sarah in nyc

 I delivered the Torah mantle Wednesday afternoon. It was an emotional time both for me and for Benjy's parents. They both wondered about how I applied the beads to the surface of the mantle. They were surprised that I had hand-stitched each one into place and were delighted by the variety of beads I had used. We spent a long time together talking about many things, family, Benjiy, the meaning of the verse chosen, grief, children, and the mantle. Our conversation swooped and looped. At various moments there were tears.  I am just so happy that Benjy's parents are so pleased. I have been working at a supercharged speed since switching the house over for Passover. If you are attuned to the Jewish calendar that's seven weeks. My husband strongly suggested that I take a day off.  Yesterday, I took something of a busman's holiday. I made a small batch of napkins. A number of our napkins have been demoted to the schmatta pile over the past several months. Our everyday napkin...

This was my dinner last night. Home made kale noodles turned into my grandmother’s staple, lokshen mit kaese , noodles with cottage cheese and eggs.  Last night was the first time I had ever added greens to noodles. I added cooked kale rather than the more traditional spinach. I had kale in my freezer and not spinach. I discovered a few things while making these noodles. First of all, I discovered that my new stick blender from Costco does not work. So the kale puree is not as refined as I had hoped it would be. The failure of  my stick blender is not particularly useful information to any one out side of my household. My other discovery is actually of more universal usefulness. I realized that vegetables were probably added to noodle dough to make them easier to work.  I used semolina flour which is normally hard to work, kneading semolina flour is one of those household tasks that are better than going to a gym. You really feel that burn in your biceps as you knea...