For my birthday, which was back in February, my husband gave me a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I will be working hard over the next few months trying to understand the thing. Above is one of the photos I took earlier this week, a dried up oak hydrangea leaf with snow on it and evergreen leaves waving on the sides.
My kids can’t understand why I wanted a new camera, but Robin and Mojo get it. Thanks to both of them for their encouragement a few months back in taking the plunge into DSLR land. Next step: buying one of those long telephoto thingamajiggies so I can shoot photograph birds. And maybe figure out which birdie is which.
I rewrote the recipe for tekka such that the only required ingredient is ginger root. For every other ingredient, a possible substitute is given (or you can just opt out of that ingredient). However, if you do not include cabbage, you probably can’t call it a “slaw.”
1 orange: use juice and grated rind (or substitute another citrus fruit, but if you use a lemon, you may want to add something to sweeten the recipe)
1 tablespoon barley miso diluted in a little water (optional, but it does add a lot to the flavor)
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the vegetables in the following order: onion, carrot and/or parsnip, cabbages.
Squeeze juice from the orange over the vegetables. Add the ginger.
Cover with a lid and simmer on a low flame for about 15 minutes.
Add the diluted miso and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the orange rind and stir gently.
This is nice warm, but I can easily gobble it up at room temperature, too. Great flavor.
Public History Partners is a site I worked on last spring and finished up in the late fall. If you are familiar with New Jersey, you may enjoy seeing the beach at Asbury Park and the Delaware and Raritan Canal. The 1777 map in the header shows the City of New Brunswick, from a Rutgers collection of historical maps.
There is also a photo of a Passover seder on the site. Can anyone tell me where that seder took place?
Here are some ideas on how to bake hamantaschen, the delicious pastries served on the upcoming holiday of Purim. These three-cornered baked goods can be filled with sweets, jam, prune, chocolate chips or even savories like spinach. Hamantaschen are Eastern European in origin; Jews of Sephardic origin (originally from Spain) make Orejas de Haman, (Oznei Haman in Hebrew) or Haman’s ears. Hamantaschen are supposed to resemble Haman’s hat (he was the bad guy in the Book of Esther).
I love the idea that trees and flowers are blooming in Israel. Anyone who lives in the north can probably appreciate the envy I feel at this time of year. So I’ll start with Batya’s blooms:
While G6 reminds us Purim is coming, Mottel shows us Chanukah past (and here’s my Purim watercolor, too):
Leah presents three from the Chossid’s blog:
Some lovely, some dusty shots on Israeli blogs (Rahel, Yisrael M., CosmicX):
New York on view (by Wolf, Jacob, JoeFlix and Mendy):
Mottel showed South America (Pisaq, Machu Picchu), Ilana-Davita a Hong Kong shul:
Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.
Raritan Avenue at Sunset on Feb. 24
My daughter points at the sunset
She was happy to be included with the sunset. Personally, I think she’s more interesting to look at than my sky photos, which all seem to look alike. To me. Sky Watch is great to do with your kids.
Here are some 
Batya has “cooked up” a delicious