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.

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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...

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...

sarah in nyc

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