sarah in nyc

My oldest son is leaving next week for his stint in the Israeli Army. I have been making Cholesterol death Kugel to bring for Kiddush on Shabbat, after services. So far, I have made four. I still need to make one more. But, as I keep making the kugel over and over again, I keep being struck by how well structured this recipe is. In my book, a real recipe that has been created by a real home cook is structures so that each step dovetails into the next so you can go about your business setting up each stage of the cooking, and the the next piece is ready to go just as you need it. So with the kugel, you preheat the oven with 1/2 a stick of butter in the cooking pan. then you put up the pot of noodles. Then you begin mixing the custard. Just as the oven beeps to let you know it is preheated, the butter is melted and ready to pour into the custard. As soon as that is mixed in, the noodles are ready to be drained. The nice thing about a recipe like this is that you have very little wasted...

Twenty years ago, before the age of easy access graphics on desk top printers most neighborhoods had their local print shop to help folks put out their fliers and brochures and invitations.  Now that any idiot can put together a flier with nifty graphics there are fewer local printers. Diane ( Noah's mom) asked for some help in finding a printer. The businesses I had used for previous invitations had closed their doors. I then looked through the yellow pages. There I found a familiar nae, that of a printer I had used in my days as Synagogue Program Director. I called them, to see if the invitation was the sort of job they were willing to do. They were. I set up an appointment for today. Diane and I met on the corner where the printer used to be. Diane, who unlike me, has a cellphone found their new address and we quickly got to the right place. Within a few minutes it was very clear that we were talking to someone who spoke our language, someone who understood the sort o...

Some days, it feels like have gotten nothing done. This is when having this blog comes in handy. As I think about what to post, it forces me to look back at my day and account for my day. Today I woke up before 5:30 because my youngest had to be awakened to be at school early for a class over night trip. I made him breakfast, ( with hot chocolate made with grated Callebaut chocolate and lots of vanilla) got him out the door for his trip to the country in the driving rain. I made a flyer for a building light bulb recycling project and tended to other building board work. I did a silly Bollywood dance workout video. I also made the first of five Cholesteral Death Kugel's that I'm making to serve this Shabbat after services as part of our goodbye for our oldest son. At this point, it was 9:30 am. I went to a rainy grave-side funeral in New Jersey. I also found a printer to do the print work on the invitation that I'm designing. Then I got to work on a second draft of t...

My oldest son wanted to go see the Roy Lichtenstein  drawings show at the Morgan Library. My son is leaving for Israel for his Army stint in less than two weeks. I'm not likely to say no to very much  that he might ask for these days. So if he asks to do something that I would love to do anyway, I'm delighted. Until today I had a vague fondness for Lichtenstein's work. He was among the first artists whose work I could identify as a little kid. My parents took me to several Pop Art shows when I was five or six. Later on, when I was at brandeis, their Rose Art Museum had several nice examples of his work. From the Art Institute of Chicago My son is really into comic books, which is, I assume the appeal of the show to him.  This show at the Morgan really brought out how laugh out loud Lichtenstein was. Seeing this exhibit was the equivalent of eating a small, really spicy delicious dish. It left us completely satisfied.

This is my youngest performing in Union Square . Lately, he has been performing in Times Square with his best friend on a teeny guitar. They chose to perform in front of Toys R Us because they figured that it was safer for a couple of kids, than performing in front of the peepshows. A few weeks ago, when they were performing, a policeman angrily told them to leave. They did. The next day I called 311, the city information line, and found out the rules about street performing. Street performances are allowed as long as they are not amplified. Certain other regulations come into play if you play in a park. As far as we could see, the kids were within their rights to be playing where they were. Last Sunday, they went back. The same policeman came back and threatened to arrest the kids if they should ever appear there again. The kids went to our local police precinct and asked what they ought to do. The staff there gave the boys the number of the Mid-Town South precinct. Monday...

I realize, that most Tuesday mornings, I iron. It's not a job that I particularly love. It's a job that I do. Usually, my ironing session is made up of the table cloths used the previous week. Since we are in  Jewish Holiday season, my stack of ironing included lots of men's dress shirts. Again, not a task I love, but there is a certain satisfaction in turning the crumpled into the smooth. Growing up, my mother used to say that she did her best thinking while vacuuming or ironing. Today while I was pressing the large stack of table cloths and shirts I was working on figuring out the next big piece . I was asked to create a parochet/ark curtain for the local Solomon Schechter  School. The 8th grade girls ( they are all girls in this class)donated a portion of their bat- mitzvah gift money to create a parochet for their school's new synagogue space. Last week I met with the girls twice. We looked at the texts that are said while the ark is "active", just bef...

This post is for Alan, who requested the recipe at last night's break-fast. My mother began making this kugel once she moved to Quincy in 1957. I assume that it came from one of my parents' congregants. My parents used to host elegant Saturday evening get- togethers for fellow rabbis and their wives. This kugel was often served. The kugel was so emblematic of my mother's cooking that my cousin made a pan for me to eat right after my oldest was born. She felt badly that my mother couldn't be at my side, so she made the kugel to create my mother's presence. My parents' first pulpit was in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For the 50th anniversary of the congregation,a really wonderful community cookbook was put together. I have a precious collection of community cookbooks. This Shaar Shalom cookbook is probably one of the best. It combines community history and photographs along with the recipes. I'm sure that you can order it from them. ShaarShalom@eastli...