sarah in nyc

 When I put this tallit up on my dressmakers form to take photos for you today  I recalled our trip home to Quincy from my grandfather's Shiva. I sat next to my grandmother in the back seat of our Studebaker.   I took my grandmother's hand  I smoothed and resmoothed the wrinkles on my grieving grandmother's hand. Each worn spot on this tallit  is a mark of either Hilary or her long dead great grandfather using this tallit. I find every mend, each and every wear spot to be deeply moving. Below are some of the materials for a new tallit that I will be starting after Shabbat.  I purchased these supplies in the garment district. I selected the Petersham that I purchased from among ALL of these rolls of ribbon. I also noticed to new to me architectural details in the garment district. The first is from 38th Street. I wish I knew which business was represented by the N and the apples. This doorway is on Seventh Avenue.  Today is Friday and I made chicken. Th...

 There are some pieces that I make and then I never see again.  Hilary's tallit  is a piece that I suspect that I will have a long relationship with. Hilary came to me after she had experienced a series of deaths in her family.  The tallit that I made for Hilary is made out of  her late father in law's white silk opera scarf, a red silk scarf that Hilary had given to her mother before she had died and part of the tallit that had belonged to her great grandfather. This tallit was part of Hilary's emerging from the land of sickness and death and carrying the memory of people she loved with her. The silk tallit was fragile. When I made the tallit we discussed that it may very well disintegrate. In 2018, I encased the most damaged bits in tulle. I used a combination of hand and machine mending to do my best to keep the tallit intact. A few weeks ago Hilary got in touch with me. Some of the fringe was torn off by a chair. The damage looked drastic.  Once the tal...

 Last week's post about making Uzbeki bread was read with great interest by my friend Alan, the serious cook. Alan sat me down after services to ask me many questions about technique. Inspired by Alan's granular interest I made another batch of the baked- in -the- pot bread. This time I was successful.  I don't think that the exact ingredients matter a whole lot in this case. This type of bread baking is all about technique. Uzbeki cooked in a pot bread 2 C water 1 tsp yeast 1 tsp brown sugar Combine in a bowl and let sit until the yeast begins to bloom then mix 2C of flour with a tsp of salt Add flour and salt to the yeasty water and mix with a spatula. Keep adding flour as needed. Add a glug of oil. When the mixture gets too thick to mix comfortably with the spatula begin mixing and kneading with your hand. Yes, you can do all of your mixing in the bowl When the dough has become smooth cover with a towel and set aside for an hour or so. After the hour knead again and divi...

 I work out every day. Those of you who know me from childhood know that the household I grew up in was the opposite of athletic. This is also the opposite of a Thai family mentioned in today's Wall Street Journal that had such high athletic hopes for their children that they named them, Bowling, Baseball and Tennis. Tennis just won a gold medal in taekwondo. My family's expectations was that I do well in school and athletics was something of no great interest. Anyway, despite my upbringing I work out daily for about ninety minutes. I watch TV to stay on task. Often i watch videos on YouTube. The other day this video about making Uzbeki bread showed in on my feed. Of course I don't know Russian or Uzbeki but the idea of baking the bread on the underside of a pot lid with the pot serving as the oven seemed like a great thing to try. Besides, we love the Uzbeki bread we are served in Uzbeki restaurants. It was hot and muggy and we needed bread. I liked the idea of only having...

 This tallit had some drama because the colors Judith and I had ordered looked completely different in person than they did on my monitor. What had looked lovely on screen looked just plain terrible in real life. I had realized that if I block printed over the colors that hated one another I could have all of the colors get along. I had some other questions/worries but Judith reassured me and told me that she completely trusted me. I was grateful for that trust that because I was no longer paralyzed with worry and I could just work problem solving as I saw fit. I have been working on this tallit for the past couple of months but I haven't been posting about it a whole lot.  I also dyed some strips of raw silk to work with the three colors that weren't getting along. I hand embroidered the atara and edged it with two rows of gold braid over forest green petersham ribbon. The pinot/corner pieces are made of more of the seafoam green silk that I had block printed and edged with t...