Passover (Amanda's old blog)

I have lived in Kalamazoo for four years now. Most schools - especially universities - do not have breaks for Jewish holidays. This is true for Western, which means that for the past three years, I've been away from my family on Passover. This is usually a difficult time of year for me. Passover is my very favorite holiday, and it's really important to me to be with my family and celebrate.

But this year we did things a little differently. I decided to hold my own seder at my house in Kalamazoo and invite all my friends. Everyone was really excited - everyone brought a dish and we had a lovely seder. And of course, I want to share it all with you!

I've never cooked a big meal before, so there was a lot of coordinating and planning ahead of time. I emailed back and forth with my mom for weeks, getting recipes and instructions and compiling my grocery list. Last weekend, I did the grocery shopping and as much of the cooking as I could get done ahead of time.

Then I cleaned the house on Wednesday, attended my lab section a day early so I could have Thursday off, and I spent the whole day Thursday cooking, cleaning and getting ready. I got out my beautiful Menorah-pattern table runner and matzo cover that my aunt made for me for my Bat Mitzvah. I borrowed my brother's cup of Elijah (thank you, Max!) and my mom's haggudahs (thank you, mom!). The table looked lovely:


I got that plate at Pier 1 years ago. It makes a lovely seder plate - look how well it goes with the table runner!
I love Stacy's tiny purple wine glasses. I'm very jealous.

Check out the table runner:

It's so hard to find Jewish-themed prints that aren't tacky. My aunt has such a good eye, I'll really cherish that table runner forever. I was so excited to finally use it, it's the first time!

Most people sat on the couches - you're supposed to relax on Passover, so it worked out nicely! So I just stacked the plates and let people get food cafeteria-style from the kitchen.


Plates and silverware, ready to go. And my cloth "napkins." Look how clean that couch is! I've never seen it look so good!


You don't even WANT to know what it looks like the rest of the time.
You can probably just barely tell, but that red bit behind it is another couch. We have stadium-style seating in our house, the couch behind is on a big wooden platform. It's pretty much the best living room setup I've ever seen. And it's GREAT for throwing parties! ^_^

And I got out all my favorite serving dishes. If you didn't know this about me yet, I'm a huge Fiestaware enthusiast. I also have many other non-fiesta dishes that I absolutely love. So, having people over gives me a chance to use some of my nicer serving platters that spend most of their time packed away.


That green disk pitcher is the crowning glory of my Fiesta collection. I LOVE having an opportunity to use it. And the little black bowl with the geometric designs inside. Everything was lovely.

So, I got the turkey in the oven that morning, made stuffing, heated up the soup, boiled some carrots.... And then people started arriving!

I didn't get any photos of the seder itself, I took 2 breaks while we were eating to get photos of everyone sitting around the room. And they ALL turned out fuzzy! I was in such a rush to get back to the party, I didn't even hold the camera still. Well, I suppose it's the mark of a good party, right?


On the right is my good friend Josh, who was the only other Jewish person there. Next to him is Todd and Todd's beau Rogan.
Can you see the seder plate? Shank bone and everything!


Todd and Rogan again. I love Rogan's quirky fashion sense. The bow tie! The horn-rimmed glasses! So fifties. I love it.


Val and Mike drove out all the way from East Lansing. You can barely make out Eric through the glare.


Om nom nom! I'm totally digging on Mike's hat. It's kind of hard to see here. Shaky camera hand. I should've put Brandon in charge of pictures.

Eric was a huge help. The timing of the meal and the seder were perfect - because he helped me serve people and manage the food. I couldn't have done it without him. What a great friend.


Stacy looking lovely!

I told people it was casual, but Stacy loves an excuse to dress up. I wish you could see the whole dress, it's adorable. I'm so jealous. She got it in Japan!


Apparently Hal didn't want it on record that he attended. Or something. He was on his laptop during the whole seder. Silly man. ^_^




Gini and Will sat on the loveseat in the corner. Gini wasn't feeling too well, so I gave her EXTRA matzo ball soup. She's trying to go vegetarian, but she ate the soup because she knows chicken soup made by a Jewish woman is a miracle cure. ^_^



I'm not really sure what's going on here. Someone off to the right must have said something awfully strange.


We played musical chairs a lot - people kept changing seats. Here, brandon is getting some boxed wine.

We had 3 kinds of wine: Manischewitz because I thought everyone should try it at least once - most people ended up liking it! I also bought a bottle of Mogen David, and I wanted a white wine. This seemed like a good opportunity to try boxed wine. I've never tried it before, and it's supposed to be a good way of keeping the wine. Most people won't switch over, though, because boxed wine has a reputation for being bad. Anyway, we had one box of white and 3 bottles of red.


And then, there was the aftermath:

All in all, not that bad. We were really responsible and put everything straight in the dishwasher right away. All that's left are wine glasses and serving platters.


See? Mostly wine glasses. No biggie.


OH! And I almost forgot! We didn't get ANY pictures of it ,which I'm very upset about because it was gorgeous, but I ordered a flourless chocolate cake from Waterstreet, a wonderful coffee shop in Kalamazoo. They have their own kitchen and they make delicious foods using local ingredients. They have lots of gluten-free options, which means their cakes are Kosher-for-Passover! Todd and Rogan picked it up. It was gorgeous. It was so fudgy and delicious, everyone enjoyed it.

While we ate dessert, Eric thought it would be fun if we watched the Passover episode of Rugrats. We were all laughing and reminiscing about old cartoons. And scarfing down cake - there was none left!

It was a fantastic evening. Honestly, the best Passover ever. I'm so happy to know that my friends take an interest in my religion and heritage - plus, most of them are history geeks or religion geeks, so they all really enjoyed the seder for intrinsic reasons. We sang Diaynu, we did the ten plagues, we dipped parsley in salt water. They were all fascinated by every tradition and they all read from the haggudah. It was so much fun. I feel so loved - truly, this is the way to spend Passover, surrounded by your best friends.

Chag Sameach! Next year in Jerusalem!

And I hope you all have a lovely Easter this weekend, as well. ^_^