We are doing ours tomorrow, for 14 people plus a 2 year old (and including his very pregnant mom, whose due date is Sunday, so it is possible the toddler, mom and dad MIGHT not make it to dinner tomorrow night). That is the max I can seat in my dining room plus six people at the kitchen island, and I'm pleased to make the fullest use of my entertaining space.
We do a relatively low key Seder, with my father (who will be 84 next week) leading it. We are going to do some participatory readings - including a reading from The Notorious RBG: http://tabletmag.com/scroll/189756/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-feminist-passover-message. I'm going to try to Chrome-cast some music at appropriate times, including this wonderful version of the Dayenu (which I always thought was a song everyone was singing to ME when I was little):
In truth, although we make a half-assed effort to touch on the highlights of the rituals of the Seder, it is mostly about the food.
I'm pretty much ready, food-wise, for tomorrow - sitting in bed right now, resting my back and having some wine to relax. Tomorrow, I have to put the pot roast up, and get the table and all the accoutrements set up by dinnertime, and we have to clean the house (usually, we can get the couple who cleans our house to come just ahead of our dinner parties, but they are on vacation, so - HORRORS! - we will have to clean the house ourselves!). (For my Jewish friends - I mean a normal cleaning - I do NOT do the whole cleanse the house of hametz with a feather, and we're not eating on special Passover dishes.)
Passover meals are (for me) a mix of stuff I can buy premade, stuff I prepare, and stuff other people bring. Since my daughter is currently unemployed and living at home, she has been helping me - it is a LOT of work, with lots of moving parts.
For the ceremonial part of the meal, I have:
And now, I'm ready to get this holiday underway - and out of the way - we'd like to go camping again on Sunday!
We do a relatively low key Seder, with my father (who will be 84 next week) leading it. We are going to do some participatory readings - including a reading from The Notorious RBG: http://tabletmag.com/scroll/189756/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-feminist-passover-message. I'm going to try to Chrome-cast some music at appropriate times, including this wonderful version of the Dayenu (which I always thought was a song everyone was singing to ME when I was little):
In truth, although we make a half-assed effort to touch on the highlights of the rituals of the Seder, it is mostly about the food.
I'm pretty much ready, food-wise, for tomorrow - sitting in bed right now, resting my back and having some wine to relax. Tomorrow, I have to put the pot roast up, and get the table and all the accoutrements set up by dinnertime, and we have to clean the house (usually, we can get the couple who cleans our house to come just ahead of our dinner parties, but they are on vacation, so - HORRORS! - we will have to clean the house ourselves!). (For my Jewish friends - I mean a normal cleaning - I do NOT do the whole cleanse the house of hametz with a feather, and we're not eating on special Passover dishes.)
Passover meals are (for me) a mix of stuff I can buy premade, stuff I prepare, and stuff other people bring. Since my daughter is currently unemployed and living at home, she has been helping me - it is a LOT of work, with lots of moving parts.
For the ceremonial part of the meal, I have:
- Store-bought matzoh
- Costco shelled hardboiled eggs (plus one real egg I will scorch tomorrow that goes on the Seder plate)
- A lamb chop bone (saved a previous meal)
- Charoset - chopped apples (two kinds), lemon juice, chopped walnuts, yellow raisins, concord grape wine, honey, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg
- Store-bought horseradish, both white and red (less spicy, cut with beets)
- Baby endive leaves
- Parsley
- Maneschewitz gross sweet concord grape wine
- Homemade chicken soup (8 lbs of chicken legs, celery, fennel frond, salt, pepper, garlic, dried onion, dill, salt and white pepper) - simmered for hours, onion, fennel and dill in an herb basket. All the meat and bones removed (and the meat painstakingly cleaned by me for my daughter's dog and cats - mine wouldn't touch it), and the soup strained and chilled (I decided to NOT remove the fat after all - there wasn't a horrible amount and so much of the flavor is in that part!)
- Dad is making the matzoh balls - he has a special touch for it. But when I found out he wasn't making enough for lots of extras, my daughter and I decided to try our hand at making another batch ourselves - I made a CANOE-FUL of soup!
- Someone else is bringing the sliced raw onion and red bell pepper, which tastes wonderful as a garnish with the matzoh ball soup.
- I made chopped liver - sauteed about 2 lbs of calves liver on two different kinds of onions in chicken fat and olive oil, coarsely ground the liver and onions, plus two more raw onions, and then added 13 chopped hard boiled eggs and seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. (I'm a little disappointed - the liver looked very high quality, but it ended up being gristly. I'll probably end up eating most of it myself.
- Store-bought gefilte fish - two flavors
- My daughter went over to the pregnant girl's house today and they made veggie foods (one guest is annoyingly veggie) - which are going to be delish: a tabouli salad (bulgar, mint, parsley, tomatoes and seasonings) and a kugel (egg noodles, cottage cheese, sour cream or cream cheese, milk, sugar, spices and I think they used raisins).
- The fixings for a lavish pot roast, to be slow-roasted during the day tomorrow:
- 5-6 lbs. of lovely meat from Costco, which is presently marinating in red wine, apple cider vinegar, beef broth, olive oil, fresh rosemary and thyme from my garden, garlic, dried onion, pepper and salt.
- The veggies to go with: multicolored carrots, parsnips, a few small turnips and golden beets, two colors of fingerling potatoes, asparagus and romanesco, as well as a bed of fennel and onion the meat will sit upon when roasting.
- 4 lbs of marrow bones.
- Three kinds of macaroons
- Flourless cake
- Non-pareils
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- Those awful, delicious citrus jelly slices
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And now, I'm ready to get this holiday underway - and out of the way - we'd like to go camping again on Sunday!
Or post here I don't care, I'm easy on that.
