sarah in nyc

 We seem to be transitioning from Zoom dinners to having people actually eat at our table. Several of our usual Friday night gang are off enjoying the holiday weekend. Each week, I remember that our buddy Mike can't join us because he is no longer alive. Every Friday I expect his call just before dinner is to start asking me to resend the Zoom link. We won't be getting those calls anymore. Two of our usual gang are joining us in person. I am so happy. Yesterday during a long chat with a friend she mentioned that she felt that her circle of friends has shrunk during the pandemic. I completely understand what she meant. The social restrictions of the pandemic mean that the lovely encounters one usually has with your wider circle of friends are just gone. You can't visit for a few minutes at kiddush over a plate full of food and catch up with the person whose child was in Hebrew School with yours ten years ago or chat with the sweet elementary school kids who used to sit on my...

 This is the season of tomatoes, zucchini, and corn. My husband and I have been eating gazpacho and focaccia with tomatoes, and zucchini several times a week. My son has passed on the gazpacho but has been living on the focaccia.  The crust is essentially a vegetable delivery system.  We are not eating either gazpacho or focaccia for Shabbat dinner this week. We are eating meatballs that are hot, smokey and slightly sweet. Once again I grilled corn on our stove-top. The charring is the only flavor added to the corn. It's all it needs. I still feel like a genius for figuring out how to cook corn this way. Our son ate three ears last Friday night. In a month or so it will be hard to find new sweet corn, so we may as well eat it while it is in season. We had a bag of onions in the fridge. After all of the reports of salmonella in onions, I was ready to throw them out.  My husband detests onions, but my husband hates the idea of wasting anything even more than he hates o...

 I had made these mushroom and tomato focaccias yesterday. Two of us had eaten half of one of them for lunch. The big one was intact. Our older son called and said that he was in the neighborhood. My husband suggested a socially distant supper in Riverside Park. I packed up the rest of the focaccia, cut up a watermelon, and packed up dishes and silverware to take with us. Our younger son would join us when he was done with work. We started out supper in the playground where my kids and I had spent a huge amount of time when they were little. As the day turned to dusk, we were asked to leave and the gate to the playground was locked.We walked up to Riverside Drive and saw our youngest ready to join us. We continued our dinner by a bench on Riverside Drive. you can see that our older son who no longer lives with us is more than six feet away. The bugs had come out, and as usual, found my husband delicious. If you look just past the street lamp you will see a large branch downed by la...