Pesach Seder, Jerusalem, 2006

I hosted my very first Pesach Seder last night, attended by Shoshana, Matt, Aaron, Mehdi, Julia, Sandra, and Lorin. Somehow, we actually pulled it off without a hitch. Mehdi, the Turk, and I cooked all day, Lorin came over to help, Shoshana brought a table and we got started early so that our young Russian friend, Julia, could join in for a little while before rushing off to work, and Aaron, aka "Canuck," could attend for a bit before hurrying off to another seder. We were an interesting bunch, as always, internationally and religiously mixed, and the half of us that are Jewish led the others in prayer and song. I made charoset and matza ball soup and chicken, while Mehdi made salmon, green beans, potatoes and salad. Half of us gobbled down gefilte fish with horseradish to the "ews!" and sour faces of the other half, as is standard at any seder.


Julia and I



Starting the Seder (Lorin, Sandra, Julia, Mehdi, Aaron, Matt and Shoshana)



Aaron Leading Us in the Kiddush



Gefilte Fish, Eggs, and Matza Ball Soup



Lorin and Sandra, Mehdi's Delicious Garlic/Tomato Greenbeans, and my Plum Sauce and Pistacchio Chicken with Mushrooms....oh, and a delightful side dish of cigarette butts

Tipsy by the time we got around to dinner, and appropriately and completely shitfaced by the time we were eating dessert, we happily howled our way through 'Mi Yode'ah' ("...sh'bashamaim uv'aaaaaaareeeeeetz, DRINK!") and meowed and barked and mehhhhed our way through 'Chad Gadya.' We might have scared off the goyim had they not been pretty shitfaced themselves.


Shoshana and I



Dessert...full and wine-induced red in the face

As good of a non-practicing, non-religious Jew as I am, my efforts to appease our ancestors and God failed, to the such an extent, in fact, that my reward was a clogged pipe in the kitchen and the subsequent flooding of half of our apartment. Lorin and Mehdi got down and dirty trying to fix the problem as Matt went from cleaning dishes to squeegy-ing the floor, whistling sailor songs and pretending he was on the deck of a boat. This morning was much of the same but the leftovers we sated ourselves with after McGuyvering tools and taking turns playing plumber were still tasty so the hell with all of it. Passover was great!!


Chag Sameach!