One of my favorite family dinners, each year, is Passover. I print off a "seder", the Jewish ritual that each Jewish family takes part in, including group readings from Exodus and readings by the narrator (me). On March 22, 2020, Mike and Heidi, and Carol Garza joined Dave and me for Passover. It was the first weekend that Utah has been shut down because of the coronavirus, and so the Eberts and Flindts couldn't join us.
Passover includes a number of items of ritual food, as well as just a very good dinner. (I would put my matzo ball soup up against anyone's.) The ritual food is symbolic of the Hebrews' experience as slaves in Egypt. The charoset, a mixture of apples, raisins, spices,and juice, represents the mortar in the pyramids the Hebrews constructed for Pharoah. The bitter herbs represent the bitterness of being slaves, and the salt water represents the Hebrews' tears. There was a lot of grape juice flowing at my Passover dinner, instead of the four cups of wine!
At traditional Passover ceremonies, an empty chair is left for Elijah, the Biblical prophet who the Jews believe will return someday. A child looks outside to see if Elijah is coming. At a certain point in the Passover dinner, Michael's role is to go to the door, look up and down Northland Drive, and tell us whether Elijah will join us for dinner this Passover.
I get my Passover menus from the Foods section of the New York Times, and the dishes are delicious. The menus feature oldtime Eastern European Jewish staples like matzo ball soup, brisket, au gratin potatoes (made with olive oil and no cream), and, for dessert, a heavenly flourless orange/chocolate cake. For Orthodox Jews, the meal must exclude either meat or dairy. This was a dairy-less meal. Hence the cake made without flour, milk, or cream.
Mike enjoys Passover almost as much as I do.
The dish next to the flowers is the charoset, representing mortar. I ordered these beautiful silk table runners from Israel. The motif of pomegranates is taken from the Bible.
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