sarah in nyc

I am writing this post not from my New York home, but rather from the business center of a hotel in Florida. We flew down today. Our flight was on Nickle and Dime Airways. It wasn't quite as skeevy as taking inter- city busses was in the 1970's but not a whole lot better. There seem not to be out and out bums flying these days. I suppose that is a plus. It means that the planes are on the whole less smelly than the busses in the old days. Nickle and Dime charges for everything...it's quite something. I know I risk sounding like a complete old fogie here, I don't expect people to necessarily to dress up for a flight. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I don't wear my pajamas out of the house. Seems to me if you are obese and elderly, wearing a tank top, skimpy shorts and no bra, maybe not such a good idea. It could be  that my style sense is skewed after spending my morning at a funeral at Temple Emmanuel. But then again, maybe not.

When one of our kids is about to go away for a while, they get to choose the menu for their last Shabbat home. Not surprisingly, my youngest chose , what we call “Caveman Shabbat”, that is, beef ribs. My youngest takes after my husband. He is one of those people who forgets to eat. He would for the most part be satisfied with a diet of mac and cheese and cereal and milk. My youngest does adore eating ribs in barbeque sauce. My two other kids really enjoy cooking. my youngest has not shown a whole lot of interest, probably because he doesn’t care a whole lot about food. I thought that it might b nice if my youngest cooked the ribs. So while I worked on Rosie’s tallit, I talked my son through the steps of preparing the ribs. So here is our Shabbat dinner, with the main dish prepared by my youngest. I’m also making a vaguely Asian salad, sliced cucumber, celery and fennel dressed with rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil, couscous and of course , challah. Yes, the ribs do smell amazin...

As I wrote earlier, this tallit is a collaboration between Rosie and me. She did the silk painting. Around the time that rosie completed her part of her tallit, her mother’s red tallit arrived.  her lovely painting looked a little simple and bleak against the expanse of white. the desert side before I understood Rosie’s panic, but I also knew that her tallit was far from finished. the dead white of the silk did make her lovely paintings look a bit bleak.  With Rosie’s permission I added a sky blue between  her two painted panels. Rosie also loved the stenciled stripes on her mom’s tallit. So I added a stenciled stripe but not on a red, but on the light blue grey.  it worked with both the lush tree side and the desert side of the tallit. We decided that we would line the tallit with the night sky. I usually paint thin layers of dye, allow them to dry and then add more layers of dye. it has been really muggy here in new york. the silk that usually dries in a few...

My youngest leaves for camp in a few days. He needed five more pairs of boxer shorts. I have deadlines for my clients.  My son mentioned how much he loves the silk boxers I had made for him. his face got all wistful as he talked about how comfortable they are. The silk for his boxers is from the Robert Talbott tie factory. Robert Talbott makes beautiful ties. A few years ago, www.fabricmartfabrics   was selling bundles of Robert Talbott silks.  I bought several bundles. My boys own several pairs of boxers made from the luxurious silks.   I made three pairs of boxers out of the silk and two out of a very soft very bright orange cotton shirting. My son was impressed with the smooth hand of the fabric.   I don’t use a pattern for the boxers, I usually copy an existing pair. This was no exception. These boxers have no side seams and a crotch gusset.

My wonderful sister in law, Beth, sent me a terrific birthday gift. It's taken a while for me to upload the photo though. She sent me a mystery bundle from www.fabricmartfabrics.com . The fabrics are going from left to right, a heavy stretch satin in dark blue, a poly suiting with a pin stripe on one side and pin dot on the other, a rayon cotton jersey print and a silk lining fabric in beige. The satin, I think, looks like it wants to be a dress to wear to a black tie event in my future.  The pin stripe is looking like a less fancy dress. The print will be a dress to wear in warm weather. There is nothing more comfortable to wear than a rayon knit. As for the beige, at first glance, I thought this is my least favorite color. But it will be perfect to line a laser cut  black  cotton fabric I had purchased last summer. The mystery bundle is one of those gifts that keeps on giving. there is that joy at opening the box and discovering what goodies are...

In 1986, when I first began working for my synagogue, one of the volunteers was a teeny little Austrian woman. Ida was so little and cute, you could swear you could just put her in your pocket and carry her around. Ida also babysat for a little girl  in our community. When I saw the two of them running around together and laughing as if they were both four, I knew that when I had kids, Ida would babysit for my kids. In order to be sure that Ida would take care of my oldest, I told her I was pregnant at the same time I told my mother. Soon after my oldest was born,  Ida was ready. She was silly, but she was also Austrian. She had her rules. She would care for a child only until they could walk. She felt that she was too old to chase children. She would work only twelve hours a week. The baby had to be fed, dressed and ready to go out when she showed up. Ida's rules made sense. It taught me, and my oldest, the value of having a schedule. Ida and ...

So, here I am in the dress and the scarf. You can also see the remains of the excellent felafel and Spanikopita on my plate.