sarah in nyc

 Sunday we did part one of Thanksgiving shopping with our dear friend Charley. We made the trek to Bingo (the frum answer to Costco) in Monsey. Their Brooklyn store is ten miles closer but the travel time to Monsey  is less and the trip is less irritating because of Brooklyn traffic. We are doing Thanksgiving with Charley. One constant on his Thanksgiving table is brisket. My job is to cook the brisket. Last year, the brisket came from a fancy local kosher butcher. I almost fainted when I saw the price on the meat. Charley joined us for Passover and had brisket I had sourced at Bingo. Despite it not being polite to share the cost of the food with your dinner guests I did share the cost of the brisket with our dear friend. He suggested that we make the trek to Bingo. There are many wonderful things to buy at Bingo. The produce is beautiful, really beautiful. I didn't take photos of the produce. I was distracted by OTHER things. I was distracted by the green marshmallows. I love...

 I know that it has been a while since I posted. We went to Boston last weekend to celebrate the bar mitzvah of a family friend. I may post about the weekend in a different post. Two disparate topics in one post is all I can manage today.  Yesterday was a busy day and filled with big emotions. We began the day at the funeral  of a young man who was a Hebrew School classmate of my older son's. I had such fond, fond memories of the sweet, funny, kind and exceptionally bright young man who also had terrible struggles. I kept remembering the young man both  as a delightful child full of promise and the suffering that he and his family have been through for the past many years. I sat with two women whose children attended preschool with the young man. We three held one another in our sorrow. Yesterday was also my husband's birthday. My husband is not someone who wants things.  When we were  at Bingo---the kosher version of Costco I spotted a large package of ste...

This has been a week full of worry. A dear college friend had brain surgery. Another dear friend lost her father and yet another friend has had to put her mother into hospice care. My reaction to all of this worry was kind of primitive. .I have been doing lots of cooking for my family and for others and doing all of it with a great deal of intent and good wishes for my friends. I baked bread for a family who is going through a medical crisis. I promise the breads looked much better after being baked. I neglected to take photos post baking.  Home baked bread is not a cure for cancer but it does taste good. I delivered the bread and it was cold and grey and rainy. Despite the gloom, I could see the swelling buds on the trees on my walk home. At some point, it will be spring. I know the internet is full of people posting pretty photos of their plates of food. I nearly always serve family-style. I prefer to let people decide how much of each dish they want...

My neighbor had dropped off her etrog the other night. We had one of our own. Sometimes, after Sukkot I make marmalade inspired by my friend Miriam's mom Rachelle, a truly impressive cook and an old buddy of my mother's. I only had two etrogim, but I did have a gallon sized bag in the freezer that has been filling up with orange peels. My brain is still not quite up to par. I did have enough brain power to cut up a pile of citrus rinds.As I cut up the peels I thought of the many jars of Dundee Marmalade that got consumed in my childhood home. I thought about how all of those jars boasted that the marmalade inside was hand-cut. It's important to boil off the bitter oils that live inside the citrus peels ( and especially in the etrogim). Rachelle's recipe involves many days of soaking in water and changing that water. I use a method I have seen in other cookbooks of repeatedly boiling the peels for a while, dumping the water and then repeating the boiling of the orang...

Thursday I received an email from my synagogue informing the community that  a friend had died, completely unexpectedly. Our friend was fit and strong a nice, nice man who has been a central part of my synagogue community. Amazon.com Widgets Our synagogue provides meals for mourners. In some synagogues that means a one size fits all deli tray is delivered to the Shiva house. My synagogue enlists members to provide meals. If you home is kosher you cook, if your home isn't kosher you either purchase the food at one of the local kosher markets or cook at the home of a friend who keeps kosher. I had volunteered to make a lasagna. I bought the cheeses on the way home from my friend's funeral. I got home and made the pasta for the lasagna.  As I rolled out the noodles I thought about my friend. My friend was a psychotherapist. He often passed on encouraging words to me when I was in the thick of caring for little kids. I thought about how despite being a man whose work...

We are having a house full of guests staying with us starting tomorrow night, but tonight it is just family with a last minute guest who is bringing a surprise carb. Amazon.com Widgets I made another tray of last week's red chicken made with an array of red spices, hot paprika, smoked paprika sumac and lots of fresh lime juice.  I also made a load of kibbe. I don't know how other people make kibbe but tonight's version is essentially taboule  with chopped meat baked into torpedo shaped meat balls. I plan to make a techina sauce to serve with it. My youngest is home from  school and is allergic to sesame. Since I don't plan on killing him this weekend, the sauce is being served on the side. The people who are not allergic can add it to their kibbe. These days I am having a crush on the flavor of slow roasted tomatoes added to salad. So here is tonight's. The other day I bought  giant bag of limes at Costco. the limes got me thinking that a lime meri...

My cooking partner and I set our alarms for 7:00am and started out cooking adventure. Amazon.com Widgets The result is this bit of turkey porn  that I am posting for my meat eating friends married to vegetarians, you know who you are. Happy Thanksgiving to you. The briskit is cooling and waiting to be sliced.  The mashed spiced sweet potatoes and the Brussel sprouts are in the  oven's second round of cooking , now nearly done. I sent out my son to buy the can of ready made jellied cranberry sauce, and made the real stuff in the nuker. After this photo was taken this went into the nuker covered and cooked for 8 minutes. My mother was a big believer in a nice seasonal centerpiece. I went out this morning and bought the flowers and played, a bit of self indulgence  on this busy day. I am looking forward to sharing this meal with our guests.