Tucson

We are in Arizona this week, at a time of tragedy that may be for this generation a turning point similar to the assassination of John Kennedy for mine.

I've been listening to talk show radio in Arizona, and am heartened by the civil tone I am hearing from the callers. They are chastised, demoralized, and really searching deep into their hearts. Tucson leaders say "everyone loved Gabby." If that's so, why was her last election so hard fought?

I pray that this spirit of healing will last. But, unfortunately, I'm not betting on it. Our country has become so polarized. How do we turn it around? And how much of the blame lies with the media itself?

I wish I could feel more hopeful. But as I write this I see Palin on TV, and my hope deflates, like a pricked balloon.

Shopping locally

If you're a regular newspaper reader, you've probably seen the full page ads placed by American Express urging you to support the local businesses that create jobs, boost the economy and preserve neighborhoods around the country by "shopping small" this Saturday.

I can't think of a better excuse to avoid the mall than supporting Larchmont's small business owners by doing my holiday shopping here in town.

But, if you're still on the fence about it, here are some suggestions to get the ball rolling:

Trick or Treat for UNICEF

Tonight’s NBC news noted it’s 60 years since the first time young children collected pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters for UNICEF.

“Do you remember that?” I asked my husband, who grew up in the Deep South bayous of Louisiana.

“No, that was thought part of the international conspiracy,” he said, grinning.

We are a bit too old to remember the first year UNICEF was part of Halloween, but as an elementary student growing up in South Orange, NJ, in the 50s, I regularly collected for UNICEF – always, I confess, in tandem with my own request for sweet offerings of a different nature.

Cookbooks and the recipes we cherish

Pork has never been made a regular appearance on my table, which may be why, after each of my few feeble attempts to cook a pork chop for my pork-chop-loving husband I sugest he just order them in a restaurant. (FYI: John highly recommends Palmer Crossing's chops)

After the last attempt he asked me, "Has pork always been cheaper than beef?"

I looked at him in bewilderment. How was I to know?

I was raised in a kosher-style house. We didn't drink milk at the dinner table, but usually had butter on the vegetables. We ate lobster and shrimp in restaurants, but I don't think my mother knew how to cook them. And the only pork I can ever remember in her fridge was bacon - served exclusively on BLTs.

In spite of everything...are people really good at heart?

I had forgotten the power of The Diary of Anne Frank, which we saw today at the Westport Country Playhouse.

The theater was filled with middle school aged-children: the Playhouse was hosting “family day” to encourage this next generation to learn not only about the Holocaust, but about the play’s eternal message of optimism and hope.

Like so many, I first read the book when I was about Anne’s age, which meant I of course identified with Anne, and tried to emulate her eternal optimism. I’ve seen the play and movie several times, but not in the last 20 years or more. And so I was, to put it mildly, blown away, yet again, by this story.

Happy New Year, Ya'All

NEW IBERIA, LA - I've been in synagogues all over the country and around the world, but rarely stray far from home for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So when we booked Jet Blue's All You Can Jet passes and decided to spend the first week in Southern Louisiana, I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to join the small congregation in New Iberia, where the Jewish families my husband grew up with worshipped.

We'd walked around the outside of Gates of Prayer on our last trip and recognized many of the names memorialized on the stained glass windows, including the Wormsers, who owned clothing stores in Franklin, Jeanerette and New Iberia. But the building is open only for worship, and we were in New Iberia for lunch on a weekday.

Recycling now a little easier

A blurb from the Town of Mamaroneck just caught my eye: we no longer need remove the bottle caps from plastic bottles before putting them out for recycling.

Seems like a small thing, but surely they add up. Maybe the added weight of all those caps will boost our recycling rate— which was a respectable 62 percent of all solid waste in 2009 —just a bit.

Of course, it would be a lot better— and a lot healthier, too —if we weren't using plastic bottles in the first place.

No one needs soda or fruit juice, and we have healthy clean water coming from the tap here in Larchmont. Invest in a water bottle — you can even keep it in the freezer to make sure it's cool when you set out. The environment will thank you.

Maybe we'll get to the point that there's so little solid waste in Larchmont-Mamaroneck that we can go to one-day-a-week collection. That  would surely help the tax rate.

If you aren't homeless, leave these tomatoes alone!

When I started plants from seeds indoors this spring, I tried to carefully label each pot. But thinking doesn't make it happen, and when the zinnias I transplanted to my corner garden began to grow, lo and behold, most of them were tomatoes.

My corner is a busy corner, passed each day by hundreds walking to and from the train, Turtle Park and the Palmer shopping district. I always lose a few flowers to people who must think I'm growing them for their dining room tables, and I've even caught people lifting whole plants from my garden.

So when the tomatoes began to grow among the dahlias, I wondered whether even a single tomato would make it to our table. Sure enough, even though the beautiful tomatoes growing on these almost six-foot-tall plants are yet to ripen, they're beginning to disappear.

And so I made a decision. These tomatoes would be grown to benefit the homeless; I'll donate the majority of them, along with other produce from my garden, to the "Nourish Your Neighbor" campaign that Ed Merians first announced on The Loop.
I've posted a sign on the plants saying: These tomatoes are to feed the homeless. If you are not homeless, please leave them alone!
I'm waiting to see if it works.

So long, tree

As one who has been known to complain about the Village DPW crew (why, for example, do they prune the forsythia in September, thus ensuring there will be nary a yellow bloom come the spring?), I want to give credit where credit is due.

In June a large branch fell from the street tree in front of the house.

When I went to pick it up, expecting I'd need to use a bit of muscle, I was surprised to find it weighed no more than a few ounces. The limb was totally rotten, with just the bark holding the sawdust and dirt together.

We called the Village, and soon thereafter a crew arrived to pick up the limb and look at the tree. They agreed that the tree was in terrible shape and needed to be removed.

Until just a few years ago the tree had been completely shaded by a much larger and dominant tree across the street, and this tree had but a few spindly branches on the top. Its only function, it seemed, was to provide a home to squirrels, which had been living in the tree since we moved in.

Larchmont trees, old and new

Larchmont residents value their trees, as was evidenced by last week’s Arbor Day celebration and the announcement that Larchmont has been named a “Tree City USA for the 29th consecutive year. But while children were helping plant the first of three bald cypress trees in Constitution Park on April 30, across town in Vanderburgh (Turtle) Park, a crew from Evergreen Arborists was taking down one of the Village’s oldest trees that had succumbed to Dutch elm disease.

The large elm tree in Turtle Park was more than 100 years old.

As the park is just across the street, I’ve been able to watch from my front porch the accelerating loss of trees in the park. Five years ago in a letter to then-Mayor Ken Bialo I wrote:

Starting from seed

Inspired by Monica Flaherty, whom I wrote about in the Larchmont Gazette, I decided to bite the bullet this year and get a head start on my garden by starting some plants from seed.

Scouting out the seeds available from Tony's Nursery, Stop and Shop and Home Depot, I picked up the usual suspects: lettuce, cucumbers and spinach. And then there was the basil seed, ready to be watered, in a small pot that I'd picked up at a Christmas Tree Shop several months ago.

While Monica doesn't believe in using peat pellets, preferring to start everything in larger cups, I had bought some pellets on sale at the end of the 2009 gardening season, so I decided to use them. Sure enough, within days, the seeds had sprouted, and I was hooked.

Soon the shelf in my office was overtaken by seedlings. Inspired by my success, I went back to Tony's and picked up zinnias and impatiens. I began imagining that I'd have enough plants from a single $1.69 packet of seeds for the entire garden.

Help a needy Mom this Mother's Day

We never celebrated Mother’s Day when we were growing up. My mother used to say, “You should love me every day, not just one day a year.” So while my friends were busy buying cards and gifts and going out for dinner, I pretty much let the day go by like any other Sunday.

When I had children of my own we pretty much followed the same practice, although by then I’d relaxed a bit and appreciated the breakfast in bed they’d bring me.

A knitting celebration

Last night I joined more than 30 other women who knit to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Silver Canvas, Larchmont’s knitting store. And all of us, as the invitation suggested, were wearing our own creations. (See the story on The Larchmont Patch).

It was absolutely delightful! From simple scarves to elegant evening sweaters, the creations were imaginative, beautiful and – most important, as they all were created under the tutelage of Alice Giupta, owner of The Silver Canvas -- they fit perfectly.

I learned to knit when I was five and, except for a few years between high school and children, I’ve been knitting ever since. Now most of my knitting is for my four grandchildren (my goal is one sweater per child, per year) and it was only this year that I decided to make something for myself.

The sweater that I’m wearing (and which I wore to Alice’s party) is the Anhinga pattern by Norah Gaughan. I thank my friend Vicki for prompting me to try the pattern. It’s quickly become my all time favorite pattern.

For me, knitting is a wonderful way to relax, rating second only to gardening.

I find that I when I’m knitting I “think without thinking” about things that are bothering me. The soothing click-click of the needle, the steady lengthening of the item, are a soothing mantra.

If you’ve not yet tried it, stop in at The Silver Canvas and ask Alice when her next set of classes begin. Of give me a call and I’ll give you a hand.

Cookin' Easy

This being the start of Passover, the kitchens of many people I know have been a real beehive over the past few days. Into the tumult comes some welcome relief. So if you’ve not yet had a chance to read today’s “Editorial Observer” in the NY Times, put the spoon down and take a gander. And, if you have the chance, look at the video on YouTube.

In this age, when Julia Child’s cookbook is all the rage again and The Food Channel seems to be the most popular choice every time I fly Jet Blue, Laban Johnson and Larry Bly remind us that cooking can be fun and doesn’t need to be a full-day affair. Or, as Lawrence Downes writes in the piece,

“Perfection belongs to God, not us, the Southern writer
Flannery O’Connor would have told you, her eyes boring holes in yours
as she poured Coca-Cola in her coffee.”

Gotta love it.

Happy Passover, Easter, or whatever it is you’re cooking for this week.

Square Foot Gardening

Today’s so cold and rainy it’s hard to believe that earlier this week I was working in the garden, turning the compost pile and “harvesting” enough pails of good rich compost to give the vegetable plot a good start on the early crops.

But the work that I did pales in comparison with that of Monica Flaherty, who I interviewed for the Larchmont Gazette. She’s inspired me to take up the square foot gardening method. So I’ve ordered the book and am getting ready to curl up with it this long rainy weekend.

Death comes calling again

Death came calling again -- this time taking Steve Doochin, a former colleague at the Union for Reform Judaism.

Steve had had a massive heart attack ten years ago while at a doctor's office. Because of that close call with death he recognized more than most that every day is precious.  He did all the right things - changed his diet, exercised, and more -- but, more importantly, he made sure to fill each day with love and hope and laughter.

I last saw Steve about a month ago when we met at the Nautilus for breakfast. He was as optomistic as ever about his search for a new position, sure that something was "about to fall into place." The ultimate networker, Steve had spent his life raising countless millions for Jewish causes, and there were large minyons of folks anxious to help.

Over the river...

My parents never went over the river and through the woods.

I never went over the river and through the woods.

My children didn't, and certainly my grandchildren have not.

Nevertheless, the lyrics of the quintessential elementary school Thanksgiving song plays in our heads, the melody rings true in our minds.

Death's onward march

The news came with alarming rapidity. Three deaths in one week. Three people whose lives have intersected with mine, all taken in just the five days. Add these to the deaths in the past few months of others close to us, and I’m left numb, in shock, in awe of death’s finality.

First, the death of an aunt. At 92, Helen had lived a full life, and so while her death was not a tragedy it still leaves a big hole. Helen was the last of a generation on my father’s side of the family, and her death reminds me yet again, as if I needed a reminder, that I’m no longer part of the next generation.

Friday my brother-in-law, who had been ailing for several years, died. Donald had smoked, drunk and eaten too much when he was younger, and so his sixties were filled with illness and failing health. But 68 is still too young to die, not when your youngest grandchild is still unborn.

The Sixties Revisited

From 1972-74 we lived in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which may be why The Help, a first novel by Kathryn Stockett, held me in its grasp for the past 24 hours.

The novel, for those who have not yet heard of it, explores the relationship between black maids and the white women they worked for in the segregated Deep South in the early 1960s. It was an ugly time in our nation’s history and, while the book is set in Mississippi, anyone whose family had a maid will recognize the truth of the narrator’s stories.

Philadelphia was the only place where officers in the Indian Health Service Corps did not wear uniforms. It was ten years after the death of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, and the distrust of anyone wearing a federal uniform was still palpable.

I’m not sure which was worse: being a Yankee or being Jewish, but the combination was deadly. Oh, the folks in Neshoba County were pleasant enough, always adding a “Y’all come and see us sometime” after a pleasant introduction, but you knew darn well that it wasn’t an open invitation to show up on their doorsteps.

So I was particularly grateful when Stanley Dearman, editor of The Neshoba Democrat, hired me to write a “Cook of the Week” column, obituaries, photo captions and other odd assignments that came my way.

Shredding as a community service

My mother used to say “You learn something new every day,” and today’s Wall Street Journal proves her wisdom, yet again.

“A Town That Shreds Together” chronicles the latest community building activity: bringing a shredder to town so residents can safely dispose of their financial records, tax statements and other paper that should stay out of the hands of identity thieves.

And, as there’s usually a line at these events, shredding can take on the atmosphere of a community fair. Often the shredding us an opportunity to raise funds for a local charity, but the more lasting byproduct may well be the friendships and community ties that result as folks talk to their neighbors, get to know their dogs and children, and chat about local affairs.

Westchester County owns two shredding trucks which they will bring to any municipality that wants to sponsor a shredding day for household paper. While Larchmont and Mamaroneck haven’t scheduled such a day, the trucks will be at several locations throughout the county over the next few months, including Harrison on Sunday, July 19, and New Rochelle on Saturday, September 5. (See the full schedule online)

So do yourself and the environment a favor. Pull out those old tax records, bank statements, credit card bills and other papers that are overflowing your files and filling boxes in the attic, and dispose of them safely. You might even make a new friend while your online.