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.

Coffee Downstairs

One of the curious Pesach deprivations for me has been to declare My Space chametzdig.  I never clean it.  Rarely do I eat there, but not never.  And I drink coffee in the morning and on many an afternoon a tumbler of ice to which about 50 ml of bourbon or scotch is added, then sipped while I type at my laptop.  The room is chametz.  As a result, during Pesach, I do not bring anything edible here.  I keep a special Melitta cone for the Holiday along with a fairly elegant stainless steel one-tablespoon scoop.  Filter in cone.  I bought a pack of 100 a few years ago, use maybe 15, wrap and store the rest between years.  Two scoops of commercial canned coffee in filter paper, then drip boiling water to fill a cup.  A splash of milk. Do this twice a morning.  However, I have to drink it in the kitchen.

My cell phone would get me to the internet but I leave it upstairs.  I could transport my laptop to the kitchen but table space is tight.  So I drink the coffee at the kitchen table without connection to the rest of the world, except for the radio tuned to the classical station.  To accommodate this, I've moved my morning medicines to the kitchen table to ensure full adherence.

A disruption for sure, though a petty one.  Four Pesach days are Yontif, one is Shabbos, so there are really only three days in which I am separated from my laptop while I sip coffee at the kitchen table.  My dependence on my morning habit, now well entrenched, just makes it seem more burdensome, though the rest of the year I still take morning coffee, made in the Keurig Express, to my desk, shabbos and yontif included.  The laptop stays closed, but instead I scan my whiteboard with its semi-annual projects list and my weekly initiatives to pursue those goals.  Coffee to accommodate Pesach downstairs has a different feel.  Restrained, confining.  Certainly when I travel, I also have morning coffee in a different pattern, whether at the hotel's buffet, a restaurant, or sometimes from a dispenser that I bring to my room or a public lounge.  That never registers as inferior.  Pesach coffee at the kitchen table, made without the Keurig Express generates a different experience.   A lesser one, though a temporary one.

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.

Post-Pesach

A few demarcation points passed.  Pesach, birthday, hopefully self-limited respiratory illness, taxes filed.  Dishes away, kitchen not fully restored to function.

I feel a little tired, maybe even notably despondent a few days, though not in a disabling way.  Pesach begins Omer.  For some reason I remain committed to the daily count, maybe to convince myself that I can do it, though maybe to focus myself of spring which generates its own post-Pesach initiatives.  My garden is no longer part of my semi-annual projects, nor is monthly financial review or date generated donations, though they continue.  It's the week that determines the vegetables and herbs I would like to have later.  Each of the last few springs I review scholarship applications for the Delaware Community Foundation.  It helps them and it engages me.  I have a Torah Talk to present, maybe the only meaningful invitation I will get from my own congregation this year.

Warmer weather shifts my wardrobe to lighter clothing with more exposed limbs.  An exchange needs to be done.  I've not been fishing at the better but more distant state ponds, since losing one of my rods on their pier.  That needs revival this spring, though not likely this week.

This semi-annual cycle has about ten weeks remaining.  Have done mostly better than other cycles with some focus needed for the languishing ones.  And for the first time in a while, I think my focus has been better. 

Chol HaMoed

Awkward Pesach Schedule this year.  Th-F-Sa yontif-shabbos, then Su-M-T window for some work, then W-Th yontiff.  Within that window I have to write a presentation that sort of depends on maybe a form of activation energy to get started but once in place it moves ahead.  The initial catalyst has been slow in appearing, but that's the focus of this three day stretch.  And once done, it's done.  Gardening is not appropriate to the Intermediate Days, but keeping what is already planted alive probably is.  So is packing things only used the first two days of yontif, like Seder designated items or my oversized soup pot.  In the middle I have my BD, a yontif event with a Torah reading to do and a sort of festive meal to arrange.

Taxes need signing and delivery of authorization to file returned to our CPA.  And an OLLI schedule selected to be minimally impacted by Pesach, but with superimposed endoscopy, I missed more sessions than anticipated.  But only one scheduled during Chol HaMoed itself, which I should be able to attend.

I've depended on Pesach more than I should to serve as a mood demarcation point.  I have some very tangible things to do like cleaning, changing dishes, challenging meal preparation, some AKSE activities, this year my birthday, sometimes tax filing.  I've not gotten that elevation this year, that inner accomplishment, despite feeling as well physically as I have in a while.  Perhaps I just need a relatively big achievement, starting with my presentation, then expanding to bigger.  

Two Boxes at a Time

Day before Seder requires some pacing.  My big projects are two.  Clean the refrigerator and move the things we need for our Festival upstairs from the basement.  I also take a few things better removed from the kitchen downstairs, intending temporary storage there for a week that often extends much longer.

I got a big head start on the refrigerator this year.  Cleaning all three bins, fruit, a usually goopy vegetable bin, and a mostly tame cheese bin.  Beneath the produce bins, crud accumulates.  Much of the day before Seder cleansing involves removing that dried on coating, then some detergent.  This year I started well in advance, cleaning it with a combination scouring sponge and a floor sponge mop that now needs to be replaced.  That leaves me now with the shelves, four half-width variable shelves and a more elaborate and fragile full width lower unit, which I once shattered.  Then a detergent or Formula 409 sponging of the interior walls.  Returning items, separating what we can use on Pesach falls to my wife.

As I approach another birthday this Pesach, past the mandatory Social Security draw but not quite to the mandatory IRA withdrawal, I'm grateful for the ability to move all the boxes upstairs, though I have to pace myself two excursions at a time.  I like to do the heavy ones first, though not always practical as lighter items occupy space above the heavier ones.  The really heavy stuff has been retrieved but a fair amount of moderately heavy remains.  Two trips at a time, then let my smartwatch announce my pulse, then rest, then two more.  I try to do fleishig first as they have a more defined resting place in my dining room, but the effort of toting upstairs really has more importance than what the box contains.

Did today's scheduled treadmill at desired intensity, the project I am most likely to make excuses to defer, especially after lugging things up from the basement offers the illusion of exercise.  Get dressed, maybe get a bagel or something for a late morning snack, a couple more boxes before I go.  Night before Seder has been an eat out tradition as well, focus more of filling than elaborate.  Then formal search for Chametz with planted bread chunks after dark.

Not a recreation day, but one where chores all get done when properly paced.

Ice Cream Sundaes

Going out for ice cream, most commonly a hot fudge sundae, used to be a much more frequent treat than it has in recent years.  It was a destination in its own right.  Huff's of childhood, or Howard Johnson's.  Steve's of Sommerville.  A place where we vacationed.  The Charcoal Pit or Friendly's near home.  Largely undone by Adam Smith's correlation with price and demand.  Carton ice cream often went on sale.  I could whip my own whipped cream.  Ben & Jerry's brought premium ice cream home.  And the ice cream shop prices exceeded my willingness to indulge.  No hot fudge sundaes.  Milkshakes, which I could also make at home though with bothersome cleanup, went from those scooped and whirred to some fast food premix recipes at a lower price.  And even those largely disappeared, again price the main driver, though with some health concerns considered as well.

While gathering for a sundae offered a culinary treat, we rarely did it alone, except maybe a car stop at Dairy Queen.  It was an outing, a special treat with my fiancee-->new wife that had a ritual of a significant walk together then a long line then seeing what Steve made that day.  With kids, watching them choose at the Charcoal Pit.  The inflated price of the food balanced with the investment in togetherness.

With Pesach approaching, I have used up as much prohibited food as possible, shopped for what I can eat and serve to guests, and focused on cleaning the eating areas of my house.  Spring arrives at about the same time, though premature to exchange winter clothing in the closet for summer clothing in temporary storage.  Thought I'd go out for a sundae with my wife.  Not done this in ages.  Charcoal Pit is the local classic destination, so that's where we went.  A bit more expensive that expected from their online menu.  It' a favorite of Pres Joe, who recommended the place to his boss Obama during a Presidential visit to our area.  Photo of Obama on the wall at a table with his daughter and bending down to talk to a toddler at another table.  Must be a schmendrik.  Nobody goes to the Charcoal Pit wearing a tie, not even Joe whose picture hung adjacent to Obama's, with his arm wrapped around a guy, I presume an employee, who looked like somebody Joe's Presidential predecessor would have tried to deport.

Hardly anyone there at 8PM on a Sunday evening though Sweet Nel's ice cream shop across the street, where I've not been, had its parking area surrounded by cars.  It was a small but decent sundae, hot fudge as has been our custom.  They still have multiperson options named after local high schools on their dessert menu.  They used to tout Breyer's ice cream.  Ours seemed more dense than that.  Good whipped cream, likely commercial, generous hot fudge but not all that hot.  The purpose was respite and companionship, as most ice cream sundae outings.  That part accomplished.

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 Looming

Of all the Jewish Holidays, indeed demarcation points on the annual calendar, Pesach stands out.  It has a preparation deadline with considerable challenge to meet it.  I never made a formal checklist, but I know the lower level of the house gets cleaned, things that really should be stored in the basement like my good fleishig salad bowl and blender that occupy space in the dining room need to be relocated.  The refrigeration requires some type of transformation, eating up the edible, discarding what should not be eaten so that the contents can be emptied and the interior washed the day before.  Shopping changes.  Purchase of Passover edibles and usables creates an impressive Shop-Rite tab.  The supermarket offers an inducement, spend $400 over the month and they throw in a Kosher chicken usually priced at about $16.  I've made the cut the last two years, never used the chickens, and this year plan to economize, or at least be more selective of what new food I bring home.  I use a lot of eggs, better purchased at Trader Joe's, and depend more on fresh produce where Sprouts often has an advantage over Shop-Rite.

I anticipate some elegance in the kitchen.  Two seders, shabbos Pesach where I try to have guests, and this year my birthday comes out on yontif.  Plan menus, then try to do focused shopping.  Sinks get scrubbed, oven self-cleaned, microwave adapted, floor washed.  Dishes get hauled upstairs from the basement, then washed before being used to make Seder.

I'm very indifferent to synagogue.  Each yontif day is a weekday.  I do not know if the newly appointed Rabbi will have moved in to officiate by then.  I should try to make it easy for him if he has, or at least use this as a chance to get to know him, having been mostly excluded from the hiring process which I found held too close to the vest by the Influencers.  Part of the demarcation if he is on site, perhaps a place to minimize my presence if he is not.

I feel more obligated than eager this year, but as the preparation moves along, I usually manage to get more emotionally engaged.  And once completed, I always feel accomplished.

OLLI Break

Osher Institute scheduled its Spring Break the final week in March.  Ordinarily, I schedule a few nights away, having gone to the Pocono's one year and to DC last year.  No major driving or planes for this one. Travel may not fit in as well this year.

The weeks leading into this week off have more than the usual obligations.  This week Purim and some synagogue activities.  Next week the Voices of UD meetings.  The following -week my somewhat overdue endoscopic studies as well as the first meeting for the Delaware Community Foundation Scholarship Program.  And probably need to squeeze in some Passover shopping and other preparation before other shoppers deplete Shop-Rite's supplies of the hard to find.

So by the time classes suspend, either I will look back with accomplishment or have to deal with whatever the GI endoscopists find and with Passover which begins the week classes resume.  So what might I do under more pressured circumstances?  A day trip for sure.  Maybe fishing at a downstate pier.  Maybe the Chinatown Bus to NYC.  But only one day.  Passover cleaning can be paced a bit more than in prior years.  Maybe visit with a travel agent for visiting Paris with my wife.  Maybe begin the seasonal gardens.  Maybe choose my art:  watercolor, pastels, pencils black and colored, neglected violin, neglected harmonica.  Or seek the more audacious.  Not really a blank canvas of time, but one with a lot of area to fill in with things I most want to do but not want to do enough to have incorporated them into busier weeks.

Moving Boxes

One or two round trips to the basement at a time will eventually get all the Passover stuff back into storage for another year.  Everything is now boxed and labelled.  Next comes a strategy.  One heavy or bulky, then one trip with two lighter boxes.  Maybe bring up some chametz on the way upstairs, though only the stand mixer and food processor remains and won't be needed before Mother's Day.  Having Pesach boxes in the dining room to be moved annoys me more than it challenges me, so a slow but steady pace until done.

Dealing with Failures

My first week of my newly advanced age could have gone better.  Spent that first week wobbly, perhaps orthostatic.  My daughter came from Oakland for my birthday and Passover, which is always a treat, though with a few elements of strain woven into an overwhelming fabric of pride.  I could not do treadmill.  Pesach preparation took its toll.  I committed myself to submitting two decent articles to editors, both promptly rejected.  Missed my only OLLI session of the semester, partly from logistics of Passover and daughter visit, partly from fatigue, partly from marginal interest.  My nurtured indoor starter plants all fizzled when I put them out into the sunshine.  I even stopped keeping a daily list of projects I planned to do each day.  Tough week.  Not cheerful.

But the cycles of nature go on.  Next birthday less than another year away with prospects for recapturing the path to fulfillment, if not pleasure.  I still have the articles to revise for another purpose.  Returned to the treadmill and my full goal intensity after the week's layoff.  Pesach on autopilot mostly.  Daily list back in action.  I can buy vegetable starters from the local nursery.  Still not restored to cheerful, but not despondent either.  Probably emerging from a week's languis

hing.  

Full Whiteboard

Pesach usually presents me with activity. Most is finite with deadlines so it gets done.  Shopping, cleaning, exchanging and washing dishes, Seder, services.  Add Torah reading to the list this year.  That's a full week in its own right.  And my birthday comes during this week which my family likes to acknowledge in some way.  My daughter opted to come for birthday and Seder which is great but with some airport obligations.  And it's been a while since I've scheduled platelet donation.  While I might get turned away again as my Hb hovers at the Blood Bank's cutoff, I still have to get there.  And OLLI sessions, one on-site.  

Taxes done.  Financial record keeping and donations and Medscape next week.  

On Sunday's, to keep my wife and I from asking too much of each other, fixed obligations go on a Whiteboard, which looks mostly full.  I could reschedule the platelet donation, not a lot of flexibility to anything else.  

Pesach Menus

Purim has not yet arrived but I'm scanning recipes for Pesach, which coincides with weekends this year.  Two seders, shabbos Pesach, and a Thursday night yontiff.  Some dishes are tried and true, others more of an adventure.  I could make chicken soup or warm up packaged certified broth, then make matzoh balls.  My own is always better though not always worth the effort.  As much as I'd like to try Sephardic or Mizrachi Charoset, the standard Ashkenazi mix of apples, almonds, cinnamon and kiddush wine is both easier and more economical than securing certified dried fruit.  As guests dwindle in number and beef becomes prohibitively expensive, turkey and brisket have given way to chicken at both ends of the Yom Tovim.  Kugel starts with a matzoh base, sometimes lasts the entire festival, sometimes gets replaced at the end by potato kugel.  And some type of nut cake for dessert at each end of the week.

As a consequence of targeted suppers, it becomes a week of fleishig each evening, mostly scrounging for meals earlier in the day.  Yet one of my more fulfilling challenges, a blend of planning and execution with tangible results.

Getting Outdoors

Pesach came and went a little earlier in the secular calendar than most years.  With a good deal of effort, and some pacing to adapt to my advancing years, our house has returned to chametz.  With this Festival comes spring, warmer weather, snowblower away but to be extricated in late fall so its function can be restored more effectively than this winter.  My outdoor rosemary and sage seeds, planted in transplantable cups before Pesach and placed outside have not germinated but the pots froze one day when I checked on them  Restoring sage and rosemary to my backyard herb garden has not yet reached a lost caused, though growing them from seed might have.

As Chol HaMoed reached its closing days, I afforded myself a few moments in my car and at my clipboard to anticipate what spring might enable.  First, I toured Dick's Sporting Goods store.  They had bicycles, fishing gear, golf clubs, and baseball bats.  I already have fishing gear, a putter and driver, a Schwinn that still functions sixty years after receiving it as a birthday gift updated with a safety helmet.  I had been nurturing my front door pots through the winter, mostly herbs.  One broke, replaced with another and the broken earthenware further fragmented as drainage stones for the other pots.  I went out to purchase all the seeds that I need.  My backyard beds need some layering.  Appropriate bags purchased and transported by hand truck to their sites of use.

Already I have walked a few trails in two state parks.  I photographed the outdoors using techniques I learned from this winter's Great Course on photography, purchasing a tripod to enable even more.  It's been a while since I've gone to see the Blue Rocks.  If the pandemic eases to allow stadium attendance, I could add that to this spring's outdoor activities.  Even a day at one of the State Park beaches could find its way as an outdoor activity before the summer solstice brings about the next season.

Getting outside has been an annually underperformed initiative, maybe best added to my daily task list in some form.  It can be better implemented, and should be.

Winding Down Pesach

Last few hours before yontiff. Not yet craving chametz but a day to wind down Pesach. Maybe package and return to basement Passover items that will not be used any more this Festival to save me some trips to the basement Sunday. Should take inventory on what I did or did not use. Can package the salt, dishwashing liquid, and coffee filters still in unopened boxes and keep the already open ones to use up during the year. Hardly consumed any Coca Cola, which is a good thing, but it only comes out as cane sugar based once a year, so buying a little extra has its benefit. Seemed more fond of club soda than in years past, though have not made myself a wine spritzer this holiday. Over purchased macaroons. Bought two packages of rather expensive and marginally edible Vita Lox. Goes on next years do not buy list. The upside of too much generosity at Shop-Rite was qualifying for a vegan turkey that I think I'll make for my upcoming birthday. Used about three boxes of matzoh. Usually I give one away but no kids visiting. Did not open the farfel at all, still have some from last year too. Make a kugel or two during the year, maybe stuffed chicken breasts for a couple of shabbatot, and treat myself to periodic matzoh brei.

It was a fine holiday from a culinary perspective which runs parallel to its logistical perspective. Made the right amount of brisket, converted some ordinary chicken breasts into a terrific stir fry that made three meals. Only one milchig supper, grand matzoh brei with Tabachnik's potato soup. Babanatza lasted each meal. Nusstorte provided a learning curve that will take effect next time I make it.

Shul remains closed. I didn't miss it. Our Rabbi declared Hallel and Yizkor as congregational destinations along with Tuesday afternoon mincha and a part kabbalat Shabbat with Cantor doing a Torah reading. This does not appeal to me at all. Our liturgy and festivals have Biblically prescribed times. Half-Hallel would be recited today. Yizkor would not. In defense, there is a Pesach Sheni for those indisposed at the appointed time, but it is a month later, not time shifted. But I think what's offered looks too much a blend of contrived, manipulated, and even phony for me to sign on. I'd rather respect the appointed times, do my best with them and skip those I cannot attend, but modifying my own activities as the specified times require. My wife feels differently. I'm more attached to Pesach from Coronavirus, less attached to my congregation.

As we ease past one Festival, we move with anticipation to the next. My iWatch has been set to buzz at 9PM nightly for Omer. I am attached to the Omer, a responsibility to be fulfilled irrespective of how I feel. Hair grows uncut until Lag B'Omer on day 33. It has its own culinary challenge, this one dairy, which can be rather elegant. It lacks the visual ritual though. People traditionally study long into the night, but again my congregation reminds me more of Hebrew School than Chavruta, so I've not been going. Perhaps shul will be open by then. I anticipate being a month past Covid immunization by then. If not my shul, than another. I think I am ready for formal live congregational assembly, with its ritual, its sounds, the sincere good will of those present. Emerge from Pesach now, emerge from isolation and cobbling together what has been a mostly unappealing Jewish experience perhaps to coincide with commemorating Torah.

Pesach Shopping

Will I qualify for a free whole Empire chicken this year?  Shop-Rite gives this bonus to people who spend $400 in preparation for their spring holidays.  Last year I made it.  Less sure about this year.  Passover shopping has a way of adding up, typically to the tune of $200.  For the past few trips to Shop-Rite I've been purchasing Kosher poultry and beef as it comes on sale.  I've not hit the Passover seasonal shelves yet, have planned some menus, not hosting a Seder with attendance that requires enormous amounts of food.  How much I will spend and what I will purchase remains uncertain as I prepare to fill my cart a little later.  I have enough meat.  I have spices, though to save freezer clutter, I did not freeze them this year.  My OU Passover Guide arrived, reviewed briefly.  Trader Joes is probably a better place to buy raw nuts for charoset and nusstorte.  Produce can wait until the last minute.  Semi-Perishable dairy is better obtained now.  I use a lot of eggs.  Get that with the produce.  Gave up the evil soda and commercial cookies a few months ago, but Passover Certified Coca-Cola and seltzer have been seasonal staples forever.  Usually get a box of coffee filters, some napkins, baggies and a box of storage bags.  And see if the shankbones have come in yet.  Take my time in the aisles.  Don't fret about forgetting anything.  There will be a second supermarket tour.  And keep track of the receipt total.

OLLI Intercession

I hoped it would have been a custom to use about half the week of each OLLI intercession for a small respite someplace else.  Covid undermined that the last two semesters.  I cannot even remember what I did instead during those two breaks from class.  This semester brought more possibilities.  I had cancelled a vacation to the Everglades at the peak of the last infection surge.  Maybe now.  My son and daughter-in-law now live in driving range.  I could visit them while enjoying Pittsburgh, where I've never really been beyond minor transit needs.  So I checked which week.  Alas, it coincides with Pesach.  No travel.

For OLLI it makes very good sense to select that as the transition week, irrespective of what else appears on public calendars.  As the curriculum goes to a Zoom format, there is are five and eleven week sessions. This week falls between the two fives.  As a medical student at the Jesuit SLU, the undergraduate campus had their spring hiatus based on a calendar to have it fall in mid-March, much like other universities in America.  The medical campus, though, followed a different calendar, selecting the Catholic Holy Days as the week off.  As a useful consequence, I don't think I ever attended Seder in St. Louis, though I have made arrangements to eat at WashU Hillel for the later days of Pesach.

Now that I know the OLLI calendar, what might I do instead of travel?  OLLI classes do not really absorb that much time, about four hours a week, roughly what one undergraduate class would comprise.  There is not much effort outside the class times, at least not by full-time university standards.  When classes met on campus, I would take two sessions on a single day, staying on site between classes.  This added time devoted to the OLLI experience, though very worthwhile socialization time.  And I had to travel round trip to do this.  So Zoom OLLI comprises a fraction of the time commitment of campus OLLI.  Even if I could take a trip for OLLI's off week, just getting to any desired destination would exceed the time I actually spend with the Lifelong Learning program.

Instead of a novel experience, this year's OLLI suspension  brings me parts of the familiar, maybe a few parts innovative, just as Pesach should be.