Leora

Help Select Rice Salad Photo

I have a rice salad recipe that I am planning to post. I created two versions of the photo of the rice salad. Which rice salad photo do you prefer? (top or bottom)

Thank you!

Magnolia, Cherry Blossoms of Spring

This post is all spring blossoms. Enjoy these magnolia buds.

If you walk down North Eighth Avenue in Highland Park, you can see trees in bloom – magnolia trees.

Cherry blossoms are also beautiful.

I love seeing magnolia flowers on the ground with dandelions. The blossoms don’t last – maybe you can see them for two weeks each spring?

Periwinkle with dandelions – this is a different version of the photo I posted yesterday. That post had reflections on recent events; today, I just want to relax among spring blossoms.

What blossoms of spring appear in your neighborhood?

Notes on Lecture with Dandelion and Periwinkle

I have hopes to write a Nature Notes post this week and maybe a recipe for rice salad. If not, they will show up next week. Meanwhile, a few notes of interest:

• I had the opportunity to attend a lecture at Rutgers by Professor Maud Mandel on
  Muslims and Jews in France: Genealogy of a Conflict. In a tiny nutshell, her premise was to “question past monocausal explanations” (I believe she meant she was suggesting more than one cause). Her book is coming out in January 2014; here are a few of the causes she mentioned:
  1. Jews from Algeria made citizens of France; Muslims were not. (1870)
  2. North African Jews had welcome from established Jewish community; Muslims had no one, initially.
  3. In 1968, Maoists (a group of Leftists) tried to convince Algerian Muslims to side with Palestine. The Maoists equated Palestine with Vietnam. At first, it didn’t work, but later it caught on.
  4. For two years Muslims and Jews worked together on racism (SOS Racisme), but then that fell apart. (1984)

  Rutgers Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life hosts free lectures like this one in the spring and fall; see Public Events.

• On The Prosen People blog of Jewish Book Council you can read the April Jewish Book Carnival.
• I published an interview with marketing director David Rekuc: Blog Interview on Marketing, eCommerce and Edison, NJ. Looking to interview other central New Jersey business people, especially those who make good use of social media, websites and/or blogs.

Note about the photo: I love the combination of dandelions with all the purples of this season. I purposely left a few in my front yard, to complement the grape hyacinths, creeping phlox and purple deadnettle. The periwinkle/dandelion photo is actually in a yard a block from my home.

Birds at Philadelphia Zoo and Bird Migration, Too

On the way he meets a lady oriole – she warns him not to fly down into what we know is a big city. Maybe the big city is in Texas. Otis is tempted by all the shiny lights. Bang! He flies right into a shiny, reflective tall building. He also finds out there is little food in this shiny, bright city.

It all ends happily – he makes it down to South America, finds the lady oriole, and at the movie’s end, they are building a nest together back in the north.

At the avian center there is a section of African Savannah birds – this is an African Starling. Doesn’t look like the starlings we see in North America, does it?

Another African Savannah bird: here is an Egyptian plover. An Egyptian plover has a black crown and underparts of pale orange. It was quite warm in this part of the avian center – I suppose all these African Savannah birds would prefer a climate warmer than that of Philadelphia.

The black birds above were not part of any exhibit of birds at Philadelphia Zoo, but they were not afraid of the crowd at the zoo.

If you don’t watch where you are going at the zoo, you might run into a peacock.

Should I count this upside-down bird on the carousel as one of the birds at Philadelphia Zoo?

I learned at the bird migration movie that cardinals, unlike orioles, do not migrate. So if I keep feeding the cardinals in my backyard, maybe they will stick around all summer.

• • •

What do the birds in your area do? Do they hang around all winter or do they migrate? Do you know? How could you find out?

Review at the Zoo with Giraffes

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• Michelle is recovering from breast cancer surgery, and she is blogging about … taking care of herself by resting.
• Lorri has been reading and reviewing books. I hope to read this book called Triumph and Tragedy about life in Poland and its Jewish communities.
• Stuck on what to blog about? Jeri has an exercise that might help.
• Just because you read a study in a well-known newspaper does not mean it is a well-done study: Chris Kesser talks about confounding factors in this article on Red Meat and TMAO. “The healthy user bias is one of the main reasons it’s so difficult to infer causality from epidemiological relationships. For example, say a study shows that eating processed meats like bacon and hot dogs increases your risk of heart disease. Let’s also say, as the healthy user bias predicts, that those who eat more bacon and hot dogs also eat a lot more refined flour (hot dog and hamburger buns), sugar and industrial seed oils, and a lot less fresh fruits, vegetables and soluble fiber. They also drink and smoke more, exercise less and generally do not take care of themselves very well. How do we know, then, that it’s the processed meat that is increasing the risk of heart disease rather than these other things—or perhaps some combination of these other things and the processed meat?”

Recipe: How to Make Almond Milk

I was told that making almond milk is easy, but in truth, I found the process a bit confusing from the “recipes” I read online. So I am writing up my own recipe in the hopes that it will clarify details on how to make almond milk.

Why Make Almond Milk

Best reason: it tastes yummy. It is richer and creamier than what I have purchased in stores. I think I really made almond cream, to tell the truth. Other reasons might be: you want to learn how to make a non-dairy (pareve) creamer from scratch or you like the idea of making a healthy drink. I made it because I usually have oat milk with my coffee, and on Pesach oat milk is chametz (sort of like bread, which we don’t eat on Passover). Almond milk is not, but our family only uses products that are certified kosher for Passover, and the almond milk I bought last year was so, so, so bad I had to throw it out. If you look at the ingredients on purchased almond milk, you will find ingredients other than almonds and water. This recipe is just: almonds and water!

Almond Milk Ingredients and Equipment

Almond Milk – How To

Soak the almonds overnight (8-12 hours) in water. In the morning, discard the soaking water. Crush the almonds until fine in the food processor. Place crushed almonds in a cheese cloth bag. Add water: the more water you add, the more milk you get, but it will thin the milk. I added about 1/2 cup of water and so I obtained almond cream. Squeeze the bag into a cup to retrieve the milk.

You will then have a bag of crushed nuts, so find a recipe that calls for crushed nuts. We made cookies with our crushed almonds, and that made my daughter and husband happy.

• • •

On a separate note, I have recently set up a subscription by email for the Sketching Out blog. There is also a link on the right sidebar. This was in response to the upcoming “death” of Google Reader – I may write more on that topic in an upcoming post. Thank you to any of you who choose to subscribe.

Poem: The Sacrifice of Abraham by Valeri Drach Weidmann

Val Weidmann wrote this poem about five years ago in memory of her father, Murray Abraham Drach, and the poem was published in the Fall 2012 Paterson Literary Review. She shared the poem with me a few weeks ago, and I asked her if I could publish it on my blog (she said yes).

It would be a fitting poem to publish around the time of Rosh Hashana, as that is when we read the passages about the sacrifice of Isaac. You can learn more on the relationship of Rosh Hashana to the Akeida (binding of Isaac) in my post on the poem Oked V’hanekad. When I read the title and first line of Val’s poem, I said to Val, many people have problems with the sacrifice story. Who would sacrifice one’s own son? Since we brought up the topic, here’s one response by Rabbi Louis Jacobs. Personally, I like the response that the Akeida is an admonition against child sacrifice.

What image to post with Val’s poem? I did not choose a dark, chiaroscuro Renaissance or Baroque painting of sacrifice. Instead, I chose a cheery ice cream painting I did several years back that I posted near the holiday Shavuot when it is customary to have dairy. Later in the poem, you will find the ice cream reference. Nothing to do with Shavuot.

Finally, tonsillectomy facts: In the United States, the number of tonsillectomies has actually declined significantly and progressively since the 1970s.

Enough of the commentary: here is the poem.

The Sacrifice of Abraham by Valeri Drach Weidmann

My father never liked this particular Bible story.
It came early in the book,
Not long after the covenant, a tricky clause.
Abraham had already sacrificed so much.
but he had gained everything – the son.
My father couldn’t imagine a father marching a child up a hill.
A questioning child,
“Where’s the sacrifice dad?”
There was no calf or lamb in sight,
only a father brandishing a knife.
I am reminded of another story, when my parents took me to the hospital.
I too had many questions traveling up the hills of the Bronx in a taxi.
Where are we going?
We’re going to see Uncle Sid the butcher.
My mother didn’t want to alarm me.
In the 1950’s you didn’t tell a kid much.
So there we were in the hospital, the sharp
smell of ammonia, a knife to the nose.
Uncle Sid was no where to be found.
And it was me they were strapping down,
There was no T-bone or lamb chop in sight.
The mask that pumped sweet, smothering ether,
The missing tonsils,
The toys, the ice cream,
The five days in the hospital.
I personally didn’t see any blood.
Not my own or anyone else’s.
My father was so relieved the surgery went well,
he filled the hospital room with gifts
And went out to get one more,
A phonograph in a hat box,
With a needle, with a burning metal smell,
whenever it touched the vinyl record.
My Father and the shop owner argued and fought.
They fell through a plate glass window.
He and the owner miraculously sailed
through a shower of shards unharmed,
Another sacrifice averted.
A father’s love once again rewarded.
My father’s middle name was Abraham,
But he never would have sacrificed me.

* * *

I will leave you with one question: what do the Biblical story of the sacrifice and Val’s experience of tonsil surgery have in common?

Spring Brings Striped Purple Crocus

Spring has finally arrived in the form of striped purple crocuses. One of the names of the upcoming holiday of Pesach (also known as Passover) is Ḥag HaAviv or Holiday of Spring. An advantage of Passover coming early this year is the by the time the magnolias and dogwoods are in bloom, our Passover cleaning/cooking will be done, and we will better be able to enjoy the spring buds. Next year there will be an extra month of Adar so Passover will be later in the spring. If we didn’t have that extra month of Adar, we might be celebrating Pesach in the winter.

In renaming this blog, I had some ideas of settling into a particular niche. I’ve read oh how a proper blog should have a niche and stick with it. Well, I fear that may not come to be, as I have all sorts of ideas for this blog, and rarely are they consistently of one sort or another. A friend today gave me a poem she had written several years ago. It is somewhat biographical, and it also alludes some of the difficulties of the Sacrifice of Isaac. So stay tuned for that one. I have in mind to write a review of Ester and Ruzya, a wonderful book. Some ideas for interviews of other bloggers have come into my head on a particular topic – we will see if I follow through with that one. And once I get back to my art group, I suspect that art exercises and sketches will again be topics for blog discussions.

What can one say about a striped purple crocus? It’s symbolism seems to be universal, as it often pushes out of the ground before other flowers do (my neighbor’s snow drops appeared a while back, however). The word crocus is Greek, and it may have its roots in the Hebrew כרכום karkōm. I am guessing that this is a Crocus vernus.

Happy Pesach to those who celebrate. Happy Easter to those who celebrate that holiday. And happy spring of crocuses, forsythia, tulips and daffodils and whatever grows in your part of the world to all.

Review with Edison Train Station Mural

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• Ilana-Davita has a weekly review, and in the weekly review she links to the recent JOFA journal. I open the journal (a pdf), and what do I find but a nice article about Eva Oles, z”l, of Highland Park who passed away earlier this year (I didn’t even know she had died until I was sitting shiva for my father – I was a little distracted). It is written by Roselyn Bell, whom I know as Rosie. Thank you, Rosie, for the sweet words.
• Lorri has a review of the book Nehama Leibowitz: Teacher and Bible Scholar by Yael Unterman. Years ago I wrote a short post on an essay by Yael Unterman.
• The March Jewish Book Carnival is on Ann Koffsky’s blog.

Andromeda in Snow, Reds of Female Cardinal

My andromeda shrub has not seen a lot of snow this year, so it was a delight last Friday when I got a chance to photograph the andromeda in snow. In the spring, the andromeda shrub produces these pretty wedding bell-like flowers. A robin once laid her eggs in my andromeda shrub.

We have gotten little snow this past winter – lots of threats and warnings, but no school has been cancelled due to snowstorms. I love photographing snow scenes, but New Jersey only gives me infrequent opportunities. I grew up in the Boston area, and they got much more snow this past winter. Anyone remember the blizzard of 1978?

The cardinals were content to visit our backyard once again and enjoy the bird feeder and branches.

This shot of the female cardinal shows a lot of her red – unlike her male partner, she is mostly brown, but when you get closer, you can see the pretty bits of red. I think it’s quite lovely.

One can see the reds of female cardinal here – love those streaks of red amongst the brown.

I enjoyed this description of the northern cardinal from Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology:

The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for getting more people to open up a field guide than any other bird. They’re a perfect combination of familiarity, conspicuousness, and style: a shade of red you can’t take your eyes off. Even the brown females sport a sharp crest and warm red accents. Cardinals don’t migrate and they don’t molt into a dull plumage, so they’re still breathtaking in winter’s snowy backyards. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning.

I do find my cardinals tend to visit in the cold. I don’t see them in the summer.