For the second year in a row, I am not at my mom’s house for Seder, although she lives a ten-minute drive away. Somehow I don’t think God, if he exists, meant for people to scream at each other in celebration of the survival of the Jewish people.
So here I am, with Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food: A Culinary Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, a double CD of blues, another of Robert Shaw Chorale spirituals (hey, they mention the Promised Land more than anything else I have in the house!), a glass of wine for Elijah, and one for myself (having already dispatched the lamb kebab).
Anyone care to join me? I’ve been wanting to try out the flourless chocolate torte (ground almonds instead of flour), and I neither can, nor should eat the whole thing myself. Plus some company would be nice. Bring the kids; I’ll read them my favorite Passover story, The Carp in the Bathtub. Here’s the cake recipe; perhaps it will entice you (plus I make a mean charoset):
Torta di Mandorle e Cioccolata (Chocolate and Almond Cake), p. 600 (serves 10-12):
1-1/2 cups (250 g) blanched almonds
7 oz. (200 g) dark, bittersweet chocolate
1-1/4 cups (250 g) sugar
7 egg whites
Oil and flour or matzo meal for the cake pan
Finely chop the almond and chocolate together in a food proceessor, then add the sugar and mix well. Beat the egg whites stiff and fold into the chocolate-and-almond mixture. Oil a preferably nonstick and springform 9-inch (23-cm) cake pan, then dust with flour or matzo meal. Bake in a preheated 300F (150C) oven for 1 hour, until firm.
Anyone care to join me in a cup of tea, and some gefilte fish with horseradish, not necessarily in that order?
Sure Eva Luna, I’ll join ya’. I just had a Seder dinner with my Grandmother at her retirement home. It was 3 hours long, but the food was good! Love that Manishevitz and Matzo! Anyway I hadn’t been to one in years so it was nice.
Happy Passover!
I’ll have some tea, and even the horseradish, but I’ll pass on the fish. Too bad about no leaven, I bake a good challah, if I do say so myself. What should I bring?
I’m growing dill in some pots on a windowsill in my kitchen, I’d be glad to harvest and bring to the table. My honey cake is more than toothsome. Do you need a tablecloth? I’ve got fabric that looks just like matzoh[don’t drop one on it or it’ll disappear] What time?
I haven’t been to a seder in…I’d say 15 years or so. A rabbi friend of my grandma’s came over and everything. In my house…the kids know they’re Jewish, I think. We light candles at Hanukkah. We’re only technically Jewish, really.
I’ll attend if you’ll still let my heathen butt in. Also, I must make that cake, for it sounds ridiculously good.
I have to check in, because I’m a lonely jew up here.
I had a seder, alright. I found matzah. I bought lovely red wine to make my charoses.
and realized I didn’t have a bottle opener and that no place that sold them was open at that hour and had to run across to the student building and get a box of Ribena out of a vending machine.
I’m cohosting a seder with the esteemed Hello Again this weekend. I’m just a gentile with a largish dining room table. Tonight I was at the grocery store in the passover food aisle, looking for Matzoh Cake meal. Another woman sidled up, looked over the stuff, sighed, shook her head, and said “Man, they just don’t make plain old matzoh anymore, do they?”
I felt like I’d sneaked into the Moose Lodge and was being offered the secret handshake. I didn’t know what to say.
Anyone but me remember the advertisment “Man, oh Manishevitz?”
Will any wine do, or does it have to me Manishevitz (which, I hate to say, doesn’t seem like it would be the best wine you could pick up for the occasion).
Anyway I hadn’t been to one in years so it was nice.
Besides, I bet we have the same Hebrew name.