Small accomplishments

There are a few small accomplishments that I have done in the last couple of days.

I had purchased this fabric a couple of weeks ago. it was incredibly inexpensive. It appealed to me because it looks like patchwork made on a serger--I know a completely sewing geekly sort of an appeal. At some point during warm weather I end up realizing that a few of my summer dresses have just died---and this year some of my summer dresses are still in my son's apartment in Ashkelon.

I ended up making this dress...a simple sheath with a couple of godets. Godets are the sewing term for extra fabric added to a seam to create volume.

This is the dress. It feels like something that a mom would have worn during my childhood. The fabric is an activewear knit. Possibly one of my readers owns leggins or a bathing suit in this knit which is surprisingly cool.

The stylus of my phone broke off inside my phone. I figured out how to remove it and installed a new stylus which I had purchased when I thought I had lost my stylus. This makes me look ;ike a person who actually plans ahead.

I am not a particular organized human being. Earlier today I found a contract that a very organized person was looking for. It was in my email archives...because I was too lazy to go through all of my emails carefully read them and sort through them.

We were away until 5:00pm today.

I started cooking Shabbat dinner as soon as I walked in the door. We are eating chicken stuffed with limoo (dried Persian limes).

I cheated with this photo. The chickens are not quite done but I made them look a bit more done with color enhancement. They will be done by the time we eat.

Tonight's vegetables will be the contents of this pan ---but roasted in the same 400 degree oven as the chicjens.

I may still be able to make a carb. Fresh cherries are our dessert.

Shabbat Shalom!

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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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