Ahead of Schedule

One day before Seder typically imposes one of my longest task lists.  I begin shopping well in advance, but dairy certification for Passover usually doesn't arrive until the last minute.  Some items to be prepared for the Seder need defrosting about two days in advance.  Carpet shampoo squad comes at the beginning of the week, which requires me to move things off the floors, then replace most of them after their chemical application dries.  Food purchases not requiring refrigeration sit in heavy bags in the dining room, to be moved onto our tiled kitchen before the cleaners arrive.  They are not returned.  Our kitchen becomes a non-food place the day prior to Seder.  It's out for breakfast.  This could range from a restaurant to a grab and go at WaWa.  Lunch, if any, becomes a slice of pizza from a place that offers slices.  Dinner is set aside as a special time.  A family supper out with kids, wife time as empty nesters.  Most a family style chain, either national or regional.  I insist on craft beer, though, anticipating some deprivation during Pesach.

In between, tasks get divided between my wife and me.  She prepares our kitchen surfaces.  Sink, microwave, stove, self-cleaning oven, fleishig food preparation island, kitchen table.  I do the more physically demanding projects.  Cleaning the refrigerator, moving hametz appliances to the basement, and bringing boxes of stored Pesach needs upstairs to the kitchen.

My stamina has taken an age-related, or maybe health-related, toll.  I can make two round trips between basement and kitchen before resting.  That's a lot of trips.  Of the appliances that go downstairs, only the stand mixer has substantial weight.  Not so for things coming upstairs.  Some boxes laden with cookware and dishes challenge me with both weight and bulk.  In recent years, I do one of these, then for the second trip, tote two lighter boxes from basement to dining room.  The refrigerator is a project unto itself.  It only gets throughly cleaned annually, in anticipation of Pesach.  Contents removed.  Unsalvageable food discarded.  Shelves and bins cleaned.  Interior scrubbed.

This year, with Seder taking place at mid-week and OLLI on spring break, starting early became more realistic.  Food purged one shelf at a time over a few days the week before.  Vegetable and fruit bins scrubbed.  That leaves me with mostly usable food, a simple to clean cheese bin, the shelves and the interior.  At one time I did the interior with a sponge.  Now I use a sponge floor cleaner with handle, saving the sponge for the corners.  Shelves often need soaking, having intermittent spots of dried stuff, once sticky, now solid.  

For the dishes, as soon as the carpets dried, I went to work.  I did not count how many round trips I made.  Only two unusually heavy boxes challenged my physical capacity.  So at midmorning, I find myself well ahead of progress for previous years.  I started the kitchen table, a necessity as the refrigerator contents need to rest there while I remove the shelves, wash each individually,  allow them to dry.  Then scrub the interior.  Then replace shelves.  Finally, replace food, creating zones for Pesach and Hametz.  If I get this all completed before heading out for supper, it's been a successful effort.  Ahead of schedule.  Just the refrigerator to clean and food to sort.  Even though not yet complete, already I feel accomplished.

After darkness emerges, we have our formal Search for Hametz, arranged by my wife.  Then chill, with no loose ends, ready for the Seder preparation.  As a Bachor, or First-Born, I need to attend a Siyum to avoid a fast day.  Then washing dishes and preparing the Seder meal.  It's a second consecutive long day, one that does not conclude until very late at night when I return my guest to her home and drive back.  A second consecutive day of effort generated accomplishment. 

Pesach Anticipation

Megillah reading completed. Onward to Pesach.

This has been my central holiday, the season where my personal Judaism tops out.  Preparation, often with more than slight inconvenience or disruption, gets rewarded with a sense of having achieved something difficult.  Planning takes weeks.  Cleaning, Seder menus, shopping, who to invite.  Usually I am offered a portion of the synagogue ritual, typically one of the Torah readings.  Some physical work appears.  Bringing bags of groceries from the trunk into the house.  Hauling heavy boxes of dishes from the basement.  Washing everything.  Even kitchen time, something that energizes me, can challenge my stamina as I peel, grate, mix, and wash as I go.  Coffee cone and scoop gets opened first to allow me these respites.  

The nature of the holiday seems to be run up to Seder, where the peak occurs, then a gradual decline.  My Festival has a secondary peak, the intermediate Shabbos where I typically invite a guest or two for Friday night dinner, then have a Second Act performing in my kitchen.  Not to be this year, as the Sederim take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Shabbos begins the week's descent instead of a second but lesser peak.

My principal supermarket stocked its Pesach display before Purim.  All sorts of delactables, though I tend not to seek out the frivolous.  Instead I look for staples.  Matzoh.  Eggs.  Meats for main courses.  Chicken parts for soup.  Fresh produce gets purchased within a few days of seder.  Matzoh meal has versatility through the year and lower price when purchased Passover season.  I get enough to tide me through the year.  Cannot have Passover without macaroons, something I cannot realistically make myself.  Cannisters have given way to pouches, though I used those cannisters to store extra soup.  Some things priced themselves out.  Jarred gefilte fish has given way to frozen loaves, though even these now need a discount coupon to justify purchase.  Making my own from fresh carp with store grinding and harvesting of fish trimmings has passed from realistic.  I no longer buy jarred horseradish.  I can grind some from our maror, splash with vinegar, and enhance the gefilte fish slices that way.  I buy nuts, walnuts and almonds.  They become Charoset and nut cakes.

While the signature meals have a fleishig centerpiece, morning meals require dairy.  Certified butter.  There is a loophole that milk purchased before the holiday does not require certification.  As a result, many dairies no longer print certification labels on their plastic bottles.  Just have to buy enough before the holiday.  Cheese slices become a staple of breakfast, an expensive one.  Cream cheese exists but is hard to spread on matzoh.  A couple jars of jam, created from a fruit I would usually not buy, enhanced holiday mornings.  And eggs have versatility.  Figure about three dozen.

Maybe Pesach focuses too much on food, secondarily on purity.  I find the preparation more stimulating than the eating.  It can also be about people.  I reserve the Second Day for a congregation not my own.  The people there once provided an immense kindness to a Jew at the communal margins.  I learned a few weeks later that college students in attendance, people with futures on the rise, did their very best to bring this woman into the main loop for the evening.  There are other Festivals that focus more on Judaism's imperative to treat people in a sensitive way.  A lot of people rose to the opportunity for this woman.  The least I can do is show my appreciation by making a sparsely attended minyan more secure one of the Festival days.  To get one of my honored guests to my Seder also entails transport, two forty-five minute round trips.  This guest also has limited social capital.  We could arrange and pay for an Uber, I suppose, but reaching out to people has its inclusion early in the Haggadah.

Pesach has perhaps the unfortunate calendar coincidence with Palm Sunday or Easter.  It's also the change of seasons, when winter clothing goes to storage and summer wear gets unpacked.  We do not do special clothing shopping, though others do.  Looking your finest seems a bit goyish.  Seder is casual for us, though through American history it has not always been.  No ties.  My apron with the logo of the Iggles still in place as I serve dinner and conduct the ritual. We expect stuff to be spilled onto our clothing.  Synagogue attire without the finery of the Holy Days.  People attend to worship, not to be seen or to meet folks they've not met in a year.  

Anticipation firmly established.  Preparation in small aliquots, to be expanded as the calendar moves along.  Chores still in a mental framework.  Mind set on food.  My annual chance to have a special week.

Pesach Season

My invitation to do one of the Pesach Torah readings arrived.  The one selected I've done before.  It comes out on Shabbos this year.  I'm indifferent to making a commitment but I cannot defer a decision too long. Somebody else read that portion last year.

Other parts of the Festival are more difficult to bow out.  In many ways, my personal concept of a year centers around Pesach.  In the Jewish Calendar, the first command given to us as a people was to set the solar calendar to begin two weeks before Pesach.  For me, it has always brought a transition.  My birthday this year coincides with the First Seder.  Past my prime, but still able to prepare and execute the Festival with the right pacing.

The weekly Shop-Rite ad arrived in the mail.  It has a section on Pesach food, though the display aisle has had items for a few weeks.  I saw what's on sale.  A gefilte loaf.  I usually make one for Seder.  If discounted enough, I buy two.  Jarred gefilte fish too expensive.  Matzoh meal I use all year round.  The price comes down this season so I stock up.  Good deal with the coupon next week.  Macaroons.  Goodman's brand the best buy.  Usually I get four.  They no longer come in cans, something once very useful for portioning and freezing the chicken soup that I make in quantity.  I don't think I will get farfel this year.

The big dinners, two Seders and a yontif at the end is when I am most likely to have guests.  Shabbos, First Seder right after Shabbos, yontif Shabbos, and Sunday at the end.  This poses a challenge, though one I've experienced before.  It means I cannot poach pears for First Seder desserts but can for the final shabbos dinner.

Menus are almost programmed.  The Seder ritual specifies most items.  Charoset allows some flexibility but simple almond, apple, wine, with a splash of cinnamon has become quick and easy.  The entrée of default has become a half turkey breast, easy to season and roast.  Salad has a few ingredients.  I make a matzoh kugel, though I have a lot of potatoes, so maybe a potato kugel for Seder and matzoh kugel for closing shabbos.  Asparagus comes on sale.  So do chicken parts, thus from scratch chicken soup with matzoh balls.

Moving dishes upstairs from the basement should go easier this year, as I organized them better last year.  Moreover, the newly hired housecleaners will do their thing a few days before, in anticipation of the carpet cleaners who come for their annual shampoo a few days before.

I approach this spring, with the equinox still a week off, a little beaten down.  Pesach remains a challenge for me, an obligation to other people at home and at the synagogue.  I pull it off each year.  No reason not to rise to the occasion when this year's Festival arrives.

Disruptive

Pesach has been my look forward to Holiday since I could anticipate Seder someplace other than my parents' house.  That probably takes me back to college, when my future in-laws started making room for me at their Seder.  It took very little work as a student.  Meals were provided at Hillel.  Some years, spring break would coincide with Pesach.  I never scrubbed my home, nor did I own, let alone have space for, a second set of dishes until I married.  Cleaning a kitchen nook did not take much effort. Only after I moved into my own house, then raised a family, did Pesach preparation get a bit hairy, as it remains.  Even at my peak physical condition, the boxes with designated dishes, multiple round trips to the basement, and shopping took its toll. The carpet shampooers would come a few days prior to converting the house, so worldly goods needed relocation.  First Seder took place at my mother-in-law's, where she did the preparation until her physical capacity could no longer sustain this.  I had a small second Seder at my house, mostly for my own household.  For a few years, we had a Seder caterer arranged by my in-laws.  And I worked on Yontif through retirement. 

Some tasks always fell to me.  Cleaning the refrigerator, shopping, and preparing most of the meals along with toting boxes.  The kids helped, but not that much.  I always enjoyed meal preparation.  Eventually, the Seder preparation fell to me.  I would design the menu, prepare the food, place it in containers, then transport it to my in-laws.  Once my mother-in-law passed, leaving my sister-in-law as the sole occupant, it made for better efficiency and less stress on me to relocate the First Seder to my dining room, where it takes place now.  

And as empty nesters, I may not give the kids their due credit for their contribution.  

The tasks are mostly the same, but I notice them more as my physical capacity has followed an age trajectory.  I still make menus, prepare food, shop for ingredients, share in the round trip transport of my sister-in-law and wash dishes.  In retirement, some other tasks have made an appearance. I have no excuse to skip shul, which means I am a convenient Torah reader for one of the days.  I cannot just assemble lunch as the house gets cleaned.  It takes an effort to use up what has been accumulated, partly to avoid waste, partly to create room in the refrigerator and freezer.  By the final two days, if done well, food has been depleted.  I rarely eat lunch outside the home, if I eat lunch at all.  Now it seems a necessity to have one meal at a restaurant for each of the three days prior to Seder.  

There are some things that I've not had to do in a while.  My need for dishes, utensils, and appliances has long since passed.  Pesach's frequent overlap with Easter season most years invites stores to discount clothing.  I now only wear dress clothing to synagogue a few times a month, have given much of it away, and really do not need anything of a casual nature either.  On April 10 each year I put the cold weather clothing to storage and t-shirts and shorts to bins in my bedroom.  Some years Pesach is long-sleeve, sometimes short sleeve.  My birthday falls into that season.  Just my wife and me and some phone calls to mark the occasion.  Dinner sometimes modified for Pesach.  

With three days to Seder this year, a late date on the American calendar due to leap year on the Hebrew calendar, I find myself on schedule.  Shopping done except for a few produce items.  Start defrosting meat tomorrow.  Carpets cleaned.  Began moving Chametz utensils and appliances to the basement.  Have enough clothing to get me through the Holiday without doing more laundry in advance.  Mainly cleaning the refrigerator, transporting boxes, washing Pesach dishes as soon as my wife completes the tasks for kitchen conversion, then spend most of Monday afternoon cooking for the Seder.  A disruption of routine, but a purposeful one with a gratifying outcome.

Pesach Shopping

Specialty foods selected, about $160 worth.  Not yet including dairy which has not yet been certified, eggs which Pesach recipes require in abundance, and produce which has a short shelf life.

For a few weeks I have been poring over recipes, some sorted by internet, others from my considerable cookbook collection.  Only two big menus to prepare, the Sedarim which have roughly the same dishes each night, and shabbos Pesach, the times when guests join us.  For all the effort, though, it is the availability of products and pricing that drive the final menu.  Matzoh boxes have become shrinkflation, sold in four pound instead of five pound boxes.  Still discounted, 50 cents for each one pound box after the coupon.  Five pound boxes still exist, but their discount plays out at 80 cents a pound.  I don't think I ever use more than four pounds during the Festival.  Oils are outrageous.  Even EVOO which does not require special certification no longer has discounted brands on the Shop-Rite shelves.  Dates were reduced in price, so I could make Sephardic charoset this year, or maybe both my apple and date varieties.  Turkey half breasts reduced so that becomes the Seder entrée.  Almonds and walnuts purchased.  Nut torte for desserts. Dried apricots too expensive and I did not see Sunsweet prunes so tzimmes for shabbos Pesach will need to be reconsidered.  Jarred gefilte fish unreasonable.  Frozen loaves are a better buy and taste better.  I got two loaves of different brands.  Did not get jarred horseradish.  I think I will grate my own this year, unless I have an unopened jar from last year.  Found a shank bone.  They used to give one to each customer.  Now $4.  I have a turkey neck in the freezer since Thanksgiving, but I really like to have the shank bone on my Seder Plate.   Overlooked chicken leg quarters which are on sale and I need for making soup.  Go back for those, but room in the freezer is currently a bit tight.  Matzoh meal in big package.  I use it all through the year, and it is discounted now.  One jar of fig jam, discounted.  And once a year I buy the evil soda, the bottles with the yellow cap indicating sweetened with cane sugar.  Dr. Brown's a better buy than Coke or Pepsi.  And seltzer, some plain, some flavored.  Mix the plain with wine.  There are many processed foods now, candies, and jellies.  This is the only time of the year when I can get kosher marshmallows, not just with a kosher gelling agent but kitniyot-free for Pesach.  Can't beat that.  And canned orange segments brighten the salads.  I make my own dressings.  Would not even consider Passover cereal, though my family got it as a kid.  And no advantage to matzoh ball or latkes mix.  So my only serious omission was overlooking the chicken parts for soup, which can be purchased later.

A friend plans to shop for her Pesach needs in a larger Jewish town, either at a kosher megamart in Baltimore or a smaller one in South Jersey.  I share her impression that the local offerings have waned a bit since the pandemic.  But I have enough for all meals I need to prepare during the eight restricted ingredient days.  Get chicken parts later.  Dairy gets its certification a few days before holiday.  Trader Joe's has the best price on eggs each year.   And they have premium beef.  And produce at Sprouts or Super G is usually of better quality than what Shop-Rite offers, though priced a bit higher.

A few days off from the markets now that I have most of what I need, then complete the project in the coming week.

Pesach Menus

My kitchen has established itself as my source of recreation if not creativity.  I've collected cookbooks, kosher and general pretty much since receiving my first paycheck.  When I first subscribed to cable TV, the Food Channel became a staple, though no longer is as instruction from experts waned in favor of endless competitions.  The internet brought searchable recipes, refined by keywords from kosher to Valentine's Day to dessert.  The cookbooks are not obsolete, though, as they reflect what masters with skills far exceeding mine have tested and thought about.  

A few times a year I plan and toil more than others.  Thanksgiving with its traditional tastes.  Always roasted turkey.  Always sweet potatoes, but not always presented the same way.  Wife's birthday, elegance for two.  Shabbos dinner with guests, elegance for four.  The sukkah, a confined space.  And the annual challenge of them all:  Pesach or Passover.  This Festival has its blend of ritual, dietary restrictions, sharing with guests or in my younger years being a guest, and imagination.  Thinking and discussing some concepts of Freedom, still part of our political discourse today.  And we discuss obligations, as we are mandated certain things like eating matzoh, drinking wine, and tasting bitterness.  Imagination also entails creativity, making those foods on the permitted list with special presentations to reflect abundance amid restriction.  The absence of bread does not have to convey deprivation.

My kitchen gets scrubbed, unpermitted foods sold by my Rabbi acting as my agent, and my largest grocery bill generated as I select some mixture of need and want with significant price markups.  Matzoh in a five-pound box.  Matzoh meal.  Some specialty dairy and candy.  Macaroons as a quick snack.  Even soda made with cane sugar, the only time of the year when this appears as an acceptable grocery purchase.

The Festival lasts eight days.  The first two evenings and the last two are formal Festivals, with the Friday night during the Intermediate Days presenting another occasion for a special dinner.  As a practical matter, by the final two Festival evenings, people are pretty tired and tend to try to finish up what they've prepared earlier in the Holiday.  So the culinary challenges really appear for the first two nights devoted to ritual Seders and to shabbos dinner.  

The Seders, or Sedarim in Hebrew, have some specified eating obligations.  We drink four cups of wine at designated times while we recite the story of our collective and personal redemptions from Egypt in a monograph called a Haggadah.  Parsley is dipped in salt water.  We recite a blessing over a wad of raw horseradish sweetened with an unspecified amount of a fruit-wine-nut blend called Charoset.  We eat not only matzoh, but pieces from specified parts of the three boards which we set out on our tables.  And though not part of the Haggadah, many communities including mine begin the supper portion with a hard boiled egg sitting in a puddle of salt water.  None of this requires a recipe search, other than Charoset whose contents vary by regional tradition.  Being of Eastern European ancestry, mine is a mixture of shredded apples, ground almonds, and kiddush wine with a splash of cinnamon.  Other places use dried fruits such as dates, apricots, or figs as the base.  In America, where we embrace multiculturalism and live in prosperity, Eastern European families will make their Charoset from the more expensive though flavorful dried fruits, though I go for my more economical tradition.

Much like Thanksgiving, the menu often reflects compromises between traditions that do not change from one year to the next and with creativity.  Kosher cookbooks invariably contain a chapter with recipes in compliance with Passover's dietary limitations.  My own Seder preparation grid has eleven categories:

1. Charoset
2. Appetizer
3. Soup
4. Matzoh Balls
5. Salad
6. Dressing
7. Entree
8. Kugel
9. Vegetable
10. Dessert
11. Beverage

Cookbooks and web searches yield ample possibilities but over decades my own basic pattern has declared itself.  Ashkenazi Charoset.  Gefilte fish for seder, usually for shabbos as well, though a stuffed vegetable will sometimes make a good shabbos substitute.  Chicken soup, homemade.  Composed of chicken parts, carrots, celery, onion, pepper, maybe a turnip, maybe a kosher for Passover bouillon cube, all boiled in my biggest and oldest stock pot for hours. That chicken will fall off the bones, only to reappear as chicken salad or stir-fry the final two Festival nights.  Matzoh balls have multiple variations.  The matzoh meal box has the basic recipe of eggs, fat, and meal in a basic proportion.  I like to add some club soda, maybe some parsley to the batter.  Others like to add ground nuts.  Some people stuff the matzoh balls with ground beef.  My fat is vegetable oil.  Others opt for chicken fat, known as schmaltz.  I boil mine separately in water, then add to the soup.  Others add their uncooked balls directly to the simmering soup.  And how many to make and of what size?

Salads are one of those uncommitted variable dishes.  Vegetables other than legumes and rice are permissible.  Mine can be tomato-based, cucumber-based, lettuce or cabbage-based.  Some make beet salads, but not everyone likes beets, though borscht is also a Passover soup classic with a large contingent of enthusiasts.  Indeed, the college caterer used to serve a small bowl of borscht with a boiled potato during the Intermediate Days.   Dressings come bottled, but vinaigrettes are easily created with olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and seasonings.  Mustard to create an emulsion is not permitted.  My salads tend to be simple:  Israeli with several diced vegetables or cucumber with thinly sliced onion.  Lemon juice and salt and parsley complete the taste.

It is the entrees that showcase the effort and the planning.  Realistic choices are beef and poultry.  For a crowd, which Sedarim often have, a whole turkey takes the least effort relative to yield.  Brisket comes in different sizes.  Many families center the meal around that, a display of taste and generosity, as a five pounder could run a multiple of what a whole turkey costs.  But they will each serve both Sedarim.  Smaller attendance opens more options.  There is whole chicken, chicken parts, turkey breasts. small briskets, tzimmes made with beef or lamb cubes, rib roasts, and stuffed veal breasts.  The price of crock pots, air fryers, and Insta pots has declined to where people can purchase one only for Passover use. While the number of guests drives the final selection, appliance availability also needs reckoning, as most people only have one oven and four stove top burners to spread over several dishes. The soup will occupy one of the two large burners for a very long time, as will a whole turkey in the oven.  Matzoh balls, and made from scratch gefilte fish also use up considerable stove top.  

Starches take several forms.  Some cooks just make potatoes or tzimmes as the side dish.  This being a time dedicated to matzoh, kugels or puddings based on matzoh have become popular.  Some people opt for the easier potato kugel.  Whatever form, the kugel has a starch base mixed with eggs.  Additives such as carrots or mushrooms give character.  Potatoes are moist, but matzoh needs to be reconstituted with either water or a few ladles of chicken soup from the stock pot.  Most are baked, some are done stove top.  Sometimes the matzoh kugel becomes matzoh stuffing for the poultry entrée.

  

Vegetables could be anything.  Seasonal items go on sale, in my region, asparagus is discounted most years.  Carrots are versatile with boiling, roasting, and glazing.  Green beans are the only beans permitted.  Many a Bar Mitzvah caterer includes green beans with sliced almonds on the dinner plate, something acceptable for Passover.  And beets are sweet, though not universally liked.  More adventurous people may opt for artichokes, a staple at an Italian Seder table.

Dessert is another branch point, a restricted one as dairy is not permitted with a meat meal and flour not permitted with any meal.  Eggs become the agent to allow products to rise.  Finely ground matzoh or potato starch become the sources of substance, and ground nuts add bulk and flavor.  Fruit desserts such as sorbets or poached pears are popular.  I find nut cakes tasty and reasonably straightforward.  Others prefer sponge cake, which seems like a waste of yolks unless repurposed to crème brûlée for a dairy meal.

And beverage.  The Evil Coca-Cola.  Tea, plain or mint.  Club Soda laced with Manischewitz.  KP wine.  

So I find myself at pluripotent menu planning with a lot of uncertainty.  I think it better to set the menu, then shop, though others would advocate for food selections to drive the menu.  My grid has a lot of open squares, both for Shabbos and for Sedarim.  Recipes from kosher sites and my kosher books are all suitable.  Recipes by popular cooking magazines do much less well at maintaining within the Pesach and Kashrut boundaries.

And I have to wash all dishes before starting and afterward.  So tentative:

1. Kiddush wine
2. My usual apple-almond charoset
3. Boiled Frozen Gefilte Loaf with grated fresh horseradish
4. Chicken soup in my stock pot
5. Matzoh balls seasoned a little differently than before, boiled in water, never in soup
6. Cucumber Salad
7. Half-turkey breast
8. Matzoh Kugel a la White House Seder
9. Carrots sweetened in some way
10. Almond torte 
11. Evil Coca-Cola with the yellow cap

And consider shabbos later.

Turkeys

Thanksgiving and Seder have been my two most anticipated annual events for most of my adult life, at least my independent adult life in homes that I could call my own with kitchens that I controlled.  Since I covered the hospital every Christmas for my medical colleagues, I could always count on Thanksgiving as a free day.  Most years everyone assembled at my in-laws for both Thanksgiving dinner and Seder.  While living several hours distant as a medical resident, I tried to secure vacation time to allow the travel to their home for these holidays, succeeding about half the time.  Eventually we settled about an hour's drive away, raised my family, bundled everyone in the car.  As my in-laws became less able to prepare dinner, I began doing it, transporting the food to their home twice a year.  Once my sister-in-law became the sole occupant and my wife and I adapted to being empty nesters, the two elaborate dinners relocated to my kitchen and dining room.

Thanksgiving still has turkey as its centerpiece.  Seder once did as well, though with few people there are better entrée options, particularly things that my sister-in-law would not be able to obtain on her own with limited mobility.  

Turkey comes in a number of forms now, likely a commercial adaptation to smaller gatherings with families geographically scattered and smaller households.  While nothing beats that glorious whole roasted bird, bronzed skin as the olive oil coating and seasonings transform in a hot oven, it is not always practical.  Turkeys are now sold just as breasts, though at a premium per pound price.  I've not seen the legs sold separately, at least not for kosher turkeys.  No doubt, the booth operators at State Fairs around America purchase those legs, which they deep-fry and sell in large amounts.  I have seen turkey cutlets, boneless dark meat.  For four guests or less, and even for some Shabbat dinners with just my wife and me, I will purchase a breast half.  Very easy to make, just oil, season, put in a roasting pan or even a very large skillet, and let it roast for 90 minutes.  Carve with electric knife.  Eat what people can eat, give the rest away to guests or freeze for a subsequent shabbos.

But I still prefer having more people, enough to justify the Big Bird, my anticipated circumstance this Thanksgiving.  Turkey, even kosher turkey, was once an economical option.  It sold for under $2/lb, usually Empire frozen, mass-produced.  And they salted it before freezing, as kashrut requires.  Supermarkets would give them away if you bought enough other things at that store, or drastically reduce the price as a loss-leader to sell more profitable stuffing and pies.  Not so anymore.  Price now about $3.50 or even $4/lb, which would make a 15lb bird about $55.  And the selection has faltered the past few years.  While it is tempting to assign blame to the supply chain failures since the pandemic, kosher turkeys are raised and slaughtered in just a few places that do not require international shipping or sophisticated rail transit.  My main supermarket, Shop-Rite, has only frozen kosher turkeys, and at a look at their freezer, far fewer choices than they once offered.  Most are quite large, in the neighborhood of 18lb.   I only saw one under twelve pounds, something more appropriate to a small gathering.  Trader Joe's has better stuff, in a private arrangement with Empire.  Their turkeys are not frozen, or once were and pre-thawed by the retailer.  Virtually all are of uniform size, about 15 lb. And they sell out fast.  Last year they were all gone before I was ready to purchase, so this year I got one as soon as they went on display.

I moved some things around on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator to accommodate its bulk.  It will stay there until Thursday morning when the plastic wrapping can be cut, usually a fair amount of liquid drained, and a roasting pan prepared by scattering some past prime vegetables around its perimeter.  Place a rack in the middle.  Put in turkey, maybe put something in the cavity.  Coat with olive oil, season with whatever catches my fancy Thursday morning, pre-heat oven, and make it the final dish that needs the oven.  Some food mavens recommend rotating the turkey periodically, which I do as well.  But mostly it's set the timer and wait for it to reach its conclusion, check the thigh temperature for completeness, then let it rest.  

It's gotten more difficult to obtain, more expensive to purchase.  But still the Thanksgiving dinner of choice.

Pesach This Week

Pesach has been my favorite Festival, at least for my adulthood.  It's a form of boundary.  It's a form of reset.  The preparation always ends with an inner sense of having accomplished something important.

Some preparation begins weeks in advance.  Who's coming for Seder or Shabbos?  What to cook has been a more recent phenomenon, done for me in my school years, Seders done by my in-laws until my mother-in-law's health made her unable to do this.  Now I plan menus in advance, adapted to the number of people present.  

We have cleaning in the few days preceding yontif.  Refrigerator is the big one.  Carpets cleaned professionally, sometimes living room furniture too.  I try to wash the floor, succeeding most years.  Dishes need to be brought upstairs from basement storage.  The heavy boxes become more of an effort each year, but I manage.  Fleishig washed first, as needed for Sederim.  Shopping generates my largest grocery receipts of each year, as certified foods go into the cart, I am willing to spend a little extra on meat to offer to guests what may be unrealistic for them to obtain on their own for one or two-person households.  I don't particularly like plush, but Seder becomes sort of plush.

And then yontif arrives.  Logistics.  Getting to siyyum so I do not have to fast as a firstborn.  Transporting my sister-in-law.  Preparing a multicourse repast with ritual elements.  Cleaning up as I go and fast enough to exchange the sink to tackle needed milchig dishes the following day.  Defrost in ample time what needs to come out of the freezer.  Knowing what dishes need the oven and which need the stove top.

And synagogue, not always my favorite destination, and at least one day not my home congregation.  I have some utility there, Torah and Haftarah reader this year, Bachur in a congregation that has no Levites, so a default to assist our Kohanim with their congregational blessing.  Perhaps dress a little nicer, bring out some of my spring clothing, though never compete with Easter finery.

Festival on its way, the week's dominant event.

Pesach Approaching

Purim never got me all that enthused.  I heard Megillah, sometimes even did part of the public reading, and chuckled at the spiel jokes which squeezed out some people's creativity.  I would munch hamantaschen for the next week.  But personal immersion would have to wait for Pesach, that time of transformation.  The house got vacuumed, the carpets shampooed.  Food restrictions made me creative and an obligation to provide for a family seder kept me dedicated.  I become a planner and a doer. 

Realities of the calendar make this year's festival either a special challenge or a Pesach orgy depending on how well I absorb the tasks.  It comes after daylight savings time so ritual meals might be on the late side.  It also starts at mid-week putting first seder Wednesday night, second Thursday. Then Shabbos the following day, Yom Tovim Tuesday/Wednesday nights, then Yizkor on Thursday and the next shabbos the following evening.  And my birthday comes out during Chol HaMoed.  And First Seder needs to be transported to my in-laws.  That's a lot of meal planning. 

Meal planning has an interesting upside.  Shop-Rite has an array of food available, most expensive and with the health consequences of endlessly processed food.  By forcing menus, shopping can be more targeted.

I start with Seder, then shabbos Pesach.  Some comes essentially defined.  There's the Seder Plate with only the Charoset getting a recipe.  Chicken soup with Matzoh Balls.  Variable from there.  And with the Second Seder starting rather late, the meal will be less elaborate, largely a continuation of the First Seder.  Shabbos poses a challenge, preparation coming during yontiff.   Simple but different.

By the closing days, I'm shuled out, kitchen and dishes beaten, and just want to do kiddush and count Omer.  Started exploring some recipes while my anticipation is at a peak.

Pesach Prep

Pesach remains my favorite holiday, even though it requires the most effort, or perhaps because it requires the most effort.  While the origins are communal, the celebration comes across as more family, gathering for Seder at the beginning and reciting Yizkor at the end.  Refrigerator purges of the inedible that should have been done some time ago.  Even cleaning the car and cutting my scalp and facial hair in anticipation of unchallenged growth between Seder and Lag B'Omer.  Good Friday has been a day off from work so I make an elegant shabbos Pesach feast, usually with guests.  Menus are semi-creative, merging seamlessly with the more prescribed components of ritual.  It always offers me a sense of accomplishment and a sense of separation from the rest of the year.   It also requires a measure of restraint to keep from becoming a fanatic, to maintain perspective.  So preparation has started, two weeks in advance.  The kitchen counters have been sorted if not fullh harvested.  Some things like the two beer growlers can go downstairs today.  Fleishig goop purged from refrigerator and their containers have been washed.  Kitchen cart next.

Seder coincides with my Good Friday off so I will be preparing the food, some traditional, some new, some dependent on what might be on sale.  Have not bought new clothing, and probably won't. Shul plans uncertain, Yizkor probably at AKSE.  Maybe one of the other Yom Tovim too.  Usually do not have many of those irritating Torah interruptions on Yom Tovim.  Since it comes on a three day weekend workwise, I will also have to see patients, probably at the mid-point.

Menu in general:  Plate:

1. ZRoah
2. Maror
3. Charoset
4. Baytzah
5. Carpas
6. Chazeret
7. Orange

Matzoh

Wine

Salt Water

Hard Boiled Eggs

Appetizer of some type

Home made chicken soup with Matzoh Balls

Salad of some type

Poultry, type depending on the price of turkey

Matzoh kugel

Cabbage with apples

Some type of dessert

Tea, Soda

Afikomen

Worth the effort

Pesach Prep

Pesach this year largely spans the weekend for Yom Tovim.  Sedarim are Friday and Saturday nights, the concluding days are Friday and Saturday.  Moreover, Good Friday precedes Seder to allow a more leisurely entry than most years.  I will still need to sneak in an afternoon of patient care somewhere during the three days. Friday before Seder may work best for me as I have my own Seder to arrange Saturday night but little to do in advance of the first Seder.

In my preference for Jewish Holidays, Pesach usually comes first.  I find it a form of separatism, some preparation that seems arduous in the process but satisfying as a form of accomplishment once the festival has begun.  It has been a time for a family to assemble in one place, at one time the gantza mishpacha on my mother's side going so far as to rent a space for cousins and second cousins to gather.  I've been to large Sedarim in college and some so limited in attendance to my wife and me.  I try to sneak in a little learning before the holiday and some during the holiday.  For an entire work week I do not have to go to the doctors lounge for coffee, yet I never feel deprived of not having any.

Services for the Yom Tovim have been a mixed bag.  As a Bachor, or first-born, I am expected to fast the day of the Seder but there is an exit strategy by attending minyan then finishing a section of Talmud.  On work days I usually just fast, but this year with the day off I will more likely attend the tziyum.  Among my fondest memories of this were the tziyumim at the JCC Spring Valley during my teen years where there was a real discussion of a real tractate followed by breakfast with authentic local bagels and a good deal of camaraderie among first-born friends and their first-born fathers.  That has not been duplicated in Wilmington though the occasion probably stands on its own.

Usually Daylight Savings Time has begun before Pesach arrives so the sedarim can be quite late, particularly the second which cannot begin until after the first day yom tov concludes.  Not having to go to work the next day helps but there are a lot of groggy looking folks in shul.

Dietary restrictions add to the sense of separation and for myself and generations before reflect a challenge in creating treats amid limited availability of raw materials.  there are classics like matzoh brei and cremslach and macaroons.  There are matzoh kugels that would be wonderful anytime but special this season.  And there are new recipes to try out.  Most years shabbos Pesach coincides with Good Friday which remains a semi-secular holiday for the local companies and medical enterprises and schools.  With a day off and Pesach usually under way, I try to have dinner guests that evening and make something special.  Even though this year is a little out of sync, I will try to do the same.

Pesach is food and people and pageantry and effort, all worth it.

Passover 2011

Less than an hour until the closing days of yontiff.  I did not get to take the yom tovim off due to obligations of the new job but I got a long weekend for Good Friday, one of the fringe benefits of working for the Catholic Church.  I recycled my Bar Mitzvah Haftarah for Shabbat HaGadol, had a relatively placid though late First Seder with the G's but without Bob and Stanley.  Second Seder a sedate and minimal frills effort, just Irene and me.  Good Friday a little stressful making dinner and trying to keep from having to drive to Mercy for an urgency that could have been easily handled by telephone.  Shabbos morning at AKSE where my shacharit went OK though a little off-form perhaps, the Rabbi got miffed when the Cantor departed the Bimah for the mixed Shir Ha-Shirim, a quiet not too stressful afternoon at the hospital on Saturday afternoon and a restful Easter Sunday.  There was a fair amount of stuff open but I did not stop anywhere except the Gulf Station.  I needed the rest.  Next long weekend not that far off, Memorial Day.