Passover progress

[theeye]

Ok, so far, we have cooked the following:

One giant vat of chicken soup, army sized
One 6.5 lb brisket, with potatoes, carrots, onions, peppers and mushrooms
Two loaves of gefilte fish
Fourteen hardboiled eggs
Two big bowlfuls of haroset
One bowlful of homemade horseradish
A big bowlful of spaghetti squash in marinara sauce (2 squashes worth)

We still need to make matzo balls, marinated cauliflower, salad.
Need to roast an egg and roast the shank bone.

Tomorrow we still need to seal up the rest of the cabinets and change over our toothbrushes. Other than that, the apartment is pretty much ready for our final "chametz search". Then, of course, we need to get the rest of the Passover dishes down so we can set the table and we need to prepare the seder plate.

I think we might actually pull this off. My husband, of course, never had any doubt.

btw, if anyone is planning to convert to Judaism, I strongly recommend waiting until after Passover ends.

[Redlass]

It sounds like the holiday is a lot of work!

Question: Do you have to have all the food for the entire week prepared before it starts?

[theeye]

Originally posted by Redlass
It sounds like the holiday is a lot of work!

Yes.

Question: Do you have to have all the food for the entire week prepared before it starts?

No. You do need to prepare food in advance for Shabbat (the Sabbath). That's true every week -- cooking is prohibited on Shabbat.

On "Yom Tov" ("serious" holidays -- on Passover this applies to the first 2 and last 2 days of the 8 days), you are allowed to cook, but with some pretty severe limitations (you can't, for example, light or extinguish a flame -- but you can use one that is prelit. And you can only cook what you expect to eat on that same day.). But nearly everyone precooks for the holidays as well -- there's just no time, between all the other ritual observances. Besides we only ever really cook for Shabbat and holidays -- I don't think we know how to cook for a meal that's going to be eaten immediately!

So we're cooking for the first three days only (the first two being Yom Tov, which this year runs right into Shabbat). We're doing one of the two seders ourselves and are going to a friend's apartment for the other.

Oh and I forgot in my original list of things we've already cooked:

Two whole roasted chickens.

[theeye]

And, btw, the cooking isn't what makes the holiday hard. It's the cleaning. And the cleaning and the cleaning.

And the changing of all your dishes and pots and pans and utensils to the special ones you use only on Passover. And the shopping for all the special foods. And the covering of all your counters.

And the cleaning.

And the cleaning.

And the cleaning.

[theeye]

Or so my husband replied, grinning, when I told him he was my hero. He just managed to make room in the refrigerator for the brisket.

It is the season of miracles, indeed.

[theworm[$]]

Yes it was hard work, but it seems like all your panic was for nothing. You should listen to your husband more!

[theeye]

Yes, but it just wouldn't feel right if I weren't worried.

The Poopster is reluctantly eating his Passover "Fruity-O's". He's met Cheerios -- and these are no Cheerios.

[jnbmoore]

So how strict are you on chametz ?

I know last year I had a friend who had a child at the Jewish Community Center preschool in Rochester NY. The kids brought home forms. Basically if you put the chametz in a closet or cupboard, you could sign the form giving the rabbi rights to sell your chametz (even though it would remain in your house) to a gentile at the start of Passover.

This was done with the understanding that as soon as Passover was over, the gentile would sell the chametz back to the rabbi and therfore give you rights to it again..

And the other question -- with all that food how big is your fridge!

Bridgette

[theeye]

Oh, yes. Everyone sells chametz. But we try to get rid of as much as possible and certainly anything that's open and is "real" chametz (like a bag of flour) as opposed to something that seems like it could be kosher for Passover, but it's just not certified as being ok.

btw, the sale has to be a real sale -- meaning that the non-Jew is perfectly entitled to decide not to sell the chametz back if he so chooses. Many people will actually leave a key to their home with the rabbi so that should the non-Jew decide that he wants to come and look at or take some of his chametz during the holiday, he'll be able to. The "buy-back" price is generally higher than the original sales price, which is very nominal.

Needless to say, the non-Jew that the rabbi chooses to sell the entire community's chametz to is picked very carefully.

And, yes, an individual can do their own sale, but you usually do it through the rabbi to ensure that it's properly legal (from the perspective of Jewish law). I've occasionally done the sale myself -- to my dear friend Cheryl ("cldplay"), who has always opted to sell it back to me afterwards.


The underlying idea here, btw, is that Jews are not permitted to own or derive benefit from even the smallest quantity of chametz during the holiday. This differs from the regular laws of kashrut -- I'm perfectly entitled to buy a ham if I want to, so long as I don't eat it (or let it touch my dishes). I could even feed it to my pet (which is why you'll find the interesting concept of cat food that's officially certified by a rabbi as being "kosher for passover" even though it contains shrimp -- it's not kosher, but it's chametz-free and thus it's ok to own it and to derive benefit from it by feeding it to your pet).

Yes, we do have a rather legalistic tradition.

[theeye]

Oh, and the fridge is just normal size. We do some really serious packing optimization. (And we remove anything that doesn't absolutely need refrigeration.)

[theworm[$]]

I could even feed it to my pet (which is why you'll find the interesting concept of cat food that's officially certified by a rabbi as being "kosher for passover" even though it contains shrimp -- it's not kosher, but it's chametz-free and thus it's ok to own it and to derive benefit from it by feeding it to your pet).

This is interesting, because I always wondered about pet food. I'm certainly not as observant as my sister. I only eat chametz-free foods during Passover, and I don't eat out. I do keep Chametz in the house, but I pack it away in a sealed cabinet (don't do the sale part), but I always wondered about the pet-food. Since my cat's are not Jewish, and it's their house to, I give them regular cat food during Pesach, but it's most definately Chametz. Do they actually sell Chametz-free pet foods?

[theeye]

Yes, there's definitely chametz-free pet food. There's a list on the OU web site. I'll see if I can find it.

[theeye]

Here's a list of chametz-free pet foods. A lot of Friskies flavors are included.

[Redlass]

What is chametz?

[theeye]

Originally posted by Redlass
What is chametz?

Sorry -- I thought I had defined it above. (Thanks for the question -- and please do let me know any time I slip and use a non-English or technical religious term without translation -- it's always an oversight on my part.)

"Chametz" refers to leavened grain products. But there's a much more detailed technical definition (I'll spare you all of the details).

The basic idea here is that the Israelites had to leave Egypt so quickly that their bread didn't have time to rise. In remembrance (and for various other, more mystical, reasons) we eliminate all leaven from our lives on Passover.

There are five grains (I'm blanking at the moment -- I'm pretty sure it's five.) that can become chametz. If they come into contact with the slightest amount of water, they become chametz -- except if they are processed in a very particular way to become matzo. (Matzo has exactly two ingredients -- wheat flour and water. There are also things like egg matzo and matzo's made with fruit juice, which are not considered chametz -- so you can own them -- but they are really only supposed to be eaten by children, the elderly or the sick who have difficulty with digestion.)

Once you make matzo, you can crush it up into a sort of flour called matzo meal, from which you can make Passover "cakes" which, suffice it to say, do not taste like Dunkin Hines.

Generally speaking, most food products need to be certified that they did not come into contact with chametz at any point in their processing.

In addition to the rules about chametz, which are extremely stringent, Ashkenazic Jews (Jews from Eastern Europe -- as opposed to Sephardic Jews, from Spain, S. America, north Africa and Asia) also avoid eating "kitniyot", which is usually translated as "legumes", but doesn't quite correspond. Kitniyot include things like rice and beans. It's perfectly ok to own kitniyot (though it's difficult, unless you live in an area with a lot of Sephardic Jews, to find kitniyot that are certified as chametz free), but Ashkenazic Jews are not permitted to eat them (you can, however, derive benefit from them, so pet food is not an issue).

I have a friend who's a Sephardic Jew who calls me every year in a panic. Do you guys eat eggplant?, she'll ask in an exasperated tone of voice. Well, yes, of course we eat eggplant. Who doesn't eat eggplant? I don't know, she'll reply, You Ashkenazis are so crazy with your kitniyot thing that I never know what you'll eat and what you won't. Cooking for Ashkenazi guests gets her incredibly nervous.

Sorry for the overly long explanation. (But you did ask. )

[Redlass]

I did ask! And I appreciate the long explanation.

Thank you for being patient with the questions of the uninformed.

[Redlass]

Oh, and I'd heard of the passover pet food. There was a particularly offensive bit on a morning talk radio (I hate talk radio, but my husband had it on when I came out from dropping our son off at school). They read the article about the kosher pet food and proceeded to make fun of it. I was seething and found nothing funny about it. They also went on to talk about giving the Eucharist to one's dogs and cats.

[theeye]

Oh, one other thing: the "ch" in chametz is not the English "ch" sound (as in "children"). That sound doesn't exist in Hebrew. It's the throat-clearing, gutteral sound that you may have heard. Same sound as "chutzpah", for example. Or "Chanukah", for that matter (which does NOT start with an "h" sound).

The accent is on the first syllable if you're speaking Yiddish: CHUH-metz. Or on the second if you're speaking standard Israeli Hebrew: chah-METZ.

[Redlass]

Is it like the German ch?

[theeye]

Originally posted by Redlass
Is it like the German ch?

Probably. I'm actually not sure what the German ch sounds like, though. If I can find a German speaker to pronounce it for me, I'll give you a more definitive answer.

On-line communication is wonderful in so many ways -- but it's got its drawbacks, doesn't it?

As for the morning talk show -- isn't it their job to be offensive?

-TheEye, who just listens to NPR

[Redlass]

It is. That's why I didn't call in and am not going to write to them. It would simply provide more fodder. This morning my husband had the radio turned back to NPR and I was much, much happier. Of course, then I convinced him that I'd rather talk to him than listen to the radio, so that was pretty short-lived too.

I think the house cleaning would be more frightening for me than all the cooking.

[theeye]

Originally posted by Redlass
I think the house cleaning would be more frightening for me than all the cooking.

It is. After all, you don't really need to do any cooking if you don't want to. Here in NY, there are plenty of kosher stores and caterers that will provide you with all the fixings for a seder and deliver them to your home.

But you've still got to clean and kasher (kasher == "make kosher" == various procedures to make sure that your oven/stove/sink/counters/etc. are acceptable for use on Pesach).

Unless, of course, you lock up the whole house, sell its contents and head off to a kosher-for-Passover hotel for the week. Lots of people do that. There are even Passover cruises and a Club Med in Mexico that go kosher for Passover.

We came this close to doing that for the first time ever this year.

Ok, gotta run and start the matzo balls.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

1) How in the WORLD do you keep track of all these rules?! I'm having a hard enough time remembering what I gave up for Lent!

2) What time's dinner? Some of the food sounds delicious, while the other stuff sounds... interesting, as in "don't know what the heck it is but I'll try anything once" interesting

mj