pesach, as I scrub and schlep boxes and shop and chop and cook and bake and wash endless dishes it always feels sacramental. It isn't just housework but something prayerful and holy, not all that different from the work done by the priests in the Temple as they prepared the sacrifices. I know that lots of people complain about the work involved to create Passover. It is an incredible amount of work but it is also a wonderful thing to be able to create for your circle of family and friends. It is work with meaning.    As I work away cutting vegetables, making this cake or that or mixing up yet another batch of matza balls or matza muffins, or slicing up a brisket, I recall the sedarim celebrated with my parents. I believe that these photos were taken the year of the famous disaster Seder. That was the year when one nephew threw up on one of my parents rugs. Another nephew was in charge of my youngest who was then a baby and while in his charge, m...

 Don't get too excited.  I tend to have incredibly boring dreams. Last night I dreamt that I was very tired and had a cup of strong black coffee in the afternoon despite knowing that it would make it hard for me to sleep at night. That's it. That was my dream. I was tired this afternoon  and didn't have a cup of strong black coffee. I did make a batch of matza balls for tonight's soup. Last night I made almond cookies for tonight's dessert as well as chocolate covered date and walnut balls. Both are stupid easy to make. Almond Cookies egg whites 1/4 cup sugar per egg white a dash of salt almond flour Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 315 Put egg whites in a large bowl add the salt and beat. I have a hand mixer and use that . I am sure than a stand mixer is faster. Beat until whites look like bubble bath. Add sugar bit by bit until fully incorporated and the eggwhites more closely resemble canned shaving cream. Add as much almond flour as the...

  The contents of this pot, after twop days of simmering and several hours of straining and squeezing all of the goodness out of a whole bunch of large root vegetables and 20lbs of chicken bones is now 5 1/2 gallons of beautiful soup.   Seven quarts or perhaps nine are now residing in our building's freezer in the basement. My husband moved the soup to the basement so I am not 100% sure how many are now out of my kitchen. Tow of our guests are vegetarian. I needed to make a main dish for them.  Perhpas it was memories of old vegetarian recipes from the 1940s that came bubbling up out of the musty corners of my brain but I thought that a nut loaf would be the perfect main dish. I looked at a whole bunch of recipes. many weren't suitable for Passover because they were made with lentils or rice or other beans.  Many of the recipes used lots of cheese. That probably was yummy but I couldn't serve that at a meat meal. Several of the recipes called for lots of mushrooms, o...

 The house got switched over yesterday. Please ignore the passive voice. It was not a passive activity. Three of us worked really hard. As soon as the house was switched over to Passover mode and the stove top was kashered and duly foil covered, I got the soup going. This is a 24 quart pot. It now contains 20 lbs. of chicken bones, a large celery root, lots of parsnips, a turnip a large bunch of dill and one of parsley and some spices, leek tops and lots of giant carrots. Tomorrow morning I will start straining the soup. Two dozen eggs are being brined in the fridge in anticipation of their moment of glory on our Seder plates. Using older eggs means that peeling the eggs is a much easier task.  This is two of the eight chickens that are now individually bagged and in our freezer.  Since you asked they are spiced with smoked paprika, allspice, ginger and black pepper. I squeezed fresh lemon over the chickens when they were mostly cooked. I ate a wing that fell off for part...

 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 ...

 Several weeks ago I saw a post on a Jewish Education Facebook group  I belong to. The poster  had a tallit woven by a weaver but the weaver wasn't Jewish and the tallit needed to have pinot/corner pieced and an atara/neckband. The poster said that she was looking for something that was beautiful and interesting, not run of the mill. One of my friends suggested that the poster get in touch with me. It always feels awkward to toot your own horn so I was grateful that my friend Naomi did all of the tooting for me. A few phone calls later, we were in business. This is the stripe segment of the tallit. The tallit was woven by a master weaver. If you look closely you will see that each stripe is made up of multiple colors that read as various shades of blue. The wool itself is just yummy. This tallit will be worn by Madeline a smart, smart thoughtful kid who will be having her bat mitzvah in June. We studied texts about tallit together over the phone (We were having technical ...