sarah in nyc

  For me, the foods for Rosh Hashanah are not about the novel and the creative but about recreating the memories of my childhood.  Despite my being more adventurous with the spicing than my mother ever was, ( High praise from my mother was "Mild and delicious".) both dishes struck exactly the right notes for me. I made chicken in my last minute neurotic worry that there wasn't enough food, (We will be eating tzimmes long past the Tishrei holidays and stuffed cabbage through Sukkot.) The chicken was a surprise hit of the table. It was flavored with fresh lime juice, coffee hawaij, dried lime powder and I stuffed some medjool dates into the chicken cavity. After the chicken was cooked I de-glazed the pan with lemon juice and water and poured the results over the chicken when I served it.  It's a more Middle Eastern take on the deep dark flavors of  Eastern European tzimmes and cabbage. You can buy this brand of coffee hawaij online. You can add the spice mix to coffee...

  This weekend our summer came to an end and we now turn towards the New Year. I have been practicing shofar. You can hear me on the second day of the holiday if you come to my synagogue. (I will be doing the big shofar blowing before Musaph.) Thursday I walked into my local pharmacy to ask if I could get the new COVID vaccine. I didn't need an appointment and the pharmacist suggested that I also take the second half of  the shingles vaccine and my flu shot at the same time.  I think we were both worried about the future availability of vaccines in this country. Three vaccines at one time is a whole lot for one body to absorb. Luckily I didn't have all that much to do, so I could spend my weekend doing very little except feeling crummy. So yesterday, after several days off line, so to speak, I was ready to start the rest of getting ready for the High Holidays. My husband and I did another pre-holiday adventure to Bingo, the kosher version of Costco. As soon as we parked t...

  We did go to the beautiful Brit Milah on Sunday. It was a short visit filled with many big emotions. The drive home was made an extra two hours long because of terrible traffic. However, I got to see lots of good foliage on the way home. Yesterday I got several hours of good work done on Sarah's light tallit. One stripe is still left to sew on I still have a fair amount of work left to do but getting the job completed on time is seeming like much more of a possibility. Today though--- the news from Israel is making me feel as skittish as the pigeons that have been flitting in a flock from one side of  Broadway to the other. I had to pick up a few things to make one of the desserts for Rosh HaShanah. Most of you have heard of Abraham Joshua Heschel talking about his participating in the march on Selma as "praying with his feet". Today, as I  sliced four pounds of plums to make my version of the traditional German Rosh HaShanah tart I thought about asking my no longer liv...

 These days I am doing everything as fast as I can.  Rosh Ha Shanah starts this weekend I have been cooking, and cooking.  This graniteware turkey roaster normally spends the entire year on a high shelf in my kitchen doing nothing more than holding up two silver plate roast platters until Thanksgiving. This week the turkey roaster was used to make stuffed cabbage (not pictured but bagged and in my freezer), two gant chickens stuffed with limoo (dried limes) and last night I cooked out tzimmis overnight in the oven on low.  If you want my mother's recipe, these are the notes that I took on how to make Tzimmis during a phone call with my mother in maybe 1990. As you look at the list of ingredients...assume more for all of them except for the brown sugar. I cooked the whole thing in the oven overnight at 250.  The pan is now washed and ready to rest until Thanksgiving. I have been working away on Sarah's tallit. Over the last couple of days I have been working on t...