Then Passover comes along and any normalcy is ripped away to reveal my true nature: I'm an Eastern European Jew with a penchant for fatty food.
How did I become my mother, or, rather, my grandmother? How did I get so fascinated with the butchers at all the grocery stores in town, interrogating the staff about their briskets, the weights, when they're expected, and, by the way, they wouldn't happen to have a shank bone just laying around, would they?
Shopping for Passover is like being on the worst scavenger hunt you will ever be on in your whole life. I have a shopping list that looks like it was compiled in medieval Poland: fatty beef, liver, gefilte fish, eggs, potatoes, matzah, Kosher-for-Passover wine, horseradish, and, yes, shank bones. Then I take that list and try to find those items so I can spend days peering into large cauldrons skimming fat globules off the food I'll be excited to eat the night of our seder.
While I'm out on this quest, I run into the rest of the world. They're having somewhat more fun than I am. They are playing. I mean, I know they'll go to church on Easter Sunday, but before that happens, there's a good time to be had. They're dyeing Easter eggs, buying Easter baskets, eating chocolate bunnies, having Easter egg hunts, and buying their daughters lovely, pastel Easter dresses.
I find the last thing on my list, horseradish root - a gnarled mess in my medieval grip- and head for home.
Do you ever have to shop for things that seem a little, um, medieval? Scavenger Hunts at grocery stores? How are your Passover or Easter preparations going?
I'm lucky, someone else always prepares the Seder, I just attend with my offering for the occasion. Tonight it will be a large platter of roasted vegetables so I know there will definitely be something there I can eat! Chag Pesach Sameach. Hope you enjoy the fruits of your labor.
ReplyDeleteI am culinarily challenged and have never hosted a seder. And I always get assigned to bring things like salad. Happy Passover!
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, you didn't become your grandmother. She wouldn't have shopped for meat at "all the grocery stores all over town" - she probably shopped for meat at the local kosher butcher. Have a happy and kosher passover! Yossi
ReplyDeleteHappy Passover, Linda! The only remote comparison I have to this is trying to make gumbo when we lived in England. I was looking for okra..... and everyone looked at me like I fell off Mars when I asked for it. I also get funny looks here in the northeast when we have people over for dinner and I serve blackeyed peas. That is a normal staple for us, but apparently everyone here thinks it's weird.
ReplyDeleteugh easter.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong..I like easter.
BUT, the commercialization makes me ill.
It isn't about bunnies.
It's about Jesus dying and resurrecting.
Not about shoving chocolate in your face or slapping on fake nails that come in tacky prepackaged easter baskets.
I am tempted to boycott....
personally, since Jesus celebrated passover.
And passover is the celebration of the Jews escape from bondage in Egypt, and Jesus death was a means of our escape from hell..one would think we might celebrate passover.
Not commercial enough I guess.
Have a good passover and Thank goodness they haven't found a way to put blinking lights and pastel colors on it.
Grumpy grumperkins out...
Ugh,and ugh, and ugh. And as I am kvetching today (in a near professional capacity), let's just say that I didn't even mention the requisite visits to emptying aisles at local markets. I was too busy helping Cupid do his thing.
ReplyDelete:)
Happy holiday.
Hard to find Cadbury eggs on Martha's Vineyard, but that's hardly medievil, just cruel and unusual. I do go to church but I like my chocolate too; maybe I'm a pagan that way.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in NJ I loved Passover. Friends would share their matzah, and seders were interesting and fun. Happy Passover!
I totally forgot that Easter is coming up. I guess I should start planning, huh? ) :
ReplyDeleteI went through a period when I wanted to eat totally organically. I still would like to do it, but it is rough (not to mention expensive). So, yeah, I know a little bit how you feel. It was a nightmare just visiting a friend and they would offer up something to eat. I'd catch myself wanting to say, "Well, is it organic?" Odds are it wasn't. Eating out became a thing of the past so it wreaked havoc on my social life. Yah. I started to feel like a freak... but it was healthier!
ReplyDeleteWhen my twins made their first Communion, the class did a Seder. It was the most interesting thing I had ever experienced. I did not grow up Catholic but might as well have and did grow up in a town with plenty of churches but not a synagogue that I recall. Seder was different to me but so meaningful.
ReplyDeleteI go out on the grocery scavenger hunt all the time. I get some list in a magazine and tell the kids - "this is it!" and they run and hide. I love going to the butcher first, then the farmer's market (not all year here), then the grocery.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteCertain things about Easter are easier than others, but the time of Lent, the 40 days of preparation gives us an opportunity to reflect, a spiritual scavenger hunt, to help us prepare for this ultimate gift.
Some years ago, while my sister was preparing to be confirmed as an adult, our Parish prepare a Seder during Holy Week. I thought it was a beautiful way to remember Jesus' faith.
Hope you have a wonderful Passover!
Luckily there is no "traditional" meals I need to make as a Mormon (unless you count odd jello concoctions). In fact we have things in the grocery store we never need to look for. Wine, tea, coffee.
ReplyDeleteI need to get everything in place for Easter this week. I'm running a little late and with my family I have to boil 4-5 dozen eggs.
Hi Ellen, Happy Passover to you too! This has become one of my great ways of reclaiming Judaism for my family (the Holocaust, not surprisingly, nearly knocked that out). But cooking nonstop with my daughter for days I think leaves an impression of some type with her. Hopefully not of dread!
ReplyDeleteKaren at Waisting Time, thanks for the Passover wishes! And, trust me, I'm definitely culinarily challenged as well! But once a year, no restaurants, no take out, no husband cooking! Just me and the dreaded kitchen!
ReplyDeleteHey Yossi, thanks for visiting the blog. And wrong about the grandmother - she would have had the shochet come to the house to slaughter an animal. Remember, immigrant family! And don't worry, I went to the Chabad Kosher Store several times in my wanderings.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I could see how okra and England wouldn't be a match. But, then again, they eat blood pudding, so what do they know? ha ha.
ReplyDeleteChris, most Jewish holidays are pretty serious (the exception would be Purim, but when I read the Megillah, I think it's a pretty alarming holiday myself). The problem is, Jews just stop celebrating the holidays because there's no "lite" version. I love it myself. I do think the seder has a lot to say to all people about freedom and what we are enslaved to.
ReplyDeleteBLW, here's my new ugh: Linda can't be trusted around walnuts and they're in the charoset and the noodle kugel. My poor family. This year I deleted the sugar from all the recipes, next year will it be the nuts? After two nights of eating, ugh!
ReplyDeleteMaureen, funny about the Cadbury eggs! And funny how growing up with so many Jewish kids can make you familiar with the holiday!
ReplyDeleteWell, Amber, I'm not Christian or anything, but I'd certainly be getting my darling daughter one of those cute little Easter dresses!
ReplyDeleteRobin, it is so funny how we can drive our friends crazy! We have several dietary laws that we follow and just not eating pork in a pork-eating world can be a big problem. If you don't, you suddenly realize everything has pork in it! I can relate to the organic.
ReplyDeleteNicki, I do love when the kids go off helping me at the grocery store, especially instead of fighting there!
ReplyDeleteAnd the seder is so beautiful! My favorite part: the part that starts with "We were once slaves in Egypt." I love reading the story of Joseph.
Maria, that is so beautiful, the 40 days of Lent as a preparation, or spiritual scavenger hunt, for the ultimate gift, of Easter, right?
ReplyDeleteReally lovely.
Charlotte, here's my new rule of thumb when I'm cooking for Passover (since you brought up the egg issue): just buy two more dozen than I think I'll need. Every recipe needs eggs, and I mean like six of them! And we're not even painting them or hunting them!
ReplyDeleteAnd so funny about the aisles of the grocery store you never have to worry about!
Had a new natural foods store open by us this week, on Easter Sunday after driving home 8+ hours and visiting with the in-laws thought we would get some groceries for the week. Bad decision as they decided to close at 5pm because of the holiday....never really heard of anyone needing the night of Easter off before, I thought the usual activities of church, egg hunts etc were held in the morning.
ReplyDeleteMark, having all the stores be closed when you need them to be open is definitely a worse scavenger hunt than the one I was on! It can be disconcerting, when we've come to expect a kind of 24-hour world (or at least an 18-hour world) and find things shuttered.
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