The Lion,  the Witch, and the Wardrobe Most New Yorkers have either a good or a bad real estate story.  Here’s mine and it’s a happy one! We moved into our 2 BR, 2 BATH, RIV VU upper eastside apartment when our son was less than a year old.  We loved  our building,  our local… Read More

White Shoulders for Aunt Frances I’m from a small family and have always felt close to my aunts and uncles.  Now, like my parents,  they’re all gone. (For more about my family see  Call Me by Their Names) My parents were each the middle child of three, and both had strong bonds with their siblings… Read More

Hermine’s Morning Joe I happen to be a tea drinker,  but I do like the smell of coffee brewing,  and when the coffee smells especially good I think of my mother-in-law Hermine. My mother was a very good cook,  but Hermine was an extraordinary one.   I,  on the other hand,  never prided myself much… Read More

Macy’s Parkchester,   circa 1960 Selling Pop-Its at Macys Like any red-blooded American girl when I was young I did my share of shopping.   Of course it was a simpler and more personal affair then –  no Amazon Prime or online shopping.  Instead we went shopping with our mothers or our girl friends who… Read More

Me as Helen Morgan, 1964 Theater Dreams When I was very young my parents took me to see the original Broadway production of The King and I and I was spellbound.  I listened to the cast album for hours and I dreamed about growing up to be a famous actress. One of my adored great aunts… Read More

Cooking with Gas “Now you’re cooking with gas.”,   my grandmother used to say.  I thought of her after Hurricane Sandy hit New York on October 29, 2012. Although we live uptown,  our proximity to the East River puts our apartment building in the city’s infamous flood zone A.  When Sandy made landfall that day,… Read More

Unleavened Passover is a joyous holiday when we Jews celebrate our freedom from bondage in Egypt.  Every year at the Seder we retell the story of our ancestors who followed Moses across a desert in search of a new home in the Promised Land. The Bible tells us that these ancient Hebrews left in such… Read More

Passover Shopping List As the Passover season approaches I often find  myself laughing over something that happened many years ago. We were having 18 for our seder,  and after calling the butcher to order lamb for my traditional stew,  I wrote out a long shopping list for everything else I needed,  and headed for the… Read More

And Things That Go Bump in the Night It’s been one week since we started our unplanned Covid 19 quarantine/staycation and I’m still reeling with the disbelief and the worry.  And each day brings news of people we know or of well-known personalities who’ve been affected. Yesterday we learned of the coronavirus-related death at 81… Read More

9/11  I’ll never forget the date my husband’s college roommate Joel came from Newton, Massachusetts to spend a few days with us in New York – it was Monday,  September 10, 2001. On that Monday Joel drove down from Newton to New York’s JFK airport.  His cousin and her three kids were arriving from Israel… Read More