Husband is out getting the last of the supplies we’ll need for the eight days…he’s been to a lot of stores so fingers crossed he’s been very careful. He keeps giving me The Look when I tell him to wash his hands - but he does it!
Now I have to decide if my fatigue is from cleaning or coronavirus. Cleaning.
My seder zoom group is doing a contest to see who comes up with the most creative Seder plate.
I’m using the wish bone from our thanksgiving turkey (H always saves it - don’t ask me why. )
I have a bit of horseradish left that I bought awhile ago because I had a lot of left over boxes of matzah from last year - which is all gone - H having finished off last box about a month ago.
Egg check
Salt water
I’ll chop up some apples and add wine - but no nuts.
Celery will have to do as I have no fresh parsley.
Wine, lots of wine,.
One of my cousins (who never throws anything away) has an extra shank bone in her freezer from last year.) I wonder how many people can say that.
I have no matzah so I’m printing out a picture of one.
The good thing is I don’t keep so not having matzah is no biggie for me.
Making boneless breast of chicken. I have homemade turkey soup in freezer from last weekend and I’ll make a veggie.
It’ll probably just be me as H is still working 20 hour days.
We’ll use lettuce instead of parsley.
Our shank bone is a pork rib from when we had ribs 2 weeks ago. I won’t put it on the seder plate, just next to it. It seems sacrilegious. The other option would be a picture of a shank bone.
I do have nuts for charoset.
We will have novel answers for why this night is different from all other nights.
Iirc, According to Jewish law health comes before religious requirements and it is detrimental to ones health, at this time, to go to the grocery store in search of Passover requirements.
@emilybee - I agree with you. I’m not going out to look for specifc Passover foods. Whatever we have will have to do.
We keep two lamb shank bones in the freezer and get one out every year for the seders. It’s not like we’re going to eat them! And they don’t touch anything else on the seder plate.
Otherwise thanks to husband’s excursions we have everything we need. Today is chicken soup day. Cool and rainy so good soup weather.
Our Rabbi sent out an email with his thoughts. Among other thoughts, he said:
If I didn’t know where you live I might think you are my cousin! 
Yes, rabbis in my area are giving the same message.
When I told my mom I didn’t have any matzah she suggested I call. Chabad as they deliver matzah to the elderly who might not be able to get out.
Now, we are reform and growing up neither of my parents kept, and my mom still doesn’t keep, nor do I, just my sister keeps (only at Passover and only the not eating anything leaven.) I told my mother I wasn’t going to take a box of matzah away from a person who it may be much more important than it is to me.
All this traditional stuff is more important to my husband than me (although I’m the Rabbi’s daughter). I would compromise quite a bit but he needs it right now. I’m much better at staying at home, and a large chunk of his daily life had involved watching, reading about, and participating in sports. So it gives him a focus.
So as long as he could carefully go shopping for all the fresh supplies (we got our dry goods early last month), we’ll have a fairly usual Passover. It’s normally just the two of us at home, and son will virtually join us for one of the seders.
Re the annual frozen shank bone, we got it at a butcher a few years ago. It was a lovely, perfect shank bone so we kept it. I’m pretty sure I read the idea of freezing and reusing here on cc. Then the husband brought another fresh one home two years ago. So now we have two.
One interesting issue is that the husband was very successful at getting all the eggs we need, but they’re all extra large. All my recipes involve large. So I’ll have to do some adjusting. Including fitting them in the Dash egg cooker to hard boil.
You could always just put them in a pot and boil them for 20 minutes.
I heard a recommendation to add lemonade to your seder plate this year, as a nod to “when life gives you lemons…”
Never having hosted before, I was delighted to find a kindergarten project handmade seder plate (drawings on a melamine plate) in the basement!
^ I should look through the boxes of kid’s nursery stuff. I know I have several of the menorahs he made.
I’ve never hosted either because my family is all downstate or in CT and god forbid they ever had to drive 2 hours to come have Seder at my house.
I like the lemonade idea! I’m going to steal that.
@stradmom Did our kids go to the same school? I have that same plate from preschool, but it is in a Rubbermaid bin in our storage unit.
My niece and her hubby in SF just tested our family group with a picture of their Seder plate and the message “we’re ready! They thought tonight was the first night. Oops.
Soup is simmering, eggs are hard boiled, one is roasting, haroset is made. The house is mostly clean (although I’m not). To be honest, it’s really not all that different from our usual habits except take out instead of going out. And everything else about life that is different, of course.
Let me just start off that I am Catholic and from Texas. We have brisket all the time but it is black pepper rubbed and put in a smoker at LEAST overnight.
I am so interested in learning about the Passover traditions now that we have moved to an area where I now have several Jewish friends.
How do y’all cook brisket? What is the significance of that in your holiday meal?
I am trying to learn. On Easter, our family has ham, potato salad, macaroni salad green beans, rolls, strawberry shortcake.
Tell me what y’all eat and the meaning if you don’t mind sharing!
Happy Passover and Easter!
It’s just tradition. No religious significance. Likely became a tradition because at one point it was an inexpensive cut of beef (hence why it takes so long to cook so it’s tender.) There are other traditional foods served like chicken soup with matzah balls and gefilte fish (which is cold) served with horseradish. Gifilte fish - which is like a fish meatball, was also used because it was inexpensive. Originally it was made from the fish scraps. My grandfather was a fishmonger - so that is what I was told.
Traditional foods also vary depending on if you are an Ashkenazi Jew or Sephardic Jew.
The Seder plate is what has significance and meaning.
I’ve never much liked brisket and have never made it. But not only was it an inexpensive cut of meat, it was also one of the allowed kosher cuts. https://forward.com/food/369470/top-10-kosher-meat-mysteries-solved/
Thank you for the link @emilybee. ?
I enjoy learning the meaning behind the traditions.
Happy Pesach everyone!