Preparing for Rosh HaShanah

 I have a completely irrational belief that if my kids taste the flavors of the holiday foods from my childhood

then they will, by eating those foods

inherit my memories. Like I said, it is irrational. And yet, I do it every year.

My parents made these foods not to evoke their own families but to evoke the people that they loved in Halifax and that particular moment in their lives, the first years of their marriage. That Halifax evocation was so strong that my dear Halifax born friend, Shawna was able to identify whose cabbage and whose Tzimmes I serve. 

I didn't grow up with the tradition of serving a plum tart made with Italian prune plums on Rosh Ha Shanah. But my dear German and Austrian born friends who are no longer living did. Herta, and Fanni and Ida are no longer living but I bring them to our Rosh HaShanah table every year.

This tart feels like we are inviting those three women to join our table  for the New Year. My daughter has taken up the mantle of making the deep flavored honey cake made with coffee that my mother ALWAYS had in her freezer. There were always a few things that my mother always had in her freezer in case of an unexpected guest for tea. You could usually count on some of her chocolate cake topped with walnuts with the recipe from the can of Hershey's syrup, ruggelach from The Kosher Gourmet and Jen Margolis's honey cake from the K.I. cookbook. I actually don't make any of those standards of my mother's freezer but my daughter's honey cake evokes all of them.

Jess's tallit is done except for the atara.

Today, I stitched the eyelets.

I am working away on the atara.  

First I painted the letters on paper.

Then I traced the letters onto tracing paper

I flipped the tracing paper over and traced the backward lettering onto white linen.

I stitched the outline of the lettering using silk thread.

Then I fill in the letters with chain stitching using the beautiful hand dyed silk embroidery threads that I found in a Santa Barbara thrift store. 

During our conversations designing this tallit Jess brought along sketchbooks that her late mother had kept filled with lovely water colors and poems and  essays.

The color in these letters has the feel of Jess's mother's watercolors. The base, since you asked, is a midnight blue four ply silk left over from a blouse I had made for a dear friend.

The atara will take me a little while to complete. I am happy with the progress that I am making. Jess will be picking up her tallit soon and the atara will be added to the tallit when it is completed.

 It's only Tuesday. The tasks left to do before the holiday are feeling more manageable.

Just a taste of the liturgy.

Hoping that your preparation for the holiday is meaningful.