brace yourselves: the Passover prep post

The challenges are few, but comprehensive:

* organize and plan resources:

* menus & recipes (vegetarians! non-vegetarians! carnivores who also eat PB&waffle!)

* haggadas, various seder materials for adults, children

* guest head-count + places for guests to stay

* scheduling for tasks/goals

* shop for non-perishables & perishables

* turn chametz kitchen into Pesachdik (Passover-oriented) kitchen

* clean and transform the apartment

* clean and transform the car

* various sundries, all astonishingly time-consuming.

Of these, the quest for affordable, gluten-free matza reigns supreme. Where? How? Last year, I ordered my matzot from these lovely people, and the year before we bought our first and slightly crumpled box of oat matza from this company. This year, I will be appreciating but avoiding these matzot, which do not (say the company FAQ) meet the requirements for Passover, though they do meet the requirements for gluten-freeness.

Where my recipes are concerned, I do have a binder with last year's recipes, menus and inventory of my pots, pans, plates, etc - it's a glorious, shedding mass of paper. Tonight, promises the Man, he'll tackle it while I wade through my scraps of recipes. This year, we simplify last year, which had me firmly tethered to the kitchen. Because what's the point of a burble of cousins, if you can't burble along with them?

Until the wading begins, it's electronics all the way, baby - and the annual hunt for the thing that didn't work. Three years down the road from my first seder, that's charoset. Last year, we used this - and the children informed us that it was not banana-riffic. I offered a fresh cranberry-orange relish, and was informed that while fun, it was not charoset. So.

Here's what I've found: dried fruit charoset, non-sponsored dried fruit charoset, or choose one from this list. But I'm most certainly taking suggestions...

Pre-seder mini-dinner, seder 1's dinner and carpas/charoset/z'roa/maror/washed romaine, day 1 lunch, pre-seder dinner, seder 2 dinner, carpas/charoset/z'roa/maror/washed romaine, 2nd day lunch, dinner, 3rd day lunch....breakfast????? yikes??

Oh, me, oh my - how the shopping list does grow. Mine is mostly produce, fish and a bit of (eep) meat. And a headache's worth of fruit, to pacify the children in search of a nice cookie. Which we haven't got. *sigh* Most of our year-round desserts are Passover-friendly, but their ingredients aren't cleared for use by the rabbis. Usually, this is simply a matter of rabbi-power: they don't tend to check the niche market foods, because they're short on time. And rabbis. But we persevere....and make lots of phone calls to the Sephardi rabbinate.

Fluffing my bits of paper, I begin to think that the standard Pesach and allergy mistake is the same. If you lack a central ingredient for a recipe, don't fake it - find another recipe. Sorbet has served us well in the past, and I'm eyeing a variety of the ice creams and sorbets over here. Solid sweet-yumminess? On shabbat, we tested this vegan coconut macaroon recipe, and woot! Yumilicious. Apparently, macaroons are like meatballs: the eggs and flour appear to be crucial, but are, in fact, not. Whew. But I'm still stumped on breakfast. Matza and jam? Listening to me mutter, the Man winced.

The list grows, and my paper-ruffling continues: it's easy to turn out an elaborate, tether-iffic menu, and harder to turn out a simpler one, with built-in breaks between meal preps. Oh, for the luxury of being able to cook in advance of the holiday.... Oh, well. Until that glorious day, I'm eyeing leftovers, and hoping to turn up some good non-lentil, vegetarian bean crockpot recipes. Because we can used dried, inspected beans, but not canned. Any suggestions?

too...many...posts... (and Purim)

I'm burbling with posts that are half-written, not-written, and seeping slowly, determinedly, towards the keyboard. But while I'm wrestling with ways to talk about what, exactly, is manipulation, or the NPV in relation to oh, allergy tests? People's interest in sneering at allergy tests? Prodding them thoughtfully to see if they deflate? Given that it took me a full hour and much muttering to write a sensible comment, I'm going to wimp out...and just slap down a photo post.

So, happy belated Purim! Below are the boys, fierce in their costumes as Moltres (a feathered, yellow Pokemon who gives of flames) and a pirate. See? fierce?

okay, maybe more like, sheeesh, MOM, just take the PICture alREADY. Try this one:


fiercer, right? Taking grr, boy pictures appears to be an art - and one that lends itself very very well to the blurry photo, aka the photo that is designed to show action, momentum and the vibrancy of the kid who didn't politely hold still. Oh, well.

Neither, as it happens, did their brains. And if you've not yet had the pleasure of researching pirate couture with your preschooler, allow me to recommend the experience. According to the Toddles, pirates havehats, Mum. Red hats. With white stripes - but the white stripes have to have red in them, too. And treasure maps. The treasure maps were tricky, but the eyepatch was easily faked. And, having discovered the joys of descending numbers of stitches, i used the same trick to make Vulcan points on the Eldest's hat. In the theory that these points were avian, of course. Because - did I mention? - we've turned into one of those irritating crafty homes. It was inevitable, the Man said, soothingly. You've always been the sort of person who likes to do things herself.

Yes. But in my defense, crocheting a hat is, apparently, much like pickling: it's a big, fat, no freakin' way could this be so easy! Two hours or so later, aargh, said I, pirate hat in hand, but it is. And oh, yes, it is also danged cute. See?

Details? Alas for you all, I'm delighted to offer some.

I used the pattern from here, on the grounds that it did not require more than an active neuron or two, nor did it require much time: with two chunky yarns wound together, this was a quick hat to make.

The Toddles' hat pattern also made the Eldest's flaming Moltres head - sans flames. Many thanks to magid, whose timely advice saved me from the perils of hyperbolic crocheting. Instead, I merely doubled or tripled the number of stitches per row, which is totally different, if only because it doesn't have that unnervingly mathematical name. My fibonacci'd stitches hung on chains of twisting, feathery thread, the elegant version of which would look more or less like this.

Or, in my case, like this:
I'm going to spare you the details of the Eldest's flaming, ribbonned wings, not because I have any mercy on the subject, but because I'm tired. And I am, for once, going to sleep. Where I shall doubtless dream of grinning pirates (with secret, hidden fire-wing-maps sewn into their pirate vest pockets) and swooping, laughing feathered boys....

oh, la difference kicks some heiny

If you haven't met this blogger yet, you might want to reconsider: I just read her latest post, and it left me thoughtful. And appreciating what a doctor has to do, in the face of a patient's need.

Oh, my.

But I digress. (go, digress. I'll wait.)

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I cannot help but muse: one of these years is not, thank heavens, like the other. This time last year, I was wrapping up homemade yumminess for the boys' teachers. It was chocolate chip granola bars last year, and the bittersweetness, the splintering care to teach the Toddles to say thank you, even to the teachers who'd tried, but ultimately failed him. "That was good, the Toddles told me." And, picking my way between pride and sadness, I agreed.

But now, I think: kid, we had no idea.

That was my kid at the Chanuka celebration last week, you know. Mine, shoveling in potato and applesauce with the rest of the pack, singing the funny verses to I Have A Little Dreidel, and thankfully, without the potty humor. Mine. And absolutely, positively safe in a roomful of munching, belly-filling kids. Because the food is safe.

Because the teachers - and the school - gets it.

So, this year we said thank you again, and we did it in style, baby. We did it with sparklies.

The boys made necklaces and bracelets for their teachers, and I had a ridiculously wonderful time talking with them about the colors their teachers wear, what kinds of people their teachers are, and then, oh my goodness about design. Even the Toddles was happy to think about symmetry, and his second necklace was a two thread, three bead design: small black bead, chunky red bead of various types, small black bead. Knot. Switch to the other thread, and repeat. He laid out his beads in advance, considered how best to balance the various shapes and sizes of the red beads, and then patiently threaded and knotted.

See?

And nobody splintered - but my heart was very, very full. For this, as for so much else, I give thanks. Except, possibly, first thing in the morning, when I realize that I have to get the kids out of the house and to the car, and for some reason, this is going to take well over an hour and all of my patience.

But yes, we gave thanks. The Eldest, to nobody's surprise, muttered something about basketball until I mentioned that we could use stone beads. The kid loves stones, filling his pockets with the muddiest he can find, certain that each is enormously valuable and beautiful. He rummaged happily among the stones, and started jamming them on. Um. Not that he shouldn't do it his way, but, well -

I handed him a printout about Morse code. Design, I told him, is code. Sometimes the message is a feeling, or an idea. Sometimes, it's literally words.

And the kid took me up on it. He designed an organdy and cord necklace of unakite, jasper and hematite, of which the stones made perfect sense for my young miner-in-training, but the ribbon was an unexpected touch. And a nice one. And he arranged the stones in a code, to spell out his teacher's name.

And so, we gave thanks. You know, the Toddles' teacher whispered, fingering her necklace, just getting to have him in the classroom is thanks enough. My throat filled, swelling with old splinters and newer joys. I couldn't get the words out to tell her that she was absolutely right.

This year, it feels as if we'd lit our menorah in the midst of memories of desecration and betrayal, hopeful but not letting ourselves rest on that hope. And slept, only to wake and find it still burning, ruthlessly pushing us past sharp memory and into what comes next.

Wishing you all a season of light, joy and shared tables.

things in flight

It was cold here. Unexpectedly, wearyingly cold. And now it's melting-warm. The ice has gone, crocuses are thumbing their nose at the weatherman, the planters on our front steps are muddy and I'm here to tell you that they will soon start to smell...odd.

Time is flying? no. Time has done many things, since mid-February, and flying hasn't been one of them. But gone it is.

Purim tiptoed up and shrieked delightedly, before zooming off into the sunset.

It's not Purim without hamentashen, a friend was informed by her daughter. And indeed not.  I made hamentashen, using a recipe adapted from the Board of Jewish Education's handbook, Food Allergies in Jewish Schools. (an excellent, excellent handout..) 

Pretty, no? But the things tasted like I had sucked all the joy out of the cookie-and-jam concept. Next time, I told QG, screw the whole grains and bring on the fat! She blinked, and mildly suggested that maybe this variant was okay? Ha. 

But such feats of nutritional thumb-in-yer-eye were not managed before Purim. Instead, we did costumes...

Neither cheetah (can't you tell?), alas, was inclined to model their costumes, but hey - they were happy. So who cares about the details? Okay, so I do. Which is why I'm scribbling notes here about how I made them. Just in case I decide to Do. It. Again.

(pause to consider this: I made Purim costumes. No, really.) 

(No - really?)

(did I say "again?" Oh, no. I think I've finally cracked.)

Feeling terribly, terribly brave, I dragged my grandmother's sewing machine to crafty friends' home, shortly after handing the corpse of my laptop over to the fix-it (whoops, sorry, that'll be 79.99 and you'll need a new one) Mikes. There, with much handholding, I managed to cut a pair of rectangles, fold, hem part of each side (leaving room for the arms at the top and slits at the bottom, so the boys can run) and cut a circle at the top, for the head. Attach a tail, and voila! cheetah costumes.

Oh yes, and face paint. Which was the only part of the costume that the kids kept on for, oh, five minutes after I put the camera away. Hm.

Megilla with the Man and friends and whoosh! there went Purim. 

Next up: Pesach. And a challenge. With two 7 yr olds, two 3.5-4 yr olds and one 2 yr old, nearly no budget and a no electronics rule, what would be a good Afikoman gift? Noting that, alas, one of the 7 yr olds is not a game player, both 3.5-4 yr olds will probably make the older ones crazy by wanting to have the same thing, balls and things that are going to fly are a bad, bad idea (many kids, things flying in air? oh, no), and the 2 yr old is probably not going to like the idea of waiting until after the sabbath to use any crafts...

anyone got a suggestion?

waking up to turning leaves

No, really - I'm here.

Good things are happening here, but also there were a bunch of holy things, and we just got chagged*. Deeply chagged, and we're emerging in to the light and blinking and looking at our astonishing lists of things that got put off, and oh boy but did we get chagged.

As I wake up from a haze of shul and family and wonderful allergy-friendly food (a significant proportion of which I did NOT cook), I realize that it's autumn, and the leaves have turned. I'm an autumn baby, and I've always loved the crispness and colors of the season. Summer is gloriously, showily generous with it's produce and flowers, but autumn asks me to be patient, and then smacks me with color. Bless Julia, whose eye and camera caught some wonders of autumn, and I'll let her show them to you. For me, I'm catching those wonders at about 40 mph. It's a daily pleasure to see the fire and the light in the leaves on our daily commutes to school, to the other school, home from the second, back to the first and then back home. On leg 3 of the daily schlep, there - there! - is a tree lit with yellow and orange. It lifts the heart, and onwards we go.

(hey Julia, does that let me off the hook?)

We've had a wonderful haze here, filled with grandpaternal liturgical music ("hi, Grandpa!" says the Toddles, as the FIL sings to us from the High Holy Days' liturgy), a birthday (and I couldn't spend it anywhere better than at camp), a rock climbing wall for 3 out of 4 Imperfects - but then again, possibly for all 4. And thoughts and stories about the first two months of school, for both the smaller and the larger of the Imperfect Jrs. I'm hoping to resist the urge to write about the election, but, well, have we met? Yep.

And gluten-free, vegan, nut/seed/etc-free pumpkin muffins, made the lazy way. Hang in there - it's on the way.

* chag means "holiday," the plural is chagim.

a meeting of minds and children

Well, the oat matzot are eaten, and they were lousy. But boy, are they gone nonetheless...

Looking around the bloggish world, I see that I am late. Well and so - the next post (Earth Day) will be late, too, but so goes school vacation week. Still, here is a during-Passover post that should have been usefully pre-Passover, since it does have recipes. Ah, me.

(moving on now)

As we did last year and the year before, we shared our seder with the SIL and her family. She's got two kidlets to match mine, and each year they are just lovelier and lovelier. Oh, and don't get me started on the guy who comes with them - if there ever was someone with a sweet, gooey middle, he's the fella. Even if the Eldest did eye his belt a bit nervously for most of the visit.

Thankfully, all three of the SIL's bits of baggage are increasingly patient with the funny foods served Chez Imperfect. (Okay, maybe just two. The bigger third seems to actually be having fun when he chews.) The SIL's offspring are determined, focussed eaters, but they kindly sit at my table and consider foods they'd otherwise never even sniff at. Occasionally, they'll even eat some. So, when they come I cook simpler foods; plain steamed veggies, lots of fruit, simpler starches. I try to be respectful of walking the line between the best chance of getting the SIL's kids to eat and foods that I like (what my crew likes is only slightly relevant - I cook, they eat. They're invited to change the paradigm). Until, of course, I get bored. See below for the recipes we tried - and loved - on Sunday morning, when I couldn't take plain potatoes any more. Heh.

As the kids get older, all four have become not just more pleasant at the table, but more challenging and fascinating for the long, table-oriented arrangements of the seder. The seder can take hours, it starts late, it involves lots of sitting still (not a terribly kid-friendly state of affairs), and it's in Hebrew. Except when it's in Aramaic. Toss in two families who practice differently, and you have a challenge.

But you don't. We agreed at the start that the success of our communal seder rises and falls on the children, and it will grow more complex and full and fascinating as they are ready for it. Already, this year's seder was richer and more Hebrew-laden (the Man slipped a touch of Aramaic past the censors, even) than last year's, with the elder children modeling for the younger pair how to sit, how to engage, and how to ask questions. And listen patiently during the incomprehensible bits. Sort of. When we started, this seder was unrecognizeable from the Haggadah-centric ones of my childhood. Now, the Haggadah features prominently, but our goal is less to read the book and more to teach. I like it. No, I love it. because with this shift in focus comes energy, kid-pleasure and adult rethinking of a book-bound ritual, laden with details and planning. Our seder is fun. It bounces.

When the bigger two sang Ma-Nishtana, the Toddles sang the fragments that he knew, and hollered cha-cha-cha! between verses. When I read bits in Hebrew, the kids waited patiently for me to translate. And when we sang Dayenu, the kids all sang along for the choruses, and the Eldest offered a wee bit of percussion. The plagues, as always, were popular - and more so thanks to the Eldest's old box o' plagues, kept in a bin of ritual objects. The plagues are joined there by the prompt-cards that the Eldest made two years ago for the Ma Nishtana, the pillow he stuffed this year to lean on, his homemade Haggadah (scattering glitter and banned from the table), the slab of painted wood that is our seder plate - painted by guess who - in short, a growing treasure trove of the Eldest's religious history.

Just opening the bin is a reminder to the kids that this is their holiday, too, that they construct and help shape our seder, alongside the adults and our haggadahs. And so, after the first night's dress rehearsal (Oh, dang - forgot to pull out the charoset. Hummph. Oh, hey, hon? Didn't we get romaine for folks who don't want the horseradish root? Um. Just a sec. Okay, so who is helping the Man wash his hands? Because I'm not playing to the lord of the house bit here. Hey, you kids! C'mere.), everyone knew their parts and timing. It was the perfect moment for the kids to relax, and hit us with questions.

does God have arms?

what do they look like?

what if Elijah doesn't come?

were the ten plagues like last chances for the Egyptians? Like the warnings you give me when I chew with my mouth open?

why did God put a plague on the first born, and not the second born?

The SIL's husband, splendid human being that he is, got hit with the first - and possibly the second of the questions. Head in the refrigerator (where on earth is that romaine?), I perked up, but he got there first. Well, one way to think about it is that we're all God's arms, and we can do good in this world. In the kitchen, I smiled. I had used more or less that answer, happily unoriginal, the year before - for question #3's earlier incarnation. It's a good answer, focussing the practical child on their realities and choices.

We walked away from the sedarim thinking about chazakas: there is a tradition that, having done something three times the same way, it should continue to be done so. I considered the joys and pleasures of our seder, I delighted in how our seder was growing, and I treasured the mingling of our families in this endeavor. Despite the religious differences or because of the religious differences and how they just didn't seem to matter. The respect and love that I saw, and the bonds that grow and tighten during this shared experiment - all of these deserve the chazaka that we have shaped, and the continuation of the pattern.

So, next year when the voice in the parking lot pipes up, mid-prePesach scramble, maybe the memory of our sedarim will shut it up. Or not.

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Spiced Indian potatoes and Tomato Sorta-Kasundi Sauce
(a.k.a, When the Mama Gets Bored Potatoes and Sauce)

The Taters
5 potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 inch cubes. Steam for 5 minutes/zap in microwave, or if you can't be bothered pre-steaming, cut smaller. I cut smaller.
3 Tb olive oil
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 Tb ground cumin
1/2 tsp curry powder
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the side of a knife
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp pink peppercorns (no, really - they're citrusy and lovely, but you could use black in a pinch - just use fewer)
4 thin slices of fresh ginger root

Heat oil and add spices and ginger. When the seeds start to pop, you can add everything else. Saute on medium, stirring often to keep the potatoes from sticking. And, if you do not have my snazzy super-duper nonstick wok from IKEA (or the equivalent, which I'm generously prepared to admit may exist elsewhere), then you might need more oil to keep the potatoes from sticking. Consider the specifics of your cooking reality, and respond accordingly.

The Sauce
3 Tb olive oil
1 tsp pink peppercorns (or, if you have them, 1 tsp mustard seeds)
2 tsp ground tumeric (but Mom doesn't like tumeric, the SIL's eldest informed me. Valiantly, I declined to glare - or laugh. Mom did, in the end, like tumeric. In this sauce, at any rate.)
1 Tb ground cumin
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
4 Tb brown sugar
1 great big can (28 oz) of diced tomatoes

Toss the spices and oil into the saucepan, and let heat until the spices pop a bit, or until they are fragrant. Then chuck everything else in, stir gently but firmly for a minute. Simmer for about 20 minutes, lose patience and serve.

Note the first: I served this with a finely chopped salad of cucumber, fennel and olives. I suspect it would be splendid with raita (or, failing that, a thin and somewhat sour yogurt like leben). The SIL suggested poaching chicken breast chunks in the tomato sauce, and I'd add tofu or fish. Like many Indian meals served at our home, we like to have a bunch of small dishes and mix flavors, as the Eldest is wont to say. Other offerings that would pair well are Indian-style spinach, a mint chutney, a jasmine rice and any number of nut-containing/Imperfect unfriendlies. Go forth and mix them flavors, folks. Because sometimes Mom does, in fact, like tumeric. Who knew?
Note the second: keep in mind that the Imperfects eat kitniyot. Some folks do not eat, for example, cumin or fennel seeds on Passover. See here for more. (Editor's note: thanks to an alert reader for pointing out that "the humra is to not eat them since you're worried some actual hametz might be mixed in, or at the least to check them to try to make sure. Whether or not you're Ashkenazi is not relevant in this context." Had I carefully re-read my own link, I would have noticed that. D'oh.)

the Pesach voice (and breaking news!)

Breaking News:
the Toddles is now officially cleared for a food challenge to oats. Putting on my best 'here goes nuthin' face, I asked if there was any way that the usual 6 month wait for a food challenge could be shortened...slightly. I explained about Pesach, and how oats (if cleared) would be the only legit grain for matza, according to Judiac law. Our allergist listened carefully, and then barely hesitated.

If it can be done, I will make it happen. I'll come in myself to staff the challenge, and I'll do my best to cut through the red tape. I babbled words of thanks, words of explanation, trying to make him understand just how grateful we are and how big a deal this is.

Our allergist blushed, telephonically, and said he'd see us on Thursday. Oh, oh, my.
****************************
Time is running short on Pesach preparations, assisted possibly by the need to sit around and wait for a plumber (annoying) or spend an unexpected afternoon feeding the Toddles oats (scary yet exciting). I am now a mama-shaped blur, coloured with lack of sleep (a congested, pre-challenge non-antihistamined Toddles means a tired mama) and stress. I can't move fast enough, read labels fast enough, or run enough errands. And then it happened.

There's a voice in my head, and I think it's about four years old. It just spoke up today,

I quit Pesach!

Standing in the parking lot at Target, I spun around. My cart was full, the Toddles miserable and I was pretty sure that nobody but me had heard it. The voice elaborated, I quit! I'm done, I'm fed up, I want to go plant something, write something, I want to breathe without someone asking me 'what should I do now,' having NOT looked at the itemized, organized by priority lists of Pesach Things To Do. I'm out.

I settled the damp Toddles into the car, kissed his nose, and drove off, thoughtfully.

After organizing our trip to Australia, organizing during Australia, preparing for the bleeding disorder conference we went to, Pesach has somehow become too much. I want ordinary life, I want to settle into the usual slightly too-busy routine of our days. And if I have to do Pesach, can we please at least find the time for me to sit down and figure it all out, first?

Unpacking the car, I found the Drawer Dividers of Desperation. They were, fortunately, unaccompanied by the Piles of Toys of Panic. I considered the internal plea for organization, congratulated myself on stepping away from the sense of overwhelmedness that the ultimate toy stack would have tried to solve, and breathed.

When did I put spandex back on? This will never do. Time for some cavalry.

I started by kissing the Toddles again. Poor child, it wasn't his fault that he refused to sit in the cart, then chose a cart that he could climb out of, then refused to be buckled, then slid out of the buckles, then sat precariously in a seat from which he would fall repeatedly. Nope, not his fault - just an unfortunate combination of twoness and a mama unprepared to be firm and forestall the troubles to come. Dang.

I kissed him a third time - kissing that child is therapeutic for me. How could I have forgotten this? Then, I called magid, who sat down and listened while I recounted the voice's declarations and sorted myself out. I hung up with magid, buoyed up with her offer to help and especially, to listen some more. And I called the Man.

We have a problem, I told him. I could feel the palpable click as he set aside his work-day self to listen to me. I explained.

An hour later, he was home and sitting with me as I worked out the menu. He suggested desserts that he would make, he told me I was brilliant, capable, wonderful. He hugged me a lot, and smiled. And he didn't pull out his Palm Pilot once.

Now, the official first days' menu is set. I have a variety of dish options laid out for the rest of Pesach, but I suspect we'll eat leftovers quite a bit. The horrific kosher butcher shopping is now done. The Toddles is happily bouncing in his seat as the Man drives him to pick up the Eldest, and then they'll do the non-produce shopping with the absolutely, positively final shopping list. Tomorrow morning, I'll buy the produce and gasp at the amount of fruits and veggies, and the astonishing dearth of places to store them.

And all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. (okay, so Julian of Norwich said that, but I think a nice Jewish girl can borrow the idea for the nonce.)
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Intrigued by the idea of an allergy friendly Starbucks? Vote on it!

Kudos to Evan Frankel from New Jersey, who suggested the idea. And bah, humbug to the half-hearted idiots who always post about food allergies. No, I don't want to just stay home. But until Starbucks figures this one out, I'm taking my coffee budget to Bloc 11. After all, when did Starbucks make a pretty leaf pattern on my latte, hmmm?

passing over

Pesach is coming.

Oh, heaven help us (and please note the distinction here: Passover, or Pesach, might be about heaven helping the Israelites. But the dusting and schlepping of non-Passover dishes is purely human. Bah. Humbug. Repeat as necessary).

Bah, humbug.

Yep, the Man and I are wrapping dishes in newspaper, wiping out cabinets in our wee kitchen, and hauling boxes down through the trap-door to the basement. Not to mention the burning stovetop and boiling water. Heave, ho me hearties.

This is the kind of effort that takes place after the kids are asleep (wrapping china with smalls running around? Boiling water? um, no), and takes long enough and requires enough effort that you spend some time eyeing the other guy, to make sure they're pulling their weight. After some blog-time tonight, I came downstairs to find the Man washing non-Passover dinner dishes.

Get some good work done? he asked, casually. Oh, ya, I said in an equally casual tone. Did some blogging, the boss-lady wants a conference call, that sort of thing. The Man tried to raise an eyebrow. Hm, he said. I looked at him and quirked one of mine. Bring it on, big boy, I thought. I've boxed, wrapped and planned every dish in this house. What have you got? I glanced at the Passover Prep List (a.k.a. Mum's List) on the refrigerator, made two weeks ago and hung (ceremoniously) today. The Man caught the quirk and the glance, and wisely subsided into a less-ominous silence. I considered the quiet furies that I had while the Man had his quarterly work freak-out in the midst of my early-Passover panic, and decided that I owed him one. Generously, I let it slide.

Marital fun aside, I actually find Passover to be a major religious irritant, mostly because the job of the halacha (Judaic law) for Passover is to make sure that there is no leavened bread in our home during the holiday. Given that 'bread' is defined as being a substance made from wheat, oats, rye, barley or spelt, my creations wouldn't be a problem. Nonetheless. we do have wheat products in the house - one, a packaged snack for the Eldest, which goes from store to high shelf to lunchbag, all without being opened, and the other a bottle of single malt scotch that I will be able to drink, some day, when the Toddles has finished weaning himself - and therefore, we clean and replace our everyday dishes with Passover-specific ones.

Bah, humbug.

I think we do it because we're part of a community who practices this way, although possibly we do this because the Man and I have done it so for long years before the Toddles turned up and changed our dinnertimes, not to mention our breakfast and lunch-times. Although this past Pesach was the first that we spent as reformed Sephardis (heavens, but I owe Wiki one for this post), which meant that our Pesach foods included soy, beans and rice. Nutritionally, this was crucial, and we ate quite happily that Pesach.

And eat well we should. After all, how different is Pesach from our menus year-round? We non-gluten eaters should barely notice the difference between Pesach and non-Pesach, particularly if you are Sephardi. I congratulated myself on a halachik move well made, and told the Man that he should give up and join the rest of us. We were, after all, eating a garlicky fresh corn salad with a lime juice dressing. Didn't he want some?

But the shift from Ashekenazi-style to Sephardi-style Passover opened a can of, well, beans. Making Toddle-friendly matza means making a matza from chickpea or soy flour. Finding such supervised kosher for Passover is tricky, especially as the Sephardic rabbinate is limited in their resources. When I called to ask last year about Tinkyada pasta, a supervised kosher line of gluten-free pastas made by a company that makes nothing but rice pastas, in a facility that makes nothing but rice pastas, I was told that they'd not time to check the company out. So? I asked, irked. I have fairly good evidence from a source highly sensitive to any of the Passover-prohibited grains that there are none on the premises. I explained. The rabbi sighed. Serve it to your children, certainly, he told me. But maybe not to adults? I understood that without having actually observed the comapny's manufactory, the rabbi couldn't formally approve the pasta - but, given that kids were involved, he was trying to help out. I tried not to grumble, thanked him and hung up.

So, we clean our kitchen, scrub out the oven, slosh boiling water on our counters and haul boxes of Passover-specific pots and dishes. And worry about our allergy-friendly products, many of which are too far off the beaten path for proper Passover rabbinic supervision, or approval. Do we keep them or do without? I suspect I know which way we'll lean on it this year - after all, I do love a challenge.

And I'm fascinated to see that for all of our efforts, it's the eating Sephardi-style that will be the barrier to our community during the holiday. Because most of them are eating Ashkenazi-style during Pesach...the poor, food-deprived things.

But then again, perhaps turn about is fair play?

of emerging things

Right now, a new person is being born. My brother, father to two, just called me from the hospital to let me know that he and his wife are in expulsion mode. While I always find the 'we' in such sentences to be a little, well, imprecise, his timing could not have been better.

This wee one will be born on the eve of Passover (according to the Hebrew calendar), and I think it's timing is excellent. For what is Passover if not a time for transition? A departure from the known, if oppressive (Egypt), and an entrance into an unknown space in which one carves out concepts of self - and nationhood.

In retrospect, it was a very good thing that nobody apparently consulted a map while the Israelites were wandering in the desert (check it out - the Sinai desert is really awfully small for a bunch of folks to spend 40 years there. Clearly something else was going on.). They needed a childhood of sorts, in which to figure out who they were going to be, once they no longer had the Egyptians to tell them what to do.

Independence can be exhausting. And, if you are the Israelites, involve a lot of rules and bickering, each presumably as an attempt to corral or rebel against the other. Funny how little has changed, really.

Good luck to you, new wee one, and our thoughts with your mother (okay, and father) as they bring you forth. May it happen in the best time and the best way for you all.

Author's note: the new wee one is a medium sized, red headed little girl. Welcome, o niece!
************************
In the meantime, the menu! Here are is the culinary plan for Passover, chez Imperfect, keeping in mind that the menu evolves as it is made:

Monday lunch:
coconut lox pasta
salad

1st Seder (Monday night)
haroset: TBA
carpas: baby artichokes and potatoes!

mushroom soup
tomatillo salsa
------------
pear-watercress salad
chicken tagine
tiny red potatoes, roasted with rosemary and garlic
---------
blood orange sorbet
plum sauce
fresh strawberry pie (if the pie crust recipe works)

Tuesday lunch
spicy maple syrup salmon
tomato, cucumber and mint salad
-----------
rice pudding

2nd Seder (Tuesday dinner)
haroset: TBA
carpas: celery and cucumber, potatoes.
---------
cranberry-avocado salsa
----------
quinoa veggie salad
green salad with hearts of palm
citrus-cumin roast chicken
paella with tofu (not meat/fish)
------------
peaches and cream sorbet
strawberry raspberry sorbet
Alexis' blueberry pie (if the pie crust recipe works)

Wednesday dinner
leftovers

Thursday dinner:
go to magid's house!

Friday dinner
curried celery soup
------------
cherry tomato and spiced sauteed tilapia
salad
spiced sweet potatoes
---------
mulled pears

Shabbat lunch
go to Springs' house!

All in all, remarkably satisfactory. Our thanks to IKEA for the cheapo dairy dishes and cutlery - though the comment about the cutlery potentially warping in the dishwasher was a little unnerving - and hoo, hah for the ice cream maker. And lo, it shall be good - I hope. And if not, imperfect and happy. Oh, and with lots of fingerpuppets and dress-up clothes.
*********************
In case you were wondering:

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Thanks, Zina.

hmm, let's see now...

Time to take stock, I think.

Tonight:

• the Man is home
• the Y chromosomes are asleep
• the Grandmere has arrived
• Mary Jr is sleeping over
• the scarlet fever has joined forces with irked eczema, egged on by a Mango Tango drink that I gave the child who, scratching uncontrollably post-mango, was fed Benadryl by his mother while secretly celebrating because last night his feet spent way too much time in the vicinity of my solar plexus and tonight he'll be in a drugged stupor
• the Toddles is running 102F
• we have new towels (first ones in ten years!)
• the Toddles vomited all over most of them
• I got an ear pierced. Again.

Tomorrow, I will:
make bread, bake chocolate-chocolate chip cupcakes, bake a leek and fig chicken dish, construct version three of a rice dish I'm working on, put together mishloash manot bags (minus chocolate-chocolate chip cupcakes), take the Eldest to school (8.30am), visit a school (9am), go back to the doctor who found a lump two weeks ago at my checkup (see me freak - whoopdefreakingdo, I'm a nursing mum. Lumps abound. 10.30), fill the urn, make a tofu tikka masala dish that I swooned over last week (no recipe available - just get one of those Arora indian spice mixes and replace the chicken with tofu, and toss in the cauliflower and baby bok choy, sliced up - ahhh - and add a few kaffir lime leaves for extra ahhhhh), roast spiced sweet potatoes, make pasta and hot dogs for Sat dinner, and find something to feed everybody for lunch. Oh yes, and meet up with my dear R at 3pm, wash vomitous towels/clothes/poopy diapers and figure out Purim costumes!

The Eldest, I suspect, will be Jack from the Magic Treehouse books (although he looks ready to throw that over to be whatever Sam is, sigh), the Toddles will be whatever the Eldest was last year, and the Man has offered to be a treehouse. While reading the Megilla - including, I should hope, doing the voices, yes? Yes.

Easy peasy. And if not, on the seventh day, we shall rest. Possibly by pitching headfirst onto the bed or any available surface.

I'm cold, but you can't make me -

Hmm. Where to begin? How about here:

Two weekends in a row, we've shuffled our way down to New York, for various reasons. By the end of the second, the Eldest turned to me and asked, plaintively, "Can we go back home now?" Sure, kid. No problem.

But by the time we got out the door, tempers were flaring.
child: I don't wanna wear my gloves! I don't like my gloves! Nooooo!
mama (clenched teeth, mentally counting audience members and adapting accordingly): Okay, then don't wear them. This is a choice you can make.
child: But I don't want to wear my coat! NOOOOOOO!
mama (teeth beginning to crack, jaw aching): okay, no coat. Be cold. This, too, is a choice you can make. But we're leaving now.

(five minutes later, in the car)
child: I'm cold. I want my coat and my gloves and my hat. I'm cooooold.
mama (grimly): Your coat and gloves and hat are on the floor of the car, where you flung them.
child: Why did you let me put them there? I'm so coooold.
mama (with a certain amount of satisfaction): This was your choice, and not my problem.
child: (wails)
Man (furiously): This is not my problem, either, but I'm driving. So everyone get their grumpies out RIGHT NOW.

pause, while mama and child consider this. Eventually,
mama (carefully): Does 'everyone' include you?

Mama and Man burst into laughter. Meanwhile,
child: I don't understand why you are laughing. Stooooooooop it! I'm coooooold!

More laughter, with the underlying tempo of insulted huffing from the back seat.

*********************************

In the bathtub:

Mum, why do we have Purim?

A maternal voice spins a tale of careless, silly kings, a woman afraid of admitting her heritage and a vizier with a nasty case of anitsemitism.

Do we have kings?

Carefully, the mother explains about the varying levels of people responsible for the nation, the states, the cities, and how we each choose, or vote, to give these people power. Or not.

But no king?

No. No king.

Then we can do whatever we want!

Sigh. No. I'm still in charge, the mother reminds the child, who grumps and refuses to get out of the rapidly cooling tub. Case in point, perhaps?
*******************

Dinner tonight, which I did not eat until it was cold, being off to Mayyim Hayyim, an experience I'm surprised to be able to recommend. I thought a mikva was supposed to be, well, rushed, slightly unpleasant and very, very chlorinated. Hm. Must reevaluate - preferably over another bowl of this:

Monk's Curry
adapted oh so slightly from the rebar modern food cookbook, pg 48, 184. Serves at least 4, assuming they eat eggplant. Most of mine, apparently, do not - anyone up for leftovers? When I got home, the house still smelled heavenly.

1 block tofu, cut into cubes
1 can coconut milk - I used the lower fat kind
4 Tb green curry paste (what, you don't have any? see below - it'll take you all of six minutes - four to chop, one to blend)
1/2 cup water
2 potatoes, chunked
1 Tb brown sugar
2 carrots, sliced
2 Tb soy sauce
1 onion, sliced
4 Tb olive oil
1 eggplant, cubed
6 oz mushrooms - plain are fine
4-6 baby bok choy, quartered
1 bunch scallions, sliced
juice of 1 lime
4-6 kaffir lime leaves

Heat a wok or deep skillet, toss in olive oil and heat. Saute eggplant, mushrooms, onion until browned a bit - don't feel obliged to let them cook through, though. Dump in a bowl and set aside.
Pour about 1/3rd the can of coconut milk into skillet, adding curry paste. Stir, letting heat up. When it starts to bubble, add lime leaves, water, potatoes and cover. Simmer gently, until potatoes are tender (about 8 minutes).

Add sugar, soy sayce, mushrooms, onions, eggplant, carrots and the rest of the coconut milk. Refill the coconut milk can with water and dump that in, too. Cover and let simmer until carrots are tender (about 10 minutes).

Add tofu, bok choy and scallions - cook until bok choy is wilting and sauce is thickening. Hopefully, this will happen more or less at the same time, but if you have to choose, stop when the bok choy is ready. Add lime juice before serving, a handful of basil leaves (if you like).

Serve with rice.

green curry paste
I kow understand the sad shake of Ian's head when he arrived in my kitchen and found it to be curry paste-less. A jar of this stuff is now perfuming my fridge, and I'm planning my next dip into it already. The notes on the recipe say that it's good for "Thai coconut curries," which as far as I can tell, means any curry with coconut milk. I might be wrong, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

1 Tb whole coriander seed
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp peppercorns (I used mixed, for a milder flavor)
4 cloves garlic
2 inches fresh ginger root, sliced
1 chopped onion
2 stalks lemongrass, outer layers removed (ruthlessly) and chopped as best you can (barely)
4 scallions, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
6 kaffir lime leaves
juice of 1 lime
1/3rd cup olive oil
optional: 1 bunch cilantro

Before you use your wok/deep skillet for the curry, roll the spices around in it, over low heat. Once you can smell them (a minute? two?), they are done. Let them cool a minute, then drop them in a food processor. Blend until the rattling sound sounds less like pebbles and more like sand. Call that 'ground.'

Toss in everything else. Blend until you are tired of it - our paste is more chunk than paste, but I suspect it is just fine that way. Keep it in a jar in the fridge until you need it. Or open occasionally to huff.

simchat torah

In case anyone was wondering, the autumnal Jewish holidays are really, truly, ruly (as we say around here) over. Weekends may now recommence to exist.

Simchat Torah finishes the holiday season with a bang, celebrating the finishing of the year's cycle of torah reading, and starting the cycle again - all in one night and day of dancing, singing, and dangerously delighted flag waving by small people hopped up on sugar. Excellent.

Where we live, there are a couple of options for simchat torah, one is the Hillel at the illustrious local university, known to us as the Shul that Shushes. Not entirely comfortable coexisting with little people (or, as magid calls them, 'smalls'), the Shul that Shushes does. The other option (which we go to) is the Shteble that Thinks It Can. It's an established synagogue, with a thriving egalitarian service and a bumbling along, ten families short of solid, Orthodox service. We go to the Shteble that Thinks It Can because they don't shush kids (with one notable exception), and they involve the kids wherever possible.

Any guesses where we were on Simchat Torah night? Actually, I was home with the babes, who needs some solid focus on sleep training to undo the damage done by the rise of the corn allergy. (sleep, scratch, wake, wail. sleep, scratch, wake, wail. Sigh.) But the Eldest and the man went, to my envy, and stayed. And danced. And sang. And was given a flag, which he came home clutching, tried to put on his pajamas while clutching, made a reasonable argument for going to bed while clutching...

There are few opportunities to watch Jews simply, delightedly celebrating being Jewish. A good Orthodox wedding is a great place for it - there's tons to happy, silly dancing with a lot of jumping around. Simchat Torah is another instance. In this case, the local police closed off the street, banned parking, and the dancers spilled out into the street and filled it with the joy of being us.

The joy of being different, in a society that occasionally remembers that we celebrate that sort of thing. The joy of being an ancient people, still here, still building on our impossibly complex system of laws and faith.

And in the middle of all that, the delighted joy of a small boy who will always be different, always be hedged about by rules and regulations...

...but who can certainly, delightedly dance.

Our thanks to everyone who made this last holiday wonderful - the MIL and FIL, who spent many late nights figuring out how to feed us, and did (splendidly!), magid, who fed us beyond our deserts even as we wandered exhaustedly in and out of the diningroom, the families who came and potlucked with us, oh so carefully...and everyone who danced.