Mayim Bialik's Passover Prep

[divadivine]

Ok, I'm not going to complain about Meatless Fridays during Lent again.

[GeoBQn]

My cousin and his wife had a baby boy on Monday, so the bris is going to have to be during Passover. The wife's family is hosting and they are planning on having it at a Reform synagogue, but they want to be able to serve "anything they want" (including bagels.) I doubt that even a Reform synagogue would allow chametz during Passover. Then they said if all else fails, they will have it at their house. However, they are using an Orthodox mohel, and I think he would flat out not show up if he found out they were serving non KforP food.

[Arete]

Ok, I'm not going to complain about Meatless Fridays during Lent again.

Sigh. Catholics have it so easy. Fully observing Orthodox Christian Lent involves almost 50 days of veganism. ;)

[August]

Sigh. Catholics have it so easy. Fully observing Orthodox Christian Lent involves almost 50 days of veganism. ;)

Atheist here laughing at the lot of you. So long as I eat one baby a decade I'm good with the FSM.

[LogansMama]

The tiny Post-Its on the calendar remind me of a MOTH schedule.

EXACTLY! M's comment of "I can't function without my black marker!" immediately came to mind! :lol:

[mystikchick17]

My cousin and his wife had a baby boy on Monday, so the bris is going to have to be during Passover. The wife's family is hosting and they are planning on having it at a Reform synagogue, but they want to be able to serve "anything they want" (including bagels.) I doubt that even a Reform synagogue would allow chametz during Passover. Then they said if all else fails, they will have it at their house. However, they are using an Orthodox mohel, and I think he would flat out not show up if he found out they were serving non KforP food.

Uh...yeah. Good luck with that one.

[MandyLaLa]

I live in a town with a HUGE Jewish population and for the Jewish holidays they offer a bunch of traditional Jewish food (brisket, carrot tzimmies, potato pancakes, btw sweet potato pancakes are to die for and they also make an amazing noodle keugeul (with spaghetti not egg noodles, weird) but they have them now with a "passover special" sign and then the ingredients listed: wheat :cray-cray:

[GeoBQn]

Most matzah is made with wheat flour, so anything made with matzah or matzah meal will still have wheat in it.

[Coconut Flan]

Sigh. Catholics have it so easy. Fully observing Orthodox Christian Lent involves almost 50 days of veganism. ;)

Without wine. ;)

[MandyLaLa]

Most matzah is made with wheat flour, so anything made with matzah or matzah meal will still have wheat in it.

Unless it was made with some sort of matzo noodles (which I highly doubt, if they even exist) it was not kosher for passover.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Just popping in for a moment. Everyone's done a good job of explaining Passover cleaning prep. Personally, I ignore people who start cleaning months in advance and tell me things like "I go through the pages of all our books to make sure there are no crumbs", because that's not what the rules require. You can't eat chametz, so you need to thoroughly clean the kitchen, boil the metal pots and cutlery and use different dishes. You can't own chametz, so you do a basic clean and search the pantries, fridge and freezer. Crumbs, however, don't count if they aren't in a food prep area and are too small to eat or too gross to eat. Seriously, when was the last time anyone past infancy started eating the pages of a book?

I follow Mayim's blog because she's one of the only celebrities that I actually relate to, even if I don't agree with her on everything (I like vaccines). Her religious observance is constantly evolving - she's very serious about it, but not in a "I'm right and you are all a bunch of heretics going to hell" sort of way, and she's not hung up on denominations and labels.

[Arete]

Aww, come on 2xx, you don't go through the pages of every book in your house? You know the first rule of high holidays of any faith, especially for a woman:

If you don't martyr yourself in the preparation, you aren't allowed to enjoy the holiday. :naughty: ;)

[2xx1xy1JD]

I made the mistake of dealing with my husband the day before the holiday. He doesn't cope well with the prep, esp. grocery shopping. Picture what Toys'R'Us looks like on December 24, and then double the chaos. Hubby does not deal well with crowds.

That was enough martyrdom for me.

[lipstickgoalie]

I really wanted to thank everyone who took the time to give me awesome answers to my "Passover and aluminum foil, what gives?" question. It is one of the reasons I love it here. I really appreciate it. Seriously.

[docmom]

You and me both. It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I learned that it wasn't just leavened bread that was a Passover no-no, but a whole host of other things as well. And it was only when I started doing freelance design work for synagogues that I found out about the cleaning rituals and chametz-selling. I was actually quite surprised given that my maternal grandparents were (sort of) Orthodox and my family belonged to a conservative synagogue when I was growing up (not that we were--we were your typical 3-day-a-year observant Jews--but the reform temple was much further away and all of my parents' friends belong to the conservative temple). I have to admit that while I get the whole unleavened bread thing, the rest of it escapes me.

P.S. I was clearly rebelling against religion at a very early age. Nearly 50 years later my family still talks about the time I made my school lunch during Passover. A matzoh sandwich. With ham.

LOL! Reminds me of our (not so observant) neighbors who invited us over to share their Seder. They went through the whole thing (using handy booklets so we could follow along) and then served a huge ham for dinner- with home made bread rolls.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Reminds me of a conversation I had at the seder with my parents. They are definitely not Orthodox, but they were up in arms about a piece written in our local paper by a self-described "bad Jew" in which he gives his take on the Passover seder, complete with recipe featuring cornbread and bacon.

http://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/r ... itzah.html

http://www.thestar.com/life/2009/04/04/ ... onal.html#

Angry review here: http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.c ... ent=168903

My dad went so far as to say it was "bordering on anti-semitic" while my mom declared that she's refused to read anything else by this guy since then.

Now, neither my parents, nor the woman who wrote the angry review, keep strictly kosher. My mom has been known to order in pizza (in an unmarked vehicle) toward the end of Passover, and both my parents will eat pork if it comes in the form of Chinese food. My mom's basically agnostic. This, however, had them mightily offended. It was an interesting reminder for me that the Passover seder is the most widely observed of Jewish holidays, and that even very non-traditional, non-Orthodox Jews will get upset if they think that someone's mocking it. My mom also has this distinction between simply not always keeping kosher herself, and being disrespectful (for example, she would never make a wedding or Bat Mitzvah with unkosher food).

[docmom]

Reminds me of a conversation I had at the seder with my parents. They are definitely not Orthodox, but they were up in arms about a piece written in our local paper by a self-described "bad Jew" in which he gives his take on the Passover seder, complete with recipe featuring cornbread and bacon.

http://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/r ... itzah.html

http://www.thestar.com/life/2009/04/04/ ... onal.html#

Angry review here: http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.c ... ent=168903

My dad went so far as to say it was "bordering on anti-semitic" while my mom declared that she's refused to read anything else by this guy since then.

Now, neither my parents, nor the woman who wrote the angry review, keep strictly kosher. My mom has been known to order in pizza (in an unmarked vehicle) toward the end of Passover, and both my parents will eat pork if it comes in the form of Chinese food. My mom's basically agnostic. This, however, had them mightily offended. It was an interesting reminder for me that the Passover seder is the most widely observed of Jewish holidays, and that even very non-traditional, non-Orthodox Jews will get upset if they think that someone's mocking it. My mom also has this distinction between simply not always keeping kosher herself, and being disrespectful (for example, she would never make a wedding or Bat Mitzvah with unkosher food).

I don't think my neighbors were mocking the tradition. They identified very strongly as Jewish but they loved ham and knew we wouldn't mind eating it. We thought it was amusing but loved that they loved us enough to include us in an important part of their tradition.

[Ave Maria]

Perhaps it's the flaunting in the newspaper that particularly bothers 2xx's folks?

It's one thing to not observe Lent. It's one thing to forget it's Friday. It's another thing to show up at the parish fish fry with an In n Out burger in one hand and a corn dog in the other.

[GeoBQn]

That reminds me of a secular Jewish contestant on Food Network's Chopped who founded a restaurant in Williamsburg called "Treyf." The whole theme of the restaurant was that it was not kosher . . . like 99.9% of all restaurants in America. I don't think it's a good idea to start up a restaurant based on misplaced anger.

[sparkles]

That reminds me of a secular Jewish contestant on Food Network's Chopped who founded a restaurant in Williamsburg called "Treyf." The whole theme of the restaurant was that it was not kosher . . . like 99.9% of all restaurants in America. I don't think it's a good idea to start up a restaurant based on misplaced anger.

I was just thinking about this! (He spells is Traif). I was a bit torn as to whether he was really intended to be offensive and came down on the side of tongue-in-cheek/ironic (this IS Brooklyn after all), mainly after I ate there. Awesomeness. Bacon donuts? Yes, please. Even the Sparklet, a 10 year vegetarian caved. He has a second restaurant Xixa, pronounced SHIKSA. I'm okay with a little self-mockery.

[Idolatry]

I follow Mayim's blog because she's one of the only celebrities that I actually relate to, even if I don't agree with her on everything (I like vaccines). Her religious observance is constantly evolving - she's very serious about it, but not in a "I'm right and you are all a bunch of heretics going to hell" sort of way, and she's not hung up on denominations and labels.

She might not use "labels," but her blog is so patronizing. I don't see any other way to read this post than her superiority in her divorce, diet, parenting, religion, and her martyr cleaning/cooking. She does it better, and it's harder, and she wants you to know that. At least she no longer has an OMG perfect marriage that is far superior to yours.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Perhaps it's the flaunting in the newspaper that particularly bothers 2xx's folks?

It's one thing to not observe Lent. It's one thing to forget it's Friday. It's another thing to show up at the parish fish fry with an In n Out burger in one hand and a corn dog in the other.

That was it. They really don't care about anyone's personal observance. It was the idea of mocking the holiday in a large newspaper by coming up with the most unacceptable recipe that rubbed them the wrong way. I probably wouldn't have complained to them if I had seen the article, because I'm already the only one in the family to keep strictly kosher and wouldn't have wanted to sound like the family's religious nut.

[2xx1xy1JD]

She might not use "labels," but her blog is so patronizing. I don't see any other way to read this post than her superiority in her divorce, diet, parenting, religion, and her martyr cleaning/cooking. She does it better, and it's harder, and she wants you to know that. At least she no longer has an OMG perfect marriage that is far superior to yours.

She's got strong opinions, and I don't agree with all of them. Once upon a time, they may have bothered me more, but I'm an experienced veteran of the mommy wars. I did the whole nursing a walking/talking toddler, co-sleep forever, babywearing thing, and I also spent over 10 years discussing it all on Babycenter. So, I relate to people with strong opinions on parenting techniques and sexism and religious exploration and the joys of being a geek, even when I don't agree. Since I have 3 kids and they are older than hers, I'm also at a stage where I can smile and say, "just wait". While I agree on things like the importance of gentle parenting, I also know that things that seemed like a huge deal when the kids were younger just aren't.

[Ralar]

Unless it was made with some sort of matzo noodles (which I highly doubt, if they even exist) it was not kosher for passover.

I have Kosher L'Pesach noodles. I think I've had the same package in my "Passover Pantry" for a couple years because I'm afraid to try them.

I used to do an entire Mayim-like Passover prep, but stopped doing it a few years ago. Also, after the (Orthodox) Israeli Rabbinate decided that Ashkenazi Jews should eat kitniot (legumes, rice, corn, etc) during Passover (Sefardic Jews always are kitniot. Ashkenazi Jews traditionally have not eaten kitniot.. The rabbinate decided everyone should eat kitniot so that the Jewish communithy in Israel is not divided). The "ruling" is only valid in Israel, but I decided that if my people can eat kitniot in Israel we should also eat it in the U.S. so the Jews in Israel and the diaspora are not divided.

[ADoyle90815]

Atheist here laughing at the lot of you. So long as I eat one baby a decade I'm good with the FSM.

An ex-boyfriend wonders why I broke up with him shortly after he said that his mom wanted to meet me, after he said that she tried to get a previous girlfriend to convert to Orthodox Christianity. This is the ex that also talked about marriage after only 2 weeks of dating, and it took me almost getting a restraining order against him to get him to leave me alone. The threat was enough, but I was and still am prepared to follow through on that threat even 11 years later.