Retro bride: a sewing pattern from the 70sWhile your taste has probably evolved beyond a veil made of a pillowcase and dandelions, the DIY spirit of childhood can still apply to a grown-up wedding. Here are some tips for the crafty brides (and grooms) out there:

• From Martha Stewart, a custom made pouch to hold the glass that the groom smashes at the end of the ceremony.
• The Knot explains the basics of creating a homemade floral centerpiece.
• Take DIY a step further by sewing your own wedding dress using these vintage patterns.
• Finally, here’s a guide to making your own chuppah, and new uses for the canopy after the wedding.

Rejoice in thy recipes, for TasteBook has launched! The beta site offers users a place to find, store, and organize recipes, but that's not all: Also available is the opportunity to self-publish your own customized, hardcover cookbooks.

TasteBook has two key features: first, it simplifies searching for recipes online by indexing recipes from all over the Web into one list of search results. It then allows people to select recipes from those search results and print them out in a professional-looking cookbook.

In addition to being able to publish your own recipes this way, TasteBook has partnered with Epicurious to provide an initial 25,000 recipes--a number that will greatly expand to include recipes from various other sites starting in early 2008.

People can automatically import their Epicurious recipe boxes and can also upload their own recipes and include them in the books they print.

For $34.95, a user can print a hardcover binder with handpicked cover art and up to 100 recipes with their own comments added. If all 100 recipes aren't used initially, TasteBook will issue credits for the remaining recipes, which can be printed out later and added to the binder or sent to friends.

Sounds like craft time!

I stumbled across a beautiful Shabbes quilt not long ago, and when I inquired about it, I was pointed towards various resources online for Jewcy-crafty types. I had no idea! Anyway, sewing and general Martha Stewarting (I know, I know, I want to resent her, too, but sister makes some great stuff) is sort of a secret pleasure of mine, so here's what I know:

For some inspiration, try my two faves: hit the campy and wonderful Judaikitsch: Tchotchkes, Schmattes & Nosherei by Jennifer Traig for projects like the Neil Tzedekah Box and a beaded matzah purse. With a description of "what would happen if Martha Stewart was abducted by a tribe of trailer park rabbis"--- it's obviously useful and hilarious. Then check out Jewish Holiday Style by Rita "Jewish Martha Stewart" Milos Brownstein. A few other good reads you might find some inspiration in: Jewish Holiday Crafts for Little Hands by Ruth Esrig Brinn, and Jewish Holiday Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family by Joan Zoloth & Lisa Hubbard.

The Pomegranate Guild members are reviving Jewish traditions and stories through their work with textiles, here we read about Marci Greenberg’s “Knitting by Torah” project, and here is a great article about Knitzvah, Skitch & Kvetch (modified from the popular Stitch and Bitch) and Not Your Bubbie’s Yarn. (And check out this alef-bet chart.)

Quilted Quickest Sewer Upper: Who wants to sew this for me? Kidding! Sort of.

The fabulous Dreidel Crafts offers Jewcy-themed buttons, a nice selection of rubber stamps, several clasps and charms, appliqués, quilt supplies, fabric, candy molds, and on and on. Such great stuff. So fun. And they even offer gorgeous quilting patterns, like this Torah Quilt and tons of other Jewcy quilt designs. Here Elizabeth Rosenberg sells patterns for her stunning quilts, (Oh, speaking of Jewish quilting, read this interesting piece about Jewish and Palestinian quilters coming together for a peace quilt.) Fancy Delancy by the way, specializes in hard-to-find Jewcy fabrics.

Blackwork Archives has these beautiful pomegranate needlepoint patterns (Rosh HaShanah napkins next year anyone?) while Crafty Needle has several patterns for tallis bags and needlepoint. And, will you get a load of these DIY wedding resources? This from Do-It-Yourself Weddings and this from Martheleh Stewart. Rumor has it, The Artful Bride by April Paffrath and Laura McFadden is a really great DIY wedding book, but, uh, yeah, I'm no authority on weddings, yo.

Chadis Crafts offers all sorts of tribey bead projects like adorable “beadie” dreidles that would surely be a hit with kids. A DIY seder plate would be a cute project, too. For more fun resources for kids’ projects, Making Friends has a jewish crafts section, (I say “kids’ projects” but, hello?, I’d totally make the Magen David napkin rings.) and this dreidel would be a cute projects for a bit older kids. Then again, a friend of mine decoupaged beautiful dreidels a year or two ago, so maybe we can have just as much fun as the wee ones on the dreidel craft department. I mean, even Martheleh gets into dreidels. Oh, and see her other Chanukah craft ideas here. Oh, oh, and her matzo cover here. Uh, and of course she makes candles for Chanukah.

Handmade candles: Oy, Martheleh, oh, Martheleh, what can't you do?

Of course, if you’re not so keen to make things yourself, you can always hit a design-your-own site or commission a tallis to be woven for you, or look through hundreds of sites for Jewish artisans (like here and here) and still reap the benefits of having beautifully handmade Judaica.

What about you folks out there in Jewcylvania? Any craftiness you want to share?

(My mother, by the way, is going to plotz over this post. She's so crafty. Must be where I get it from.)

No trace of treifThere's an abundance of tomatoes out there in farmer land - and there's no better way to eat them than paired with fresh basil and gooey mozzarella.  

Almost all cheeses, including mozzarella, contain rennet - an enzyme that helps coagulate the milk into cheese.  Traditionally, rennet comes from the lining of the fourth stomach of a butchered young calf which, last I heard, makes it decidedly unkosher...and also not vegetarian come to think of it, though I don't see a huge push in the vegetarian community to give up aged cheddar.   

So what do you do when you're a cheese snob who loves artesian cheeses (I could seriously live on the stuff), but you're dining at your boyfriend's kosher apartment?  This week, I'm making my own. I recently bought a cheese making kit from "Ricki the Cheese Queen," founder of the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. She offers a recipe for "30-minute mozzarella" and a kit that comes stocked with citric acid, cheesecloth, cheese salt, and...kosher/vegetarian rennet (you can request that Ricki send you a copy of the OU certification).

Making my own cheese is fast (I'd even be okay with 45 minute moz), and satisfies my foodie urges, my boyfriend's eating habit's, and my dorky DIY impulses.  Behold the power of (vegetarian, kosher) cheese

I have to admit that I kind of like a plain cotton white tallis with dark blue stripes. On a dignified man, the old classic still rocks. But I think it looks silly on me, and on most women. And I absolutely detest that sad thin silk thing that hang like a limp boa around your neck during davening. I don’t care if the silk is painted to coordinate with your kippah—it’s tacky.
The ubiquitous and ugly tallit: Tacky!
And it turns out, a tallit doesn’t have to be white. A tallit just has to have four corners with tsitsit. Most people prefer to have an atarah, an embroidered band at the head of the Tallit as a sign not to switch its upper side with its lower side, and so that the front tsitsit won't be in the back and vice versa. Lots of people embroider quotes from Tanakh on the atarah, or decorate it with beading, but this is completely optional.

If you know a kid about to have a bar/bat mitzvah, a cool and meaningful gift is to make them a tallit. Make it, not buy it. Take them on a trip to a fabric store, and find something they like. If they’re obsessed with the Red Sox, there’s no reason why it can’t be a Red Sox tallit—except maybe that it won’t seem so awesome thirty years down the line. More classic/sophisticated fabrics like wool, linen, and raw silk can totally work, and will generally withstand the test of time. Ribbons can be stripes, but you don’t actually need them, so it becomes a taste thing. In the corners you want a reinforcement of some kind for the place where you’ll be tying the tsitsit. This fabric can be in another color, and often you make the atarah and the corners from matching fabric. If you want the edges to be fringed make sure to choose a fabric that can be fringed (silk, for instance, doesn’t really fringe, but raw silk does).

The actually construction of the tallit requires very minimal sewing. Cut it into the size you want, hem or fringe the edges, and sew on the corners and atarah. Make small reinforced holes in the middle of each of the four corners, and then get your tsitsit.

Tsitsit must be made out of special string, which you can find at most Judaica stores, or online. Most places will have three options. You can get all white strings, all blue strings, or mostly white with one blue string for each corner. The reason for this has to do with the mitzvah of tsitsit. We’re commanded to put tsitsit on any four cornered garment, and told that the color of the thread should be techelet-blue – like the color of the sky, which is a symbol of purity. According to the tradition, its color was extracted in the past from the blood of a certain snail. Some people say the new blue strings count as techelet, and some don’t—it’s up to you.
This is the tallit I made when I was 12: teal satin with blue silk leaves at the corners and atarah
Either way, tsitsit must be tied a certain way. There are a few different traditions, so you can ask someone in your community, or you can check out the great and extensive guide online at tekhelet.com.

It’s really simple, and way way cooler than those crappy ones hanging on the tallis rack at shul. Get thee to the fabric store!

Time to Make the Matzah: Calling all kids!I don't understand the deal with buying Shmura Matzah. I don't think it tastes very good, and it's really really expensive.

And I don't think I believe that we really have any idea what matzah looked like back when the children of Israel were fleeing their bondage at all. Is there actually somewhere in the Torah that tells us they made big round flat loaves? And if so, how did they transport them without breakage? Should shmura matzah really look like a pile of shmura crumbs at the bottom of a dirty cloth bag?

BUT!

Regardless of my preference for the cheap machine-made matzah... I'm a big believer in DIY, and I think it's really fun to MAKE MY OWN MATZAH!

As you well know if you've read Faithhacker much at all, I think that getting your hands dirty is almost always a good way to make traditions more meaningful. Maybe because I like to get messy, and maybe because I'm just cheap, but in any case...

You should give it a try. ESPECIALLY if you have kids around you can involve in the fun.

Of course, your matzah won't be kosher (unless you have rabbi friends willing to come oversee your dough-fest). But you can make it this weekend and enjoy it before the holiday starts... or feed it to the ducks, or whatev...

Haggadot: Once upon a time… they were ALL handwrittenFor a lot of us, Jewish holidays are about cobbling together ritual, tradition, and history… with contemporary lives that don’t fit the Jewish tradition in obvious ways.    So we make things up as we go. We write our own haggadah, or siddur.  We invent vegetarian versions of holiday foods.  We re-imagine…

This kind of invention can be a special and wonderful experience, or it can be a difficult experience.  It can teach us to appreciate our own creative resourcefulness, or it can act as a reminder that we live our lives in the margins of a religious community.  It can yield new texts, new rituals, new interpretations…

Or it can end in tears.

This morning I wanted to share a story excerpt with you (full disclosure, the author is a friend of mine, and I had something to do with its creation) that explores Passover as a series of such cobbled-together moments. Passover as invention.  Passover as a time of connection, and also disappointment.

Which is something I appreciate.  Having spent my share of Jewish holidays AVOIDING the holidays… because I was afraid of trying to celebrate… and getting it worong.

A lesson:  Getting it “wrong” is okay.  Just so you find a way to celebrate that is meaningful for you.  Make a memory, however rough and dirty…. it’s always better than eating cold take-out alone in your dorm room.

Via KtB, a portion of  Four Tables, excerpted from a longer essay, A Lesson in the Shape of Your Body:

I've been at work all day, and I haven't stopped to eat. The Xeroxed pamphlets at each plate are of my own design. The guests are coming in, lingering to smoke on the back porch, clustering in the living room with glasses of wine. Someone starts passing a joint, probably Best Friend Ben, who is set to perform an art-rock rendition of the Exodus later that evening. The instruments are waiting in the bedroom. I let the smoke fill my lungs until they twitch, and then I blow it out in a long, thick stream. I tell my boyfriend Ben to help get everyone to the table.

I'm at the head of the table, in my reclining chair, with the plants and the window behind me; Ben and Ben are at the foot. I like seeing their faces. I feel warm. Between me and the Bens are almost twenty guests. My friend Leon is here because he can sing the Hebrew: I want my Seder to be full of music. Around the table one woman refuses to join in the reading. I'm angry; I think she shouldn't have come. I want my Seder to be a new and real community, just as college has been. I still think that my willpower is the only necessary thing.

Leon sings the blessing: the first cup of wine. I drain it. Ben and Ben are dark and light spots very far away. The plants hover above me like desert palms. The second glass is way past too much. The table swims now, and I let the ceremony go on until its time to tell the story of how Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. Cue the music -- the band sets up.  I excuse myself in a voice that sounds low and muddy to my ears. I feel my hips lightly swaying, miraculously avoiding the obstacle course of chairs and elbows and amps and coiled electrical cable. I am very concentrated on not losing control. In the bathroom I watch my burgundy-colored vomit paint the sides of the bowl. The tile floor is cool and seems to stop me from spinning. Electric exodus splits the air, surges past me.

One of the things that makes Hanukkah so hard is the pressure of making it special for eight whole nights.  It’s not easy to sustain excitement over a few candles for that long.  You know?

On night one you light the candles, say the prayers, exchange a meaningful gift, and fry some pancakes.  Nice!  It feels special.

On night two you spin the dreidel a few times, eat the leftover pancakes from night one, and then go out to a movie or something.  Pretty decent.

By night three, you’re sick of pancakes, your boyfriend/husband has band practice and so you lose track of time… end up running in the door way past sunset.  You hastily light the candles, pause to recognize that it doesn’t feel “special” anymore, order a burger and fries for delivery (hey, it’s cooked in oil, right?), and watch whatever reality show is on TV.

And by night four there’s so much damn wax crammed down in the menorah that you wonder, “Is it worth all the trouble?  I might burn the house down.”

So I thought I’d take a second to remind you that the best way to make a holiday feel special is by actually doing something.  It’s especially good to do something you don’t usually do with people you take for granted (i.e. your family).

This might mean roller disco with your roommates, and it might mean spending an afternoon volunteering with your sister at an animal shelter.  But I think one of the best ways to spend time with people, and start a new holiday tradition, is by making something concrete.  Because then that object you’ve constructed can be labeled “Hanukkah 2006” and for as long as you have it, you’ll remember the day you spent together.  (Hint:  Your mom will eat this shit up)

Yes, people, I’m talking about arts and crafts.  Which can be anything at all.   You could construct a doghouse.  You could get all beadazzled.  Learn to knit or become a decoupeaur.  I’ll suggest that this amazing magazine is just about the coolest place to find neat ideas for group projects, but there are plenty of websites you can check out for free (for kids and grownups too).

Go ahead, turn night four into the night that you (and all your nearest and dearest) get glitter and glue stuck in your hair.  Make it a tradition.   It will become a part of what Hanukkah means in the future, and give you something to do while the candles burn. 

Remember that guy, Kevin, from college? I think he was your roommate’s boyfriend’s best friend… You remember, that guy, the one who could make a pipe out of anything? He’d smoke pot out of tin foil, an apple, an old tin can. Like a pot-head MacGyver, he could make a bong out of a turkey baster, a piece of tape, some glitter, and a plank of wood.

Well, often at Chanukah, I hear from less affiliated Jewish friends that they didn’t celebrate the holiday because they didn’t have a Hanukiah, and that seems dumb. I mean, if a total stoner dude is clever enough to make things out of household objects, you can too. And maybe your home-made candelabra won’t be strictly Kosher, but if you didn’t prepare in advance for this… you likely aren’t concerned about that anyway.

Tin foil is easiest, and this picture is my 10 minute version, made with just a stapler and a sheet of foil (I just fold the foil over a few times on each side, until it’s the right size, and then staple it 10 times, about an each apart each time. Be sure to stack a few quarters under the shamash BEFORE you staple anything, so that it’s higher than the rest of the candles Once the staples are in, you won’t be able to get the coins in. Then, just fit the candles in and mold the foil around them so they’re sturdy. If they wobble too much, you need more foil, and more folds).

But that’s just my lazy design. You could use a handful of nuts or washers from your toolbox, glued to a piece of wood or an old plate. You could use 9 little glass bottles (Tabasco works), glued or tied together side-by-side. If you wanted to get creative you could make something really nice, like Jenny Traig (who is lovely, smart, and artsy) made here, from Mah Jong tiles! (I found the link at Jewschool)

Basically, just make sure the candles are all in a line, and that the Shamash (the ninth candle) is raised above the others a little bit. Ideally, you should use metal or glass, but if you want to skewer 9 apples on a stick and cram your candles into the top of each apple, I won’t judge you.

If you want to get fancier, there’s all kinds of ways to do this. NPR even ran a contest for menorah-makers. And your local pottery-glazing place will probably let you paint a candleholder for about 30 bucks. Though I’m not sure it would be any more kosher than this inspiring potato menorah!

Good luck, and No excuses!