sarah in nyc

at breakfast making good use of gift basket candy

My oldest came back from her semester in China and threw herself a welcome home party last night. She invited camp friends, high school friends and college buddies. Amid the chatter and the laughter, my job was making ice cream and washing dishes. I won't bore you with the dish washing, but I did make three batches of ice cream. We had some pomegranate ice cream left over from our Christmas Eve fondue dinner with friends. So Saturday night, I made pumpkin ice cream, chocolate ice cream and espresso ice cream. I made the pumpkin and the espresso with a mix of half and half and milk. It was teeming last night and I hadn't the energy to run out and buy more half and half for my daughter's charming friend, who begged me to make him espresso ice cream, so I made it with the 2% milk we had on hand. The espresso expanded at an alarming rate, so now we have three containers of espresso ice cream waiting to be eaten. We own an electric ice cream maker, so making ice cream is not all...

Our friend Michelle invited us for dinner. I didn't have to get up early and so didn't get out of bed until 10:00 am !!!!. I am usually out of bed by 5:40 am so I really loved the luxury of sleeping late. We have two couches in our living room. I had covered one with a mix of red upholstery fabrics. Our green couch has boxed cushions and is a bit more complicated to do nicely. I had covered two of the cushions in a reasonable manner. The third was a mess. we hare having guests spending several days next week so I too advantage of today and made a new cushion cover for the center pillow. The boxing strip fabric comes from P+S, downtown. The beautiful chenille comes from http://www.fabricguru.com/ . Clearly not an exact match, but it all works together. When I get braver I will tackle the back cushions of the couch. The hardest part was getting the cover on the cushion. It makes my hands feel old and sore. I also discovered why my serger has been wonky for all of these months. I...

I have a tallit due at the end of January. The silk for that tallit still has not arrived so I decided to begin work on a tallit that isn't due until the end of the spring. The late spring tallit is being made out of a fawn colored charmeuse. The stripes are being made out of what I call "crazy stitching". I had first seen crazy stitching in an article by the brilliant Bird Ross in an old issue of Threads magazine. In the article Bird Ross described a brilliant way to make a reversible vest. She sewed the vest and the lining together right sides out. She then covered all of the raw edges with squares of fabric set on point and folded over the raw edges. After securing all those fabric squares, she then stitched over those now triangles ( diamonds folded in half) with multicolored threads zigzagging back and forth. The vests are great. I have made several of them. But that multi colored wild stitching technique is something I have used over and over in my work, not just...

My oldest his home from China. Unlike her father and little brother, she actually enjoys eating. So, once again, cooking is actually fun. She was craving eggplant parmesan during her last weeks in China, so that was waiting for her to eat as soon as she walking in the door. She requested pomegranate meat balls for Shabbat, so I made them , with bulger wheat as the starch that holds the meat balls together. Right now I have sliced potatoes, onions mushrooms and carrots cooking in the oven bathed in the gravy from last Shabbat's chicken. It feels somehow Chanukah appropriate even though it isn't latkes. The challa is on it's second rising. I was lucky to find a bag of King Arthur flour. So my challa dough has enough gluten in it to have that muscular feel when you knead it, meaning that it will be nice and chewy when we eat it . If I can't get King Arthur flour, I add gluten to the dough. I hate cakey/doughy challa. There is a pot luck lunch at our synagogue so I made so...

I am the third daughter in my family. As a consequence, a large percentage of my clothes were "pre- worn", handed down from my sisters. For many people, handed down clothing are a source of shame or embarrassment. I never felt that way. First of all, my mother who grew up poor, took beautiful care of our clothes. Dresses that my older sisters had out grown were laundered, starched and ironed and laid out in large coat boxes. So when the dresses were taken out of the box, they looked beautiful. The boxes, marked by size were all on shelves in the basement. There were dresses that I anticipated wearing ( The deep turquoise Polly Flinders with lots of smocking and black velvet ribbons trimming the sleeves was one I remember visiting before it fit me, by peeking into the box. It had looked so pretty on my sister and I looked forward to wearing it myself. ) My sisters were born 13 months apart. In those days, it was popular to dress one's children thematically. My sisters were...

Several years ago I saw the most amazing fabric at New York Elegant Fabrics. It was raw looking varigated yarn in various thickness and wild colors embedded in a mesh background. I was in love, but it was really ( as my Southern friends say) spendy so I admired it, a lot, and left it in the store. Later that year, I was able to purchase a teeny remnant of the fabric from B+J's remnant table. I made scarves for a couple of people I really loved, there wasn't enough to make a garment. Last year, www.fabricmartfabrics.com was selling the same amazing fabric for an affordable price. I bought some. Then they put it on sale. So I bought some more. The fabric has been sitting in my stash. i was to o afraid to cut into it. Last week I decided that it was time. I wrapped the fabric around me, cut it slightly bigger than my hips, and then cut curves from waist to hips. I cut the opening for the zipper just long enough for the zipper, and inserted an industrial looking metal zip...