sarah in nyc

 It has been a busy week. Hanoch came up from Philadelphia to tie his titzit. Yes, he was really happy with the tallit. He had purchased really beautiful tzitzit in Jerusalem. He was really happy with the result. I am still working on the atara and will ship the tallit as soon as it is completed and stitched in place and I have trimmed all of the loose threads from the tallit. We celebrated my sister's birthday. And tonight I made Shabbat dinner. I soaked dried limes in boiling water and then broke the hard shells before stuffing them into whole chickens. The dried limes pack a flavor punch. I know this doesn't look terribly pretty but it should taste wonderful. I didn't take a photo of the roasted vegetables or the semolina that I made.  But I did make two pies. I made a blackberry pie that is topped with an almond milk custard that has been flavored with rum. There is a little drizzle of pomegranate molasses to cover the less than beautiful color of the custard. I also ma...

  As of Sunday evening, the calligraphed and painted stripes all were properly edged. I am loving the mix of colors. I hope that Hanoch does as well. One of the painted stripes will not have text. I started adding the stitched and ribbon stripes to the tallit.  I am really pleased with the ribbons that I embroidered. And now...the end of than era. My former across the hall neighbors and our family were pretty close during the years they lived across the hall. Our collective children wandered back and forth across the hall between the two apartments. We all had many adventures and meals together. Michael and Andrea (our dear neighbors) had a car and shopped at Costco years before Costco opened a store across town. At one point Andrea bought a whole lot of boxes of Crystal Light in lemonade flavor.  Andrea became allergic to Crystal Light. So, twenty three years ago Andrea gave us more than 25 boxes of Crystal Light. We stashed those boxes all over the apartment. There were...

 Sorry folks, lots of topics to be covered in this post. I hope that I can keep it all coherent. If it isn't  coherent I'm sorry. Today is my mother's 11th Yahrzeit. This is my favorite photo of my mother. I found it in her college-era wallet after she died. My mother is leaning against her dear friend Devorah  who I cropped so I could just focus on my mother's face. I don't know of another photo where my mother looks so completely at ease and joyful. I remember the camelhair coat from my earliest childhood. I am posting more photos of snow for the benefit of my relatives and friends in Israel or in other warm weather places. I love the snow on the fire escapes. Luckily the fire escapes weren't needed while the snow was deep on the metalwork.   I loved seeing how deep the snow was on the tree branches. During the worst of the storm people were walking in the middle of Broadway. By the next day that was no longer possible. I just noticed that traffic is travellin...

 Yesterday, the tallit that I was mending got picked up. All of the bits that get touched in normal wear  just got worn out. I backed the edges near the atara with silk chiffon and just stitched and stitched away with silk thread. One sees this kind of work on really old garments from the early 20th century. The fabric was just too fragile to stitch by machine. hopefully I have strengthened the material enough so the tallit can be cleaned and then worn  for the big family event coming up in a couple of weeks. Yesterday  we went on a little adventure to  Little Island . It is an island constructed on a series of plant like cement pods on stems planted into the Hudson River. from outside of the island it looks like a completely artificial man made folly. While on the island it feels like a series of sloping bits of wildlife. It's both very beautiful and really silly. There is an amphitheater space within Little island and some dancers were rehearsing. While we wat...