sarah in nyc

 Ok, it wasn't just that I had two funerals and two Shivas in one week. Such things happen. There are weeks when our community is hit with a sad crop of deaths. The really sad part for me, was that our local funeral home pictured above, with the lovely staff and the sainted doorman had to hire an armed security guard to protect us all while we were attending the funeral of an eighty eight year old man who was paralyzed for the last several years. This isn't about us. This is about the people who hate us. Truly sad.

 Every year I begin Passover prep and it is the end of winter. The last couple of days have been unseasonably hot and muggy. Today, my corner of the world is abloom. The day after Thanksgiving  a few of my neighbors and I planted bulbs in front of our building. It was a miserably cold and grey day.  A few days ago I was worried that we would have a sad showing for our efforts. I was wrong. It's just a party out there in the tree pits. Our cold work in November has rewarded us. Spring bulbs just feel like a magic trick. Shabbat Shalom! Hoping that it is indeed a Shabbat of peace.

 Friday, what I really wanted to do was sleep all day after putting all the Passover STUFF away with my husband and kids Thursday night. Instead of napping or having a spa day, I was baking challah. Forgive me, there are no photos. Monday, I made our first Post-Passover weekday loaf. For those of you who care, I ground up some barley and added it to the dough. The crust was delightfully shattery. My husband asked me if I knew why the crust was so good. It may have been a long second rise.  Yesterday I needed to eat lunch. I cut a slice of bread, and topped it with sliced tomatoes Herbes de Provence and lots of black pepper and topped the whole thing with lots of shredded mozzarella cheese. I popped the whole thing in the nuker, and then that was my lunch. It was delicious. If my friend Miriam were still alive I would have sent her the photo and we would have reminisced about the English muffin pizzas we both ate and made hundreds of times during our youth. If you didn't grow u...

My dear friend, Arlene Eisenberg, (Yes, THE Arlene Eisenberg of What to Expect When You Are Expecting  ) grew up in a home that wasn't religious. One year while she was growing up she demanded that her family not just eat a Passover meal but also read the Haggadah. Arlene had never attended a real Seder so she and her family just read the entire book aloud before they ate. She didn't notice the "eat here ", note in her Haggadah. Seder was designed to be a multi sensory experience. Arlene's first dry rereading of the Haggadah isn't how it is actually experienced. The story is told in so many layered ways. Our family uses the Haggadah above that was produced for Jewish soldiers serving in the American armed forces during WWII. There are pages that are stained. Some of the pages have loosened from the staples. Some of the copies have my father's hand written notes of  ideas and sources that he wanted to share during a Seder long ago. In addition to the Exodus...