monday night dinner

i walked to union square today for prune plums and then stopped at hudson and charles, the butcher, for ground beef for hamburgers for tonight's dinner.

high holiday tour

 

korrina, josh and i met at the tenement museum today for a special tour of the lavine and rogarshevsky apartments to see how they may have cleaned and decorated for the jewish high holidays.

we first stopped at an empty apartment to see the different wallpaper and paint layers of the many prior occupants and also to talk about a few artifacts that were found.

above is a copy of a synagogue ticket which would have been purchased for entrance to the service for the holiday. there were several synagogues in the neighborhood, but many temporary ones would have popped up especially for the high holiday season.

the lavine family lived in the building around the 1890's and the rogarshevsky family around 1910.

challah bread ready for baking . . 

laundry drying . . 

the rogarshevsky kitchen which included a bed (they had a big family with six children).

the red towel indicating the dishes used for meat . . 

and the blue towel for dairy.

hinde amhanitski's 1901 yiddish cookbook, a manual for cooking and baking.

the table set with apples, bread, prayer book, sugar and candlesticks, and holiday cards along the mantel.

it seems that mailing holiday cards was so popular that the post office was inundated and requested that they not send so many. (these two photos by korrina.)

hester and orchard streets . . 

and how it looked in 1898 when the pushcarts vendors would sell nuts, clothing, toys, books and many other goods.

the department store of edward ridley stood at grand and orchard and would have been another place for the neighborhood residents to shop.

the same building today . . 

culinary historian and author sarah lohman explaining her process of translating one of hinde amhanitski's recipes for baking today.

she chose a lemon cake made with citron. the batter was a mix of flour, milk, eggs and butter, half of which she spread on a baking sheet, sprinkled with citron, and then layered with the remainder.

i think everyone especially enjoyed this part.

looking through an old cookbook of the time period . .

 

prune sauce with orange rind, cinnamon and a little orange juice . . 

it was a very fun tour and korrina and i also enjoyed talking with the food historian afterwards.

when i got back home, chanda and greg informed me that i had missed all the excitement as the cats had managed to catch a bird sitting on the window ledge. the window hadn't been open very far but they were able to grab a mourning dove through the screen and drag it into the room! it was all over by the time greg discovered the poor dead bird in a corner by his side of the bed. i was glad to miss the whole fiasco.

rainy day

greg and i were going to walk to a photography exhibit today but it was so rainy that we came home after visiting hungry lama for coffee. i ended up falling asleep while reading my book . . i guess i was tired.

even though i fell asleep over it this afternoon . . my book is really good: alexandria by islam issa. (next to it is the cafe's delicious whipped honey latte.)

yogurt with their homemade granola and apple butter. they've become a favorite spot of ours.

a dance performance and a movie showing

i attended two thirty minute performances of the ailey company at the whitney today. the first performance was the studio company dancing harmonic edge and the second show was an excerpt of several ailey works performed by the company itself. both performances were beautiful and uplifting. it was special to see the differences between the younger studio company performers and the older professional performers who embraced more fluidity and sureness. all were amazing and i walked home feeling like i existed on a different plane.

in the evening i met greg at the library for a screening of tennessee williams's night of the iguana, directed by john huston and starring richard burton, ava gardner and deborah kerr. i had never seen the film before and it was very good.

richard burton's character, shannon, all tied up in a hammock by maxine (ava gardner).

and then with hannah, deborah kerr.

walking home . . 

i sent this to morgan today as the 89% humidity was much better than yesterday's 97% . . 

and received this in return . . they're visiting the lake district . . it's so beautiful.

meeting friends and stopping at the yarn store

 
i met sasha and reina this afternoon at cafe himalaya and afterwards reina and i stopped at downtown yarns . . i needed size 4 knitting needles.

the manos del uruguay yarn . . 

a little hidden yarn creature . . 

i then stopped at whole foods for some groceries and as i was walking home, deychen texted saying she had too many bagels from murray's too good to go offer and would i please take a few (they had give her a whole dozen!).

so i met her at the jefferson market garden . . (you can see her in red through the branches, reading her book).

it was a warm and steamy day . . summer humidity isn't through with us yet.

at rockmeisha and a brass band

 
i met greg after helping ellen today and we walked to rockmeisha, a ramen shop that used to be on barrow street but then closed during covid. korrina was riding the bus home one day when she noticed that it had reopened on 14th street. 

greg in the restaurant with the owner/chef in the background on the right.

the delicious brussel sprouts with miso. we also had the fried chicken with tartar sauce and . .

fried oysters, which was the special for the evening. it's so nice to see a well loved place reopen.

walking home we passed a brass band  . . 

a climate week event

i met chanda on the high line for a climate science fair. it's climate week and the high line was hosting the emerson collective. there will be events at the smithsonian museum of the american indian, governor's island, the united nations and quite a number of other places this week.

we sat in on a hydroponic workshop which i really enjoyed . . the little basil plants were encased in wet mineral fiber. the woman called it rock wool. i had never heard of it and while looking it up online i found a website arguing that it's better to use coco peat, made from coconut husks. you can read about it here. interesting!

the group sponsoring this event was ny sun works, a non-profit organization bringing hydroponics into classrooms (kindergarten through twelfth grade), which i think is a fun idea. we first added clay balls into our cup, then placed a nutrient pellet, then a large paper tea bag to hold the plant encased in the rock wool.

we took our plants home to add the water. the woman's plant looks very healthy . . i just hope our cats give our plants a chance to grow and don't start batting them around or try to eat them.

we met with harlem grown, an urban farm initiative in harlem. they have three farms uptown and i just put the two books they had out on their table on hold at my library.

fresh grapefruit juice (and they had composting containers to discard the skins).

we also talked with the hudson river park representatives about the tide pool and oyster bed projects.

so far the plants have been left alone. cricket sniffed them on the counter and then walked away. he tried prodding one with his paw when i placed them on the sill . . but i shooed him off . . we'll see how it goes!