sarah in nyc

of sorts. Amazon.com Widgets Driving out of Austin towards Houston we began passing punny signs directing us to stop at Buc-ees. We missed the first Buc-ees east of Austin but by the time we got to Katy, just west of Houston we could no longer resist and we pulled off the road to see what Buc-ees was. It is a convenience store on steroids. Actually, steroids are not quite a strong enough drug to express the wonder of Buc-ees. They are famous for their spotlessly clean bathrooms and for good reason. Buc-ees sells their own branded snack food. They also make their own fudge in about thirty different flavors. We did not partake of the fudge but the nice man manning the nut candying pots insisted that we taste not only candied almonds but also the cashews and peanuts. Yes, they were delicious. Buc-ees makes an extensive line of various flavors of beef jerky which we admired but did not taste. This is a photo of some but not all of the pickled food...

We got back from Texas late last night. Air travel, as most of you know, is just kind of unpleasant. In the 1970's and 80's, I did lots of travel by bus. Plane travel these days isn't as smelly as bus travel in the old days but is equally as aggravating as old-timey bus travel. Amazon.com Widgets The being in Texas though was really wonderful. My husband and I had time for just the two of us and also time with dear relatives who we have not seen in many years. I think I will need to divide this Texas trip up into a few posts. The first one will be about the sky. Our trip began and ended in Austin but we spent a few days in the middle with cousins in Houston.  During our days here in New York, we experience the sky in little slivers. You need to make an effort to look up and experience sky. Driving along the highway we experienced the sky as a big dome. Both my husband and I were entranced by the cloud formations. My husband pulled back so I could take this...

I hadn't counted on spectacular weather when we booked our trip.   We spent a chunk of our day at the Texas State House. It is a great building put up with lots of thought to detail.  7 Amazon.com Widgets

I can't say that I know a whole lot of stars in Hollywood, although Claire Danes was one of my kids when I ran an afterschool program in the West Village in the early 1980's. I can say with confidence that lots of the stars of the much smaller Jewish intellectual world are people that are part of my circle. If your synagogue invited someone to be a scholar in residence in the past few years, there is a better than even chance that it is someone I know. Amazon.com Widgets One of those stars, Rabbi Neil Gillman died this Friday. Rabbi Gillman taught one of my sisters and many of my friends. At his funeral yesterday, so many of his eulogists spoke about Rabbi Gillman's genius at asking the right question. I was the beneficiary of one of those Rabbi Gillman questions. Many years ago at one of the first couple of craft shows when  I showed my work Rabbi Gillman began looking carefully at my challah covers and matza covers. After several minutes he...

My daughter commented that the turkey my son made looked like it came out of a supermarket circular.  It was truly delicious. Cutting our pies into small and tiny servings was a good idea. By the time dessert was served none of us wanted very much anyway.   The turkey carcass has been transformed into tonight's soup. I made a new batch of challah but the rest of the meal will be made up of the left-overs filling our fridge. The meal made me feel all warm and fuzzy about our family and our home. The living room was empty at the end of the evening but filled earlier in the day. This morning we all woke up late. Clearly, the apple pie cocktail my future son in law mixed up was stronger than any of us had realized. It did go down easily though. The sun shone brightly on the trees in the median strip on Broadway. My son got ready for a bike ride with the rest of the guys in the family. My son's way with clothes always delights ...