Five topics, one post

This will be a post with a few different topics. Just preparing those who don't live inside my brain and might find it disturbing.

Topic 1

A few photos that may be categorized under nature, or what passes for nature in Manhattan.

It snowed a couple of times this week.

This week is also the 47th anniversary of the Great Blizzard of '78.

This, my friends is barely a snow. Actually this is two different not quite snowfalls.

Not enough for sledding or snow forts and even putting together a snowball is a whole lot of effort.

Nevertheless a snow, even a piddly one gives me joy.

We have had some bone chilling days and some lovely days this week. It took me until recently to understand that you can see the buds, or what will be buds once the weather warms up, starting to appear even during the darkest days of winter. Nice to have that teeny bit of hope midwinter.

I loved this bit of moody twilight from my window

This could be a book jacket on a book of sad poetry.

I loved the pigeons hanging out on the pet warehouse awning.

And speaking of birds.....

I am so happy that I got this shot.

Topic 2

I completed the atara for Miles' tallit last night.

I created the letters by stitching down a gold metallic cord to fill in each letter. That technique is called couching.I don't know the connection between the couch that we sit on and this decorative technique but that's what this is called.

I have used couching to outline letters before but never to completely form lettering.

My husband will point out that this was time consuming. It was, but the work itself was pleasant and not stressful.

I finished the back and edges and then trimmed with some striped metallic ribbon.

yes i did choose to add a bit more subtle shimmer with some pale blue and silver rayon thread also couched onto the surface. It is subtle and you probably won't get thee effect of the shimmer from these photos but the atara will gleam when worn.

There is more work that needs to be done but I can see the finish line from where I am now.

Topic 3

This has been my breakfast most days during the past few months.

It is frozen raw cranberries, a small clementine, a handful of almonds and some chia seeds ground together using my stick blender. I don't know if this is anyone else idea of of lovely breakfast but it is mine. I am nearly at the end of the many pounds of cranberries I bought after Thanksgiving and stuck away in my freezer. i will either have to buy ready frozen cranberries or vary my breakfast a bit. The spoon had been my grandmothers.

Topic 4

Someone I love is getting this scarf as a gift. I stencilled the motifs onto navy silk noil first with red acrylic paint and then with gold to emulate the look of gold-leafing. The scarf is self lined.

Topic 5

Shabbat dinner this week comes from the recesses of our freezer with the exception of a kale and orange salad that I still have to make.

Shabbat Shalom to all of us, and especially to the hostages being freed tomorrow.

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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