A potpourri of: Highland Park; Jewish topics; Central New Jersey; art, Twitter, WordPress, health, web design, gardening …

Interviewed on Cooking Manager

winery in the Galil 2007

Leora and family at Galil Mountain Winery, June 2007


Hannah Katsman interviewed me on her cooking manager blog. Visit the interview, comment if you like and enjoy. Included is a small photo of my daughter’s reaction to drinking the delicious, pricey wine (she was five years old at the time). Thanks, Hannah.

FYI, the header on the Cooking Manager blog is one I recently designed for her site.

Jewish Blogosphere Highlights

Mushroom Barley Soup

Mushroom Barley Soup - my soup post is featured on Kosher Cooking Carnival

Not one but TWO friends started blogs recently:

Please visit and leave a comment. Both sound like they could use some support.

And Kosher Cooking Carnival #49 is on Kosher.Com.

Haveil Havalim Hosts

Sculpture If I forget Thee O Jerusalem at RPRY in Edison, New Jersey

Sculpture If I forget Thee O Jerusalem at RPRY in Edison, New Jersey


A big thank you to hosts of Haveil Havalim: Phyllis of Ima on and Off the Bima for last week and Hannah of A Mother in Israel for this week. Haveil Havalim is a weekly Jewish blog carnival.

Review with Autumn Leaves

Yellow and Orange Maple Leaves in Edison, New Jersey

Yellow and Orange Maple Leaves in Edison, New Jersey

On My Blog

red_painter witch_autograph Pink and Rose Volunteer Chrysanthemum near White Alyssum

Famous Journeys – Thanks to all who participated.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

  • Some fall foliage favorites: Ellie Vellie, EG Wow!, Rambling Woods, Carletta
  • Can someone remind me to put this “sukkah decoration” in JPIX, the Jewish Photobloggers Blog Carnival?
  • And I’ve started to put up some posts on my new tech blog, such as this one on 6 Ways to Learn jQuery. Please send your technically-oriented or small business minded friends (or yourself, if you wish to be) to my posts. In general, I’m looking for topic ideas for that blog. I tend to be a perfectionist about what I post, so you may not see me posting often in the beginning, but I’m hoping inspiration will allow me to post at least once a week.

Mimi Hosts Kosher Cooking Carnival

Hungry? Not sure what to cook? Head over to the Kosher Cooking Carnival #46 hosted by Mimi. Enjoy this month’s recipes, and while you are there, check out Mimi’s blog – she has many tasty recipes that she shares, and she sometimes has posts of cultural life in Israel or her trips within the country.

Pre-Sukkot Links

Watercolor: A Study of an Aravot Leaf, 2008

Watercolor: A Study of an Aravot Leaf, 2008

After that bad news of antisemitism* in Edison, New Jersey, I had to post some good news of the Temple in Highland Park re-opening its sanctuary three years after a terrible fire. I haven’t been inside the new sanctuary, but at some point I’ll go over there with my camera and take photos.

Someone remarked that the shortest Yom Kippur service in Highland Park is at the Temple. The longest is where we attend, Congregation Etz Ahaim – not even a break this year. One of the reasons is the beautiful piyutim (liturgical poetic songs) sung by our visiting chazzan, Refael Ishran. I started listening to the CD of the chazzan in the hopes of preparing a post about the piyutim. Stay tuned.

*If you want to know why I spelled antisemitism without a hyphen, you will have to take Prof. Roni Stauber course on the History of Zionism, coming to you online for free sometime later this fall. Stay tuned for more on that, too.