Passover ultra-lite,
ultra-late,
ultra authentic
April 14, 2007
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Our first matza ball ever. Don’t believe the hype.
More than half of us had to be at Schiphol Airport the next morning on planes boarding well before 7. We should’ve blown the whole thing off. I mean, isn’t Pesach synonymous with multi-day preparation? To make matters worse, an unfortuitous divorce in our group meant that ‘we’ weren’t invited to the massively gay and elaborately laid seder we usually enjoy so much. Dang.
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Wig-wearing Reb Tal finds the afikomen.
On April 2nd, in the middle of simultaneous hormonally driven housecleans, we started phoning and texting in the hopes that at least someone had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to prepare dinner for 7. No such luck. But as the great Yiddish philosopher and Dutch football coach Johan Cruyff once said, ‘Elk nadeel hebt z’n voordeel’ and we decided that we would turn our lack of time, planning and preparation into a hyper-authentic Pesach seder. Our ancestors weren’t busting out the special china the night before, so why should we re-enact labour intensive conventions just because our moms get off on preparing Olympic dinners for 30?
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Vegetable scrap soup
Anywhoozelbees, we all turned up at 20.00h, grocery bags in hand and set to work preparing the dinner. We made matza ball soup out of vegetable scraps (and instant vegetarian dashi powder), and learned to not believe the hype about matza balls. (You can totally make them on the fly.) We ritually liberated ourselves from the foul burden of eating gefilte fish by changing the main course to pepesan. To our way of thinking, gefilte fish is just Gawd’s way of punishing Ashkenazic Jews. How liberating it is to learn that freedom is just a menu change away.
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Zvoni and Iva prepare Indonesian style gefilte fish
Tal, the youngest, was our fast-reading Hebrew adept and therefore the designated Rebbe. May karmic justice reign down upon us! He didn’t have have enough kipot, so the guys had to don his collection of wigs – whatevs. He also found the afikomen for the very first time in his life and was utterly surprised. I personally don’t approve of the traditional ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ ritual guidance, but we were about to turn into pumpkins as it was well past midnight. Reb Tal wouldn’t continue the reading until he had found that blessed piece of matza.
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No kipa? No problem. Nenad explores his inner Marilyn
Pesach ultra-lite is definitely worth a repeat and now that we’ve had a taste of it, I’m betting next year’s seder will be faster and lighter yet. The best part of making/celebrating Pesach on the fly? It was the first time we didn’t overeat. No time, planning and prep means you can’t make too much food. Pesach ultra-lite served as an excellent in-your-face reminder of folks running for their lives.
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Chef and seder hostess, Marlein Overakker
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Chef Inez de Jongh busts out the bernaise
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Inadvertent
seed collecting
March 27, 2007
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Nothing going on here…
In December a flood swept my vertical gardening experiment clean. The entire wall of calabash was washed away. A tragedy, although that was the extent of the damage and thankfully I’m not a vertical calabash farmer. A close inspection of the dirt revealed that I still had seeds for giving this plant another go.
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But at closer inspection…
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Left leaves
March 25, 2007
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Author with 36-point fresh kill
Yesterday it occured to me that it’s only because the garden was neglected for such a long time that we’re able to enjoy these spring flower salads and everything-but-the-squeal brassica eating experiences. The romanesca shown above was at one time a compact light green pagoda and it was probably ready for harvest back in November. Now it has exploded literally beyond recognition into this beauty, and having endured several periods of frost, we’re eating the sweet, longstemmed florets like asparagus, dunking them in homemade Bernaise and coreander mayonnaise.
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Mizuna, violet cauliflower and broccoli flowers with over the top red cabbage and broccoli leaves
The mizuna lettuce that should have been eaten months ago, may be flowering into seed, but it’s still quite full of leaves, also sweetened by the frosts. We’re eating the entire bush, flowerheads and all, like extravagant edible bouquets.
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Dark and opalescent kales
The kales are tender and sweet and a look around reveals more than 2 months of full-time eating ahead. And this from my scraggly little permaculture kitchen garden, supposedly in the Hungry Gap.
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