Homes & Gardens - HAKOL - May 2016

MAY 2016 NISAN/IYYAR 5776

Recipes from the garden

BY SANDI TEPLITZ

PERUVIAN CEVICHE

CUCUMBER SALAD

SUMMER BREAD SALAD

Ingredients: 1 c. fresh lime juice 1 c. fresh lemon juice 2 hot red chili peppers, shredded 2 sliced red onions 1/4 t. minced garlic 1 t. salt 2 dashes of black pepper 2 pounds flounder, cut into 1" pieces

Ingredients: 3 cucumbers, peeled and sliced very thin 2 t salt 1/2 c apple cider vinegar 2 T ice water 1 T sugar (or more to taste) 1 dash pepper 1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced

Ingredients: 6 ripe tomatoes, assorted colors 1 red onion, peeled and sliced thinly 3 T. balsamic vinegar Maldon sea salt (flaky) 1/2 c. chopped basil leaves pepper to taste 3/4 c. Spanish extra virgin olive oil 2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved 1/3 lb. whole wheat day old crusty bread, sliced 1/3 lb. white day old crusty bread, sliced 1/3 lb. rye day old crusty bread, sliced

Technique: Mix everything except fish together and place in a Pyrex quart container with a lid.

Add the fish; refrigerate for 6 hours or more. Stir and serve with crackers or crusty bread and white wine.

Technique: In a bowl, sprinkle cukes with salt; set aside for 1/2 hour, until they “weep.” Drain well.

Mix in remaining ingredients; chill overnight, covered. Serve cold.

Technique: Get the grill ready for direct cooking over high heat. In the meantime, combine tomatoes with onion, vinegar, salt and pepper. Pour over this 1/4 c. of oil. Use another 1/4 c. of oil to brush both sides of each slice of bread. Grill on each side for 1 -- 2 minutes, until toasted. Rub both sides with the cut garlic, then dispose of the garlic. Cut the bread into bite-sized cubes.

Toss with vegetable mixture; add basil, and pour over the remaining 1/4 c. of oil. Serve as soon as possible!

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2 MAY 2016 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HOMES & GARDENS

By Judith Rodwin Special to HAKOL In the past, I’ve written gardening articles for HAKOL in the cold of winter when dreaming of summer, crops and gorgeous blooms is a healthy, inspiring pastime. This year, it’s spring. It’s almost, but not quite time to start hardening off the seedlings in my greenhouse, or under lights if you have them. The nurseries are just getting flats of pansies and other early plants. What to do while anticipating planting? I’m browsing through the garden books on my bookshelves. There is always more knowledge to be gained, more tips to remember, more experiences to learn and laugh about. And, one has to do something to keep out of the dirt prematurely. Although it will be May when you get this issue of HAKOL, it is not too late to incorporate anything mentioned here into this year’s gardening.

Issues on my mind include lists and design. The lists are simplest: keep track of what you plant where and when. I know that I will not remember year to year so I have spreadsheets on my computer with those three categories and, when I’m being thorough, a fourth “w” to tell me where a plant or seeds were purchased. If I’m really being compulsive, I’ll add a results category that includes when planted, when germinated if seeds, where in the garden and how well (or poorly) they did. A bit of trivia came my way while re-reading “The Essential Earthman” by Henry Mitchell. It seems that Thomas Jefferson kept lists down to when the first lightning bugs appeared at Monticello, May 8, 1798. I have never recorded the burst of lightning bugs here but I do know that the Spring Peepers came early in March this year only to burrow back into the mud with the freezing night temperatures. They did not sing again for nearly a month.

I am much more alert to the return of the migrating ducks (Hooded Merganser, reliably here second or third week of March) and my summer residents, the Great Blue Heron couple, who appeared with a dramatic swoop around the pond on April 17.

It always surprises me to look at old lists and see what actually happened in a previous year. For instance, two years ago nearly all my beautiful tomato seedlings delivered gross, bottom-rot tomatoes. It was a good thing that I had noted the location of the tomatoes so I was able to avoid those contaminated areas last year. Or, by reviewing old lists I see that I am attracted to certain repeats, some of which have done well, leeks and Sea Shell Cosmos and some, Ichiban, that have not. Why? Location? Soil conditions? Given the time it can be a very enjoyable and useful bit of horticultural sleuthing.

Birds, bugs and toads are all a part of the garden. They give us clues to overall and specific conditions. I overheard someone say that she thought all her tulip bulbs had been destroyed by the squirrels only to see them begin blooming the third week of April. The squirrels had not eaten them. If she had kept a list of when these tulips typically bloom, she might not have been so concerned. Or, if she usually hears Spring Peepers but had not during April, she would have realized that the nights have been too cold for tulips to bloom.

Design. “A Book of Gardening: A Practical Guide” by Penelope Hobhouse, published in association with The National Trust (Great Britain) is one of the most comprehensive and thoroughly British gardening books you can find. You can hear Ms. Hobhouse’s accent in her writing style so very, very English is she. And, since many of the British climates and growing conditions are the same as ours here in the Lehigh Valley, it is a very useful little book. If you have ever travelled to Great Britain you will know that the gardens, whether post stamp-sized ones in front yards or the grand estates, are lovingly designed to achieve a wished-for ideal look.

Structural planting is often the backbone or frame of the British garden. Whether walls or hedges, alleys or promenades, they are the product of design that creates the garden’s story. Of course, as Ms. Hobhouse points out, green “walls” of hedges or plants are much less expensive to employ than stone or brick. Practical as ever, she reminds us that we should select plants that “will make the most beautiful feature” and that will thrive in that particular site whether sunny or shady, sandy or loamy, wet or dry. If I am not sure, I always inquire about soil, sun, growing habits and on-going care of a plant.

We do have to be honest with ourselves about how much work we want to be committed to. The Hawthorne alley I have dreamed about for years, thank you Marcel Proust, is not going to happen. I do not have a full-time gardener, the expertise nor the energy to do it myself. So, I have replaced that big project with another from my wishlist: pink climbing roses over the garage. I think that is within my ability.

That raises the issue of what is feasible and what is not. The formal, highly structured gardens of the 1500s up to the turn of the last century depended on inexpensive labor devoted to their existence. They may be gorgeous, but most of us cannot manage them even on a small scale, even if we could find the gardener. So, along came cottage and kitchen gardens and naturalized settings. These are designed spaces that are beautiful, welcoming and manageable. I am struck by how unplanned and lacking in creativity most of our suburban front yards and gardens are.

Friends, go online and look at English cottage gardens, or Dutch or Chinese if that is your preference. English gardens are characterized by cycles of bloom and color giving you flowers to cut, to enjoy and even to dry for the winter. They require minimal maintenance once installed. The dense planting reduces the dreaded weeding. They are very kid-friendly bringing small creatures and birds along with the flowers close to home.

They work well when interspersed with vegetables. Have fun.

But, even these small gardens, sometime just a corner of color around the mailbox post, are designed, not haphazard. There are websites, apps, books and charts for your own design planning. Or, work with one of the very fine garden centers here in the Valley. If you are looking for a naturalized rural look, try Point Phillip Perennials in the northeastern corner of Northampton County (ppperennials.com). Think about the look you want and plan it. Make it your own. Go boldly and beautifully into summer!

“The Essential Earthman: Henry Mitchell on Gardening,” 1981 “A Book of Gardening: Ideas. Method. Designs: A Practical Guide by Penelope Hobhouse,” The National Trust, 1986 “Flower Drying With A Microwave: Techniques and Projects” by Titia Joosten, 1985 “Herbs How to Select, Grow and Enjoy”

by Norma Jean Lathrop “Well-Swept Herb Farm Gardening in the Shade”

by Harriet K. Morse 1982 HOMES & GARDENS | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | MAY 2016 3

Above, The artwork shows what mattered to the founders Left, Exterior view. Below, The original rose window still g the facade.

By Jennifer Lader Special to HAKOL You’ve driven past it countless times; maybe you never knew it existed, or maybe you remember from your childhood its stained glass with the sun shining through, the vent windows open for a spring breeze.

The original home of Congregation Sons of Israel, which was located at the corner of W. Tilghman and N. Sixth Streets in Allentown, has, since 1972, housed Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary Orthodox Church. Yet the building retains the original windows and some of its original mystique. The key to its continued existence resides perhaps in the spiritually-infused sanctuary, but certainly in the kitchen, where a dough mixer waits in one corner.

The BVM congregation of 150 people, descended from the Carpatho-Russian-Czech areas of Europe, hand makes 500 dozen pierogis for sale every two weeks at $6 per dozen.

“We have to keep the place going,” said the Very Rev. Protopresbyter Robert Rebeck, pastor of the church, during a recent privately-arranged tour. Its crowning jewels are the stained glass

4 MAY 2016 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HOMES & GARDENS

windows that run the length of the n and that grace the facade, visible fro a large rose window. Clearly proud church, Reebeck said with convictio will stay here.” The symbols to whic rah scroll, the Ten Commandment ta During the tour, Rabbi Emeritus lom Allen Juda at first puzzled over scales, but soon made sense of it: “O businessmen,” he said. “They want business.”

In 1902, the original congregants have come mainly from Vidukla in on which to build their synagogue. grandparents were founding memb there as a child. Though because of times sit with the men in the main a usually with the women upstairs, in with the girls all sitting in one area. there still; one, graced with the labe wonder about who once sat there.

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Above, Visitors on a private tour: Rabbi Allen Juda (seated) and Ruth Sachs Meislin with Pastor Robert Rebeck.

Left, One of the machines that helps keep the congregation going; a potato roller, used to make filling for pierogis.

s. graces

northern and southern walls, om indoors and out, with of the Jewish roots of the on, “Every symbol is here and ch he referred include the Toablets and the shield of David. s of Congregation Brith Shor one symbol, the weights and Of course! The founders were ted to emphasize ethics in

s of Sons of Israel, said to Lithuania, bought the site Ruth Sachs Meislin, whose bers, recalls attending services her youth she would somearea of the sanctuary, she was n what is now the choir loft, . The original pews are up el “7” inspires the visitor to

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Above, Interior views of the stained glass window. Left, Who sat in 7? An original pew, now in the choir loft.

Back then, Meislin and the other children knew of the existence of a mikvah in the basement, but to this day it is impossible to point out where exactly it was located.

The kitchen, however, is easily identifiable in its original location. “My mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother worked in this kitchen,” Meislin said with fondness. The appliances are vintage, and still in working order.

With help from Rebeck and his pierogi-producing congregants, the entire building has stood the test of time. They bought the building some years after Sons of Israel moved to its current location at 2715 Tilghman Street in Allentown. Though small for the burgeoning population of Sons in the 1950s, the original structure “was built so well that the furnace is in a vault,” as Rebeck said. The congregation added protective exterior coverings over the stained glass windows and has maintained the structure as best it can, though more comers for the pierogi sales would be most welcome.

For more information or to order pierogis from BVM Orthodox Church, located in the original Congregation Sons of Israel building, call 610432-0272.

HOMES & GARDENS | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | MAY 2016 5

Brith Sholom partners with Bethlehem farm to provide organic produce to those in need

By Stephanie Smartschan JFLV Director of Marketing Just down the street from Congregation Brith Sholom in Bethlehem sits Monocacy Manor, property of the School Sisters of St. Francis. The sisters acquired the land in 1947 – originally 124 acres – and after easements and selling a chunk to a developer, today about 40 acres remain in their possession.

“We wanted to make sure that what we did with the remainder of the property was sustainable,” said Sister Bonnie, director of the Monocacy Farm Project.

The sisters took a section of the property, enclosed it in deer fence and their organic garden began.

About half of the garden is farmed by a private CSA. A small section of community garden allows families to plant their own harvest. The rest of the garden relies on the work of volunteers and is overseen by Bob Drake, who produces lists of tasks each day for those wishing to help out. “Every day that it’s not raining, I will have work,” Drake said.

His harvest – focusing on staples like green beans and carrots – will all be donated to soup kitchens and food pantries across the Lehigh Valley, including Jewish Family Service.

“To be able to provide fresh organic produce to people who have such limited income, it opens them

PLANT JOY.

up to a lot of possibilities that they wouldn’t have in terms of their nutrition and their eating,” said Rebecca AxelrodCooper, community impact coordinator at JFS. After receiving a call from Sister Bonnie last year, Rabbi Michael Singer of Brith Sholom said his congregation was more than willing to help out.

“Our congregation is really fired up about it,” Singer said on a recent trip to the farm. “People need a diet that includes fresh vegetables and things that are nourishing to body and soul.”

In addition to contributing financially, Singer said he expects to have congregants out working the fields this summer.

“This ties with both of our religious traditions,” Singer said of the partnership.

“Getting people who care about humanity and the earth to work together,” Sister Bonnie said.

To learn more about the Monocacy Farm Project, visit www.schoolsistersosf. org under ministries.

Above, Bob Drake, Sister Bonnie, Rabbi Michael Singer and CSA manager Chris West. Below, the fields that will soon be planted at Monocacy Farm.

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Planting season presents tzedakah opportunity With a new refrigeration system and new drop-off location, Jewish Family Service is more equipped than ever to accept fresh produce this planting season.

“It’s really a very fundamental Jewish concept of tzedakah,” said Rebecca AxelrodCooper, community impact coordinator at JFS. “You set apart a side of your field and share with those that are less fortunate.”

“When you’re on limited income and have to make choices to really stretch, fresh produce is such a huge luxury,” she added.

“Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, potatoes, in the summer corn, anything fresh goes.”

Jewish Family Service’s Community Food Pantry serves 125 families per month and is open to the entire 18104 zip code and Jews throughout the Lehigh Valley.

Earlier this year, JFS purchased industrial-grade refrigeration and freezer space that will allow it to better store fruit, vegetables and other fresh items. The pantry will now even be able to order milk from the Second Harvest Food Bank, which it couldn’t do before.

And starting in June, the Jewish Community Center will be accepting donations of produce at its front desk.

“It came to our attention that the limited hours at JFS made it difficult for people who worked to drop off any donations, and in particular fresh produce to us, either if they had bought extra at the grocery store or are growing in their own garden,” AxelrodCooper said. “Since the JCC has way more hours and access to refrigeration, they have graciously agreed to partner with us.”

Non-fresh items may also be dropped off

6 MAY 2016 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HOMES & GARDENS

at the JCC in red labeled bins throughout the building. Fresh produce will be stored in the JCC’s refrigerators until JFS can retrieve them.

“People are getting back to wanting to know where their food comes from and grow it and experience it with their children,” Axelrod-Cooper said. “To take it to the next step and add the tzedakah component gives a lot of meaning. If you want to consider setting aside or planting extra, please keep us in mind.”

Where Judaism and the art of feng shui come together

By Jennifer Lader Special to HAKOL The mezuzah is on the doorpost, two candles will be lit for Shabbat. More than symbols, these are integral to Jewish life for so many. Adhering closely to Jewish practice can call into question adopting other traditions, even non-religious ones. Feng shui, pronounced fung shway, refers to an ancient Chinese art of arranging the objects in the home, or elsewhere, to best support the flow of energy, known as chi, through a space. There have been attempts to reconcile the two traditions, but these stop short of the way in which they truly dovetail.

In both Judaism and feng shui, placement of objects has a deeper meaning. The words on the scroll contained in the mezuzah serve as a reminder to Jews about responsibilities.

The candles are lit in welcoming Shabbat, the day of rest, setting it apart from all the other days.

Likewise, in feng shui, there is deeper meaning.

Space planning, furniture arrangement and decor are used to ensure a steady and moderately paced flow of energy, avoiding stagnation, for these are believed to be reflected in other aspects of life, such as love and family relationships, business and health.

There is an octagon, also represented as a ninecompartment grid, that can be super-imposed on a space of any size, from a large property or house down to a room or even a desktop, for some examples.

Clutter, broken objects or irregularly-shaped spaces are all signals that the corresponding life area may need to be “cured” as well. Every problem has a cure.

These can include additions of green plants, repair or replacement of broken items; stoves are seen as particularly important objects and the dining room and master bedroom are the key locations in the house.

Cure the space, fix the life area. This sounds like a link to Judaism, and indeed human behavior in general, between behavior and intention: Change the mindset and the behavior can improve; change the behavior and the mindset has at least a chance of changing.

Of particular concern in feng shui is that the arrangement of objects

promotes a feeling of security.

A cabinet that looms over a chair, a doorway that opens behind the line of sight of a bed, a front door at a T-intersection that has cars coming directly toward it are all perceived as threats, whether real or subconscious, and there may be parallels in life.

Having relationship problems? Get that trash heap out of the relationship corner of the property. Children giving you trouble? Place round white objects in the child area of the house (feng shui associates colors and elements with each of the life areas).

But is it disloyal, at best, or even wrong to incorporate the principles of feng shui into a Jewish household? Rivka Slatkin, founder of Jewish-LifeOrganized.com, doesn’t think so. She has as her aim helping people “make their home a place that is calm, beautiful and really functional for all members of the family,” which she recognizes as an important goal in feng shui as well. She goes so far as to find Torah sources that indicate “a possible reconciling with the art of feng shui: Objects in the Bays Hamikdosh had very specific positions they were supposed to be in. Shinui Makom, Shinui Mazal. Changing your place changes your luck.”

Jayme Barrett, author of

“Feng Shui Your Life” told The Jewish Journal in 2003 that, even though feng shui is an Eastern discipline, it is one that is wholly symbiotic with Judaism. As she explains it, objects like mezuzot fill the house with divine energy, and clearing out clutter is akin to ridding the house of chametz for Passover. “It means you are clearing away the objects that keep you enslaved,” the Journal reports her as saying.

“When you clear up clutter, you are also taking away the things that are depleting you, and then you can purposefully place items in your house

in a way that helps you move forward in your life."

Likewise, Rabbi Jonathan Lubliner writes in his blog that the mezuzah “can remind Jews to imbue their dwellings and relationships with a sense of wonder and gratitude for God’s gifts to us ... items guaranteed to enhance the Jewish chi of their home.”

What all three of them are getting at but not quite saying, and where the two traditions really come together, is in living with mindfulness: acting with purpose and shedding what is not helpful, fixing what

is broken -- whether stove or relationship -- and looking to respected ancient traditions for prescriptions or proscriptions. Whether this means observing the traditions of one or the other, or reconciling both, such thoughtful living bodes well for success in all areas of life.

HOMES & GARDENS | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | MAY 2016 7