I visited the Piscataway end of Johnson Park at the end of July. It was a super hot day (there are a lot of those this summer), but I enjoyed taking shots of the trees in the distance.
When I got to the edge of the Raritan River that borders the park, I noticed you could see the Delaware & Raritan Canal on the other side. I thought: aha! that would be good subject matter for a post. Maybe it will get a little less hot, and I’ll go to take some photos of the canal itself. You can see from the three people on this canal photo that the canal is a fun place to hike and bike. There’s a lot of history behind the canal, constructed in 1834, that went all the way from New Brunswick (that’s this end of the canal) to Trenton, which is close to Philadelphia.
These geese are regular residents of Johnson Park.
One friend thought I was vegan because I only post pareve recipes on my blog. I do have this one recipe for chicken stuffing, but in an effort to prove that I do eat chicken I wrote up one of my favorite chicken recipes. It is a stir-fry of chicken, ginger and cabbage. Last week was the Nine Days, and observant Jews do not eat meat or chicken during this period of mourning (mourning the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem and many other sad events in Jewish history, such as the massacre in York in 1190 C.E.). My children were very happy to resume eating meat on Monday (nahamu, nahumu– comfort, as the saying goes), and we have had this chicken dish twice this week (as well as other carnivorous goodies). I had leftover chicken I needed to use up – this is a delicious way to deal with the leftover chicken problem.
Chicken, Ginger and Cabbage Ingredients
Three to four pieces of leftover chicken, taken off the bone and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 Tbsp. virgin coconut oil
1 Tbsp. chopped ginger root
1/2 head of cabbage, chopped (I use savoy cabbage)
1 tsp. tamari (or soy sauce) or to taste
Optional: bits of chopped kale
1 large fry pan or wok
Cut up the chicken into pieces. Put the coconut oil in the pan and warm it up. Add the chicken, then the chopped ginger and stir. Chop the cabbage and add to the pan. Add tamari sauce. If you like, sprinkle a few cut pieces of kale as well. Cook until cabbage is tender. Serve on a bed of brown rice, though my daughter who doesn’t like rice eats it straight. My son who doesn’t care for the cabbage picks out the chicken. I have been known to pick away at the cabbage, leaving the chicken for others.
My daughter’s theatre camp, Middlesex County College Theater Camp, put on Snow White and the Seventy Dwarves last week. My daughter had the great privilege of being picked for the character role of the old hag, the old woman who is really the wicked witch and tries to kill Snow White with a poisoned apple.
Here she is smiling at the end of the first show – I confess, my focus of watching the show was – when does the old hag enter? When does she do her evil cackles? I had a grand time watching her. As a child, I loved acting as well. I love that my daughter has this grand opportunity through camp.
This was a dramatic scene – here the Woodsman is about to kill Snow White, but of course, he does not. He brings the evil queen the heart of a pig. Do you think this will fool the wicked queen?
Trick this wicked queen into believing the heart of a pig is the heart of Snow White? She is not tricked. She sets out to kill Snow White as an old hag.
In this scene Snow White greets the prince. I’m not really sure what those two guys on the right are doing.
I took lots of photos of my dear daughter the old hag – I was so thrilled by her portrayal of the character. It was a great show, and one we will remember for many years to come.
This coming Friday, July 27, the show will be Rumpelstiltskin, and next Friday, August 3, the show will be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There are two shows each Friday: one at 9:30 am and one at 11 am. Tickets are only $3.
Benji Lovitt, who usually writes and delivers comedy, wrote a piece called Terror in Bulgaria — a comedian’s response. Sometimes you just don’t know how to respond. And this was before the massacre in the theater in Colorado. “But for now? Like everyone else, I’ll mourn.”
If you can stomach the discussion, Therapy Doc has a post on James Egan Holmes.
I took this shot of sunset by Route 1 in New Brunswick, New Jersey almost one month ago, and today I am finally putting it up on my blog. This scene is right next to the Route 1 bridge that I painted in a watercolor last week.
By the time my daughter and I got to Boyd Park in New Brunswick, which is right next to the Raritan River, sunset was almost all gone. Only a bit of light was left in the sky. In the distance you can see the bridge (see those little lights?) that connects New Brunswick and Highland Park. I would love to return to Boyd Park at some point with my camera and my daughter, especially to see more sunset in New Brunswick NJ. There is a little stage and modern amphitheater there that does not look like it gets a lot of use. It would be fun to have my daughter act or dance on the stage at some point when there is a bit more light (and a lot less heat and humidity).
Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies, bird-filled skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.
Relaxing by Raritan River, watercolor on paper, July 2012
This Raritan River watercolor was painted last week; the original photograph was taken in the winter, thus the bare trees. I suggest the end result is a bit sketchy, but I liked it enough to show the watercolor to you, my blogging public. I am considering painting an up-close of the two men sitting on chairs (I am guessing they were fishing before relaxing). For ideas for watercolor inspiration of painted figures, I looked at paintings of Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent. Edward Hopper’s figures were stiff and not depicted as small as the ones I was working on for this painting. John Singer Sargent, on the other hand, is a master of both figure and of watercolor. I can only hope that by more hard work and practice in watercolor I can come close to achieving some of his great skill in depicting landscape, figures and water scenes.
When the heat strikes, it’s fun to spend time in the pool with family, playing pool basketball, swimming mini laps, or just idling on a floating mattress. What do you like to do to cool off in the summer?
The 1920’s saw a lot of development in Asbury Park, including this casino. Unfortunately, unlike other buildings that were redeveloped in the past decade, the casino still seems to be just a frame of a building now.
The decline of the prominence of Asbury Park began in the Depression, and competition from shopping and amusements in other parts of New Jersey continued its decline. When my husband first took me on a tour of Asbury Park in the early 1990’s, it looked quite decrepit. In the past decade, however, buildings such as the Paramount Theater below were redeveloped. I posted another shot of the Asbury Park theatre in 2010, with a bit of its history. You can visit some cool shops like this one inside the convention hall and beside the boardwalk.
Pictured above is the Berkeley Carteret hotel, with the famous Tillie face in the foreground on the Wonder Bar. The hotel has a bit of personal history for me: when I was pregnant with my first child in the 1990’s, my brother-in-law knew the caterer who was working at the hotel during Passover. So he invited us to come and enjoy the bountiful buffet at the hotel. Unfortunately, I had morning sickness and could only eat the cucumber salad.
One of the amusements near the Asbury Park beach is this gigantic chess set.
Asbury Park Jewish history is one of the synagogue Sons of Israel: in 1904 the Orthodox Jewish community in Asbury Park incorporated as the Sons of Israel. My husband’s family belonged to this synagogue; sadly, it needed to sell the synagogue building and move out of Asbury Park in the 1980’s.
Interview with Iola Caplan: Iola Caplan is a friend of mine who now lives in Highland Park, New Jersey. In this interview, she talks about living in Asbury Park in the 1950’s and 60’s, including living through riots in 1967. She relates that the Hillel School also got its start in Asbury Park.
This red beach chair photo may make it appear that there is hardly anyone at the Asbury Park Beach on July 4th, but in truth it was quite crowded on the beach. I hope to write a pictorial, historical post on Asbury Park in an upcoming post.
I was in the mood to do something creative this morning, so I took a photo of an American flag (similar to this U.S. flag photograph, both shots were taken at the Asbury Park boardwalk last year) and imposed it over a recent shot that I took of the rudbeckia in my garden. I used a mask in Photoshop to get the background of flowers to appear under the flag. The difficult part is the edges – one carefully has to go around and eliminate all the sky edges from the original photograph.
Happy Fourth of July.
Here are the two original photos used to create the image above:
The top one of rudbeckia or black eyed susans was taken in my front yard. The bottom one depicts a U.S. flag flying on the Asbury Park boardwalk.
