For the past three years since I've been with Tal, we're always invited to his cousin's Tammy's place for Passover. Since I'm new to the Jewish culture and tradition, I find Passover and Seder (Jewish ritual service and dinner for the Passover) to be very interesting and elaborate experience every time. Tal, of course said the celebration is different in Israel than here because we spent a lot of time reading and singing the haggadah (Jewish text). It was fun and I get to learn about the history at the same time. One thing to remember, no flour allowed for Passover - that means no bread, or cake or anything made with flour. Zero flour tolerance!
We arrived around after 8PM because we forgot the dessert that we were supposed to bring and had to drive all the way home to get it, good thing Tammy only live 20mile away from us!
The table was already set with seder plate and this is what each item represent:
- Salt water (not shown) represents the tears of Jewish ancestors shed during their years of enslavement in Egypt
- Parsley or bitter veggie (supposed to dip in salt water before eating) represents the bitterness or harshness endured during slavery
- Radish also represents the harshness of time during slavery
- Charoset (mix nuts/fruits paste) represents the mortar the Israelites were forced to use while building structures for Egyptian
- Hard Boiled Egg represents fertility or for mourning
There were also lots of wine or grape juice poured and drank, matzah passed around to hold the tummy and after a little more than an hour, we finally got started with matzo ball soup. Tammy made them really good!
Up next was a choice between stuffed cabbage or gefilte fish - Tal opted for cabbage and I fish, shown above is the latter and it was YUM! on the spicy side.
I think we kinda abandoned the seder and started with the main courses. As usual, it's a buffet setting that we all went to pick what we like. Tammy's specialty is the beef ribs/shank in barbecue sauce - incredible! Clockwise - I also got quinoa salad, chicken leg, some olives, salad, and roasted beets!
During seder, we passed around the matzah and this is what we spread on them - chopped liver pate, Totally out of this world! So awesome and I don't even like liver!
Our contribution which Tal made the nite before - flourless or they call it Israeli cheesecake. Made with sour cream, yogurt, the crumbs were from matzah.
We skipped dessert because we were so stuffed with all the food and grape juice - left Tammy's close to midnight.
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