It has started!!!!

 

It is official. The Passover races have begun. I have started this year, as I do every year with the annual stripping of the wax off of my kitchen floor. One of my sisters reminded me that her late father-in-law, the Jewish scholar, used to tell her every year that you don't eat off the floor during Passover. Although this task isn't a halachic requirement, for me it jump-starts my getting ready for the holiday.

We are changing the dishes on Saturday night but we need to hunt and gather food for the holiday. Today's adventure was to Moishe's Supermarket on Avenue M in Brooklyn.

Usually, I make the annual Brooklyn pilgrimage with my neighbor. ( I actually may go with ner next week as well) Today I went with my husband. 

Shopping at a typical Manhattan supermarket is something of a shock for those of you who live in the suburbs. Our local supermarkets are small and crowded. Moishe's is always something of a culture shock for me because it is so much more packed with both people and product than our Manhattan markets.  As crowded as Moishe's is during the year, before Passover, shopping at Moishe's is akin to an episode of Supermarket Sweep but with a couple of hundred crazed shoppers all shopping at the same time instead of only three pairs of shoppers. The closer you get to the holiday the crazier the experience.

Today the store was only medium-crazed. There are years when I felt like I needed a REALLY strong drink by the time I checked out.

We did not purchase the Chrayonnaise. Chrayonnaise is a product that my kids and I find incredibly amusing. My kids always dare me to buy it---just like I always dare them to buy the little snack packs of dried fish complete with little beady eyes at Asian markets. My son who has bugged me to buy this the most hates BOTH mayo and chrain (horseradish) and wouldn't put the stuff in his mouth but that doesn't stop him from asking me to buy it.

I did buy many, many packages of chicken bones for soup making, ( I stopped counting but it is something over ten pounds of bones), two large hunks of beef, chopped meat, hand made Shmura Matza, a giant horseradish root---but it was the smallest one there, some of the soup vegetables, lots of baking chocolate and some but not all of the stuff we need to make the holiday. Because how can one possibly get all of the Passover shopping done in just one stop?

Normally, Moishe's has meat from at least three different kashrut certifiers, (because not everyone trusts the same rabbinical authorities). This year I only saw two categories of meat, Weissmandl-glatt and organic. There may be some internal politics about meat certification in the frum community that I am not aware of.  I am satisfied with any of the meat certifications at Moishe's.

No, I didn't buy the boxed cakes because why would I want to serve month-old cakes to my guests? It seems like the holy grail of purchased cakes is a seven-layer cake. I discovered in a fit of laziness last year that it is much less fiddly to cut a jelly roll cake into stacked slabs than to fiddle with rolling it up. The cake base of a jellyroll is stupid easy to make, so there is likely a seven-layer cake on the dessert menu this year.

Because we no longer live with little kids I didn't have to buy the strangely gummy breakfast cereals that look like regular boxed cereal but are nothing like it. Unfortunately, Moishe's didn't stock the Manischewitz ground matza that they market as hot cereal. The matza is ground to a texture that is different from matza meal. It was made to be cooked like oatmeal or farina but my husband grew up just adding cold milk to it. When you add the cold milk to the matza cereal it turns into a bowl of grey concrete. My husband loves it. It is known in our household as "Pop's disgusting matza cereal" despite the fact that several members of our family are actually quite fond of the cold edible cement. If you come across a supply, let me know.

You don't have to be a clairvoyant to know that there will be lots of cleaning and lots of cooking in my life over the next many days. This year, unlike the last two years we will have several actual humans around the table.

This year I also have two tallitot and a Torah mantle to work on in the middle of all of Passover prep. I will take breaks from one kind of work to do other kinds of work.

Onward!