And the Pesach races begin

Last night we switched the house over. My two big kids and I worked from right after havdalah until 1:00am. My husband folded laundry, lots of laundry, while the three of us cleaned and covered surfaces. I do need to mention how grateful I am that my daughter gave up a fun Saturday evening with friends to come home to work and that my son was, as always, a great sport and a great worker. My husband got through a veritable Mt. Everest of unfolded laundry

We carried dishes and pots out of their usual places, pulled the Passover dishes and pots out of their hiding places. The during the year dishes are now all hidden away and the Passover stuff is ready for use.

I rarely dream. Last night I had several dreams. All of them were Passover anxiety dreams. I dreamed that someone was painting the hallway next to the bathroom so I couldn’t get there to take a shower and start my day. I dreamt that the furniture in my apartment was moved so I couldn’t get into my kitchen. I also dreamt that I woke up so exhausted that I spilled coffee beans and coffee grounds all over my kitchen while attempting to make my morning coffee. I woke up to discover, with great pleasure, that none of my dreams had come true.

One of my cousins in Israel just quipped that he didn’t understand why anyone would like Passover. I actually love the labor involved in getting all of the elements of the holiday to come together. It isn’t that I am a glutton for punishment.

One of the words for worship in Hebrew is avodah . The common translation of avodah is work, labor. But as I get ready for Passover I think of all of the hours and hors of prep as part of the visceral understanding of the directive in the haggadah, “In every generation we need to see ourselves as if it were we who were liberated from Egypt.”

I see getting ready for Passover as the Jewish version of the Zen priests whose spiritual practice is sweeping the monastery courtyard.

This morning I got the soup going.

I can’t help but think about my father as I cook for Passover. The work in this soup is less the actual cooking but much more in the straining and squeezing out all of the vegetables and bones after the soup is done.

Here is the soup about half way cooked.

I cook the soup in the same pot my father used, a giant lobster pot.

The eggs for Seder are boiled. I plan to turn them into beet-eggs for the Seder plate simmering the cooked eggs in beet juice, sugar and vinegar and then letting the eggs marinate in the purple pickling juices for several days. The end result is incredibly beautiful, neon pink egg whites that glow next to the yellow egg yolks. Beet eggs were a discovery we made on a trip to Amish country a few summers ago. My kids suggested that our Seder plate eggs be beet eggs. I love the magenta egg on the Seder plate.I will make a few plain eggs for the guests who can’t stand beets.

I also made the chicken for one of the nights of Seder.

I made vaguely Indian chicken with turmeric, and cardamom, black pepper and cinnamon , onions apples and dates.

I have lots of work ahead of me. As I work I think about helping my parents do this very same work from the time I was a little kid. I think about how over the years my kids have become my work partners in this endeavor. I think about who will be sitting at our table this year, and who will not be with us this year.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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