Jill teaches art in Highland Park. Stay tuned for Leora’s attempt at a “salty” painting.
Salting is a fun technique for adding texture to your watercolor painting. It works by absorbing water and pushing away the pigment around each grain of salt. You just use regular table salt, but the larger grain Kosher salt can offer you further texture possibilities.
Salting works best on darker and fully saturated color. You lay down paint on the area, then throw salt where you want the effect while it’s still wet. Working quickly is of the essence, so have all your paints and tools ready to go. The secret is too not over do it with the amount of salt. If you put on too much you won’t see where the individual grains have absorbed the water and pushed away the color around it.
It looks particularly nice for representing snow or ocean spray in a seascape, but also just a good general textural device. You can experiment with larger amounts of salt just to built various textures. Fun stuff.
Enjoy, and I’ll post more techniques soon.
Art Teacher Jill
I had great fun this past week creating a new header for a popular blog called:
A Mother in Israel
If you are interested in parenting, breastfeeding, interviews with other bloggers, life in Israel, burkas or potato kugel, mom in Israel has a lot going on.
Mom emailed me a variety of pictures; the final header has abundant, colorful fruit in a market, a child’s tricycle, challah, a laundry basket and squeegee, and a boy in a cap at the beach. I asked my children to review the header before forwarding the final version; my daughter remarked the bike looked like it was in the market and the laundry looked like it was on the beach! Bravo, daughter. Great to have assistants like you.
A few of my favorites:
Finally, here are links to two very touching posts:
My Aliyah Part I
and My Aliyah Part II. In these posts she talks about the sudden death of her mother, loneliness and grief, and making friends in a new place.
She is funny, personable, and informative. I hope you’ll enjoy her blog as much as I do.
What do you do when you only have one potato in the house? Or two? And the potato is a beautiful red potato (called new potato), no little growths popping up at all, smooth-skinned and welcoming?
First, if you have a five-year-old who is learning how to count or add, you play one potato, two potato. (We actually didn’t add potatoes, but we did add Hershey’s kisses. You show the child four kisses. Then you put one next to it. How many do you have? There is too much candy leftover in this house from Purim! Argh! I already threw out the laffy taffy. But I have an attachment to chocolate that makes it hard to throw away. It is the fifth food group, as you may know). OK, no more digressions.
Here was my one potato salad:
Ingredients:
- One or two red potatoes
- One fresh cooked beet
- One hard boiled egg
- Handful of frozen peas (optional, peas are kitniot on Pesach)
- Some chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped onion (or to taste)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil, enough to coat the salad
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Boil the egg with the potatoes. Take the egg out earlier, as it needs less time than potatoes. You can leave the skin on the potatoes or not; up to you. I like them with the skin. Also, peeling is a pain. Chop the potatoes and the egg. I often have fresh cooked beets available, as I make them once a week, but you can 1) skip this ingredient, but it won’t be pink 2) make some fresh beets or 3) open a can. Put in chopped beets. Add parsley and onions. And any other optional ingredients. Coat with olive oil; it is important to do this while the potatoes are still warm, so they absorb the flavor. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss with apple cider vinegar.
Optional ingredients: dill, granny smith apple, pickles, oregano, scallions, peppers, garlic
I was having fun with my camera and decided to try the Color Accent feature. I’m going to call this my kitniot picture, because it highlights the peas, which Ashkenazi Jews are not allowed to eat on Passover:
You know the Barney Song? The purple dinosaur who sings: “remember please and thank you”.
It’s been a while since I’ve highlighted a local business. Here’s one that knows how to say thank you:
And, if you’re a search engine who is too stupid to read the words on an image, that’s:
RARITAN AIR WATER POWER SERVICE
HEATING • COOLING • PLUMBING •
ELECTRICAL • DRAINING CLEANING
10 YEAR WARRANTY ON NEW EQUIPMENT
CALL FOR SERVICE
1-877-501-COOL (2665)
A friend is working on a document for clients for her business. In order to stress the importance of thanking the client, I tell her about my furnace-air conditioner-fix-the-toilet guy, Zev, who sends thank you notes just about every time we use their business. Well, his wife Leslie actually sends the note, but they are both so gracious and professional.
And, lo & behold, I get a notice yesterday asking us to renew our contract, with this lovely, hand-written note at the bottom:
I had recommended her to Mike Beberman of Cyber Knights in New Brunswick. Another gracious businessperson.
Anyway, thank you, Leslie, for sending over your husband to fix: our shower, our toilet, our sink and our furnace. And whatever it was he did with our air conditioning system.
I have this livejournal account, mostly so I could answer Daniel Saunder‘s posts. Daniel writes about severe depression and Judaism, two topics about which I have experience, and Doctor Who, about which I know very little. (I don’t even own a tv, though I’m sure my older son could show me how to watch it on the internet if I were really interested). Daniel had a great post last week about Rav Soloveitchik’s Halachik Man. It takes a while to read his posts. He recently posted a best of the Blog, in which he starts out by saying:
I think part of my problem with blogging is that I can not decide what my blog is for. I sometimes think of it as a place where I can be myself, where I can explore all of my various, unconnected interests, in which case it does not matter who reads it. However, I also think of it as a way of delivering a message of some kind, of exploring certain ideas that I want relate to people in one or other of the sub-cultural groups that I am in, so it becomes necessary to reach that particular audience, whether of Doctor Who fans or Orthodox Jews or some other group.
Except perhaps for the Doctor Who part, this paragraph is one many bloggers can relate to. Who are we talking to and why?
Last week someone stopped me and said: “I found your blog!”
Uh, oh, I think. What did I say? Is someone REAL finding my blog? Someone I’m going to meet on the street (actually, it was in the back of my kids’ school)? Turns out, she has a great blog herself, and here it is: elinka.livejournal.com. Oh, by the way, it helps if you know Russian. Sometimes she writes “Shavua Tov” in Russian (Shavua Tov means Have a Good Week. In Hebrew). You can always enjoy the cute pictures.
I took a look around Live Journal tonight, and my account said I have no friends. Don’t you love it when you sign up for something new, and it tells you that you have no friends?
Finally, it asked this question:
What talent do you have that you wish more people would recognize?
I don’t know the answer. Do you have an answer?
My son, middle son, the one who once commented on my blog as me, who is up too late playing computer games next to me, said I should have said “fishing.”
One of the live journal bloggers answered:
I can fly.
Jack is a clever blogger. I have about ten ideas for posts in my head, but only time to write one quick one, as my children are now arising, and the real day is beginning.
So, here’s a link to Jack’s blog:
Second Annual Link to Jack Day.
We should all be as clever as Jack!
Yesterday I cleared out space on the top of my cabinets. Passover is coming, and I need to stock up on the non-perishables already available for weeks in the supermarket.
Clearing out the space was easy, because in addition to anything I had placed there for Purim, for the last few weeks I put up non-perishables that I did not need and wanted to donate to the Highland Park Food Pantry. I dropped them in the food pantry bin today in our local supermarket.
I’ve organized two Cub Scout food drives in the past for the Highland Park Food Pantry. Unfortunately, too many people in our area find it necessary to stand on line and wait their turn for food. One of my friends said her son saw a classmate standing on line. It made him feel his task was all the more important.
Passover food is expensive, too. So our area has a kosher food bank at the Jewish Family and Vocational Service.
So while we are all enjoying the spring, put a non-perishable item in your local food pantry bin.
Once upon a time, say, about 1000 b.c.e., my ancestors lived in an agricultural world. They sowed seeds around this time of year, brought first fruits in late spring, and celebrated the harvest in the fall. More recently, my grandfathers were businessmen; my maternal grandfather, whom I never knew, worked in the stock market in New York City; my paternal grandfather traveled to New Jersey from Brooklyn, bought eggs, and re-sold them in Brooklyn. My mother, the first generation to live in suburbia, grew tomatoes and cucumbers in our back yard; she bought them as little seedlings. The only seeds my father sowed was grass seed for the lawn.
When my boys were no longer toddlers, I decided to try the hobby of starting seeds in the basement. My first attempt was probably using dirt; I grew weeds instead of whatever it was I had planted. I then read every book I could on seed starting. I bought some seed starting formula, learned about the placement of the seed in the formula: the bigger seed needs to be buried deeper. I set up some special lights on top of my seed; they were not terribly expensive, I bought them at Home Depot. I put the lights on timers; it seems that seed need darkness at night.
And so I waited. And then…yes! Little seedlings sprouted up. I had the best luck with marigolds and tomatoes. I remember impatiens had tiny seeds that needed to be set on the top of the soil, because they required light to germinate. By the end of the summer, I had one little impatiens plant from seed. A lot of effort for one tiny plant.
What I also discovered was seed starting, in New Jersey anyway, coincides with “get your house ready for Passover” season. And then we went up to the Boston area for Passover that year; I was all worried about my little seedlings! I had left them by themselves in the basement. No babysitter. My father’s cousin lives in the Boston area, and he grows orchids. He knew all about seed starting. I should have left the seeds with a bit of water under them. And so I learned about watering seedlings from underneath. Also, seedlings, unlike babies, can last for a few days without “mama”.
The next year my seedlings had competition. Actually, I think they had so much competition they were never born that year. My daughter was born in July; so with a baby in the house and Passover to prepare, the seedlings didn’t happen. I don’t recall if I did much at all with my garden that year. If it’s a choice between gardening, house chores, holiday preps and baby demands, baby wins.
I no longer start seed in my basement. I have learned which seeds starts nicely outside. The lights that I bought at Home Depot have long been smashed by the bouncing of some boy or another in my basement. And the shattered glass long been carefully picked up. I now buy Rutgers tomato seedlings, a local brand of tomatoes that are not too big and not too small. I had lots of tomatoes last year, grown in my compost piles.
If you want to learn how to grow seeds in your basement, I’m probably not the best teacher. But you may have learned what NOT to do. Here’s a book I own, highly recommended:
The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel
Which one would you prefer to eat? Please leave any remarks (no disparaging ones, however) in the comments.
Yesterday, Babka Nosher related her hamantaschen making tales. Stapling and velcro are discussed as options for making these little triangular critters. But I steered myself for my own baking exploits.
I’m a lazy baker. I don’t like following recipes. So I took my apple pie crust recipe and added a bit of baking powder. Then I made a little circle for each pastry, threw in some cinnamon and sugar covered chopped apples and folded the sides so it looked like a hamantaschen. Baked at 350° a little longer than my other hamantaschen, for about 20 minutes.
Then last night we had a family affair in the kitchen as my husband, middle son and daughter prepared the more classic hamantaschen, with the rolling and the circle cutting and the careful folding of each flap. I supervised. Thanks, family! (my eldest played computer games–he’s a teenager, whadya want).
Have a Happy Purim! If you don’t celebrate this holiday, find one of your neighbors that do and mooch some hamantaschen. Good stuff.
Addendum:
Classic Hamantashen Dough (NO TRANS FATS!)
8 oz. Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
3-4 cups flour
Combine first three ingredients, then add remaining ingredients. Mix until doughy consistency (add fourth cup flour if necessary). Roll dough out flat to 1/4 inch thickness. Use a floured drinking glass to cut out 3-inch circles. Put one teaspoon of filling in center of each dough circle and fold up corners to make a triangle. Bake at 350° until lightly browned (about 8-10 minutes).
Last week I was discussing the term Sephardi, and Little Frumhouse on the Prairie, who just posted a delicious carnival of delightful bites, suggested I blog about how we Ashkenazim came to a Sephardi shul (or should I say beit knesset…shul is yiddish).
There are a lot of Ashkenazim at Congregation Etz Ahaim. A while back, I wrote a post about Voices of Etz Ahaim, a marvelous oral history book put together by two Ashkenazi members. Many of the Ashkenazim are women married to Sephardi men, but sometimes it’s the reverse. I decided to make a list of “key ingredients” of why Ashkenazim are attracted to Etz Ahaim. Then I add my own personal note at the end.
1) food: Sephardim (the women–the men can’t locate the kitchen…so maybe I should say Sephardot?) know how to cook. Elaborate kiddushes might include dishes such as meat patties on pastry, borekas with a variety of fillings, bulghur & chickpea salad with grated carrots and parsley, and fancy cookies. A simpler kiddush has chickpeas and olives. And there’s usually a jar of herring for the Ashkenazim who need their fix.
2) International flavor: Countries represented include Turkey, Greece, Italy, Israel, Iran, Iraq, France, Morocco, Brazil, Russia. French is spoken in pockets; it’s fun to listen in on the conversations.
Ladino is part of the service. Bendicho su nombre is sung when the Torah is taken out. Ain Kelokeinu is also half Hebrew, half Ladino: non come estro Dio (there is none like our God).
3) Community: It is the only synagogue in Highland Park that isn’t over-crowded and bursting at the seams. We remember “losing” our boys as toddlers in the the large kiddushes of the our previous synagogue. And at Etz Ahaim friendliness comes with the territory.
4) Rabbi Bassous: Our rabbi is both learned and kind, a natural teacher. One can learn from him no matter what your level of Jewish education.
Did I mention the food?
On a more personal note, I like the way the misheberachs (prayer for the sick) are done at Etz Ahaim. When my mother z”l (may her memory be a blessing) was very sick with cancer, the misheberach was very important to me. I didn’t care to say it “quietly to oneself” as was done in the Ashkenazi shul we attended. At Etz Ahaim the women can stand at the mechitza (the separation between men and women) with their requests, and the Rabbi says each name loudly and clearly. I started attending Etz Ahaim on my own, in part so I could hear my mother’s name said out loud. My oldest son soon joined me, as his best friend was at Etz Ahaim. His younger brother soon followed (at that age they went to the groups).
We eventually pulled in my husband (my daughter was born later). Now my husband is on the Executive Board, he’s the treasurer, he keeps track of the aliyot donations, he finds someone to do the haftorah each week, he finds lainers (men who recite Torah) and speech givers when the Rabbi goes away in the summer; they caught him!
But really, it’s the food.
