Saturday 21 April 2012

On Passover, rotten eggs and failed pavlova


Unusually Passover this year fell both on Shabbat and Good Friday – like the original Good Friday when Jesus was denounced at the Seder meal.   Passover is an important festival in our family and for the past few years we have gone to my lovely cousin Jessica’s house where she hosts a Seder meal for up to 36 people!  When I was growing up we went to Jessica’s parents house where my Uncle Denis and Aunt Yvonne held the celebrations.  So this year was hard for all the family as it was the first Passover without Denis and for us it was difficult as we were so far away from friends and family.  Camilla and Jeremy were in Israel so we were on our own for the first time that I could remember for Passover.
So being me I had a plan.  The boys were going stir crazy since our return back to Moshi from Fish Eagle Point so I had invited some friends over for them to play with.  My plan therefore was to combine childcare with Pesach baking….  Of course all the best laid plans go amiss.  There was no electricity which was a nightmare as not only could I do no Pesach cooking or baking but Aaron decided to go out “shopping” which involved going to the coffee shop for a long time.  When the children became fractious I couldn’t put a film on as there was no electricity so I resorted to lots of drawing games!
The electricity finally came on at 4pm.  Aaron excelled himself by baking Matzah.  I excelled myself by exploding the egg in the cooker.  Of the 18 eggs we had bought lots had gone bad so I kept boiling and boiling more and more eggs to eat in salt water and we finally shared 2!  My pavlova wouldn’t whisk as the eggs were bad so I turned my chocolate pavlova into a cake which looked great when I brought it out of the oven but like my Mother’s famous cheese soufflés of the past I watched it sink in horror.  Aaron then managed to drop our dinner on the floor but we scooped it up and ate it anyway….  I found an all hebrew and an all English hagaddah on the internet but not one with both so kept trying to flit between the two.
So it was an interesting Seder night but we managed it.  It did bring it home to me how much family means to me and to our boys and we said “next year in North London”

Passover by Josh and Zac HT


Everything went wrong and it felt like there was something in the house making things go wrong.  Daddy made nice matza which is a type of Jewish food that you are only allowed to eat on Passover.  He made Mummy one shaped like a heart.

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