Last night, Clair, Adam, and I (the Jews in my apartment) decided to have a Passover dinner. Even though Passover did not technically start until tonight at sundown, none of us were going to be around. We then thought we could do it Tuesday night, but Wednesday morning at 3:45 a.m. I am leaving for New Zealand. As a baby, I always have celebrated Passover at my house with my dad's side of the family. My mom cooks an amazing meal which takes her days and days to prepare before the big night. Since my dad's side is growing and growing, we sometimes would even have up to 30 people over for a Passover dinner. When I went to Colorado for college, I have gone to Chabad to have a real passover sedar the past 2 years. Lets just say, I have never missed a year of passover even though it is my least favorite Jewish holiday. This year being half way around the world, I wanted to keep the tradition alive and celebrate Passover with my fellow Jews.
Since we do not have an oven or did not have any of my mom's famous recipes, we decided to chip in what he had and make things that we all would enjoy. With that being said, lets just say things got a little interesting. Adam really wanted to make latkes, so he went yesterday morning to the grocery store to get everything we needed. Clair decided to make the charoset even though she had no clue what it even was (we looked the recipe up on the internet). Me, not being the best cook in the world to say the least, had no clue what to make. You have to give me a break though; I started cooking for myself last semester in my house in Colorado, and went from not knowing how to crack an egg to making scrambled eggs in the morning. I know how to make quesadillas, grilled cheese, pasta, sandwiches, and all the other essentials now. Patience is a virtue and eventually I will be able to cook like my mom! My goal in life is to not have my kids tell me my meals taste like airplane food on the way back from India (Yes, Jordan told that to my mom last year about one of her meals). I thought and thought of what to make and then it hit me. PASTA! Yes, I know it is not kosher for passover, but it was all I could offer. Leaving for New Zealand on Wednesday, I did not have much food in the fridge or any time to go to the grocery store. I really wanted to make Koogle or Matzah Ball Soup, but did not get my mom's recipe in time. It was okay though that I made pasta because Passover technically had not started yet. PHEW!
We started cooking around 4 p.m. and did not end cooking until 8 p.m. with 3 people in the kitchen the entire time.
My other roommate Adam is also Jewish and we wanted to invite him to our sedar, but he was not around. Yes, 4 out of 5 of us living in my apartment are all Jewish! What are the chances?! Not wanting to leave the 5th roommate out, I decided to ask Dash to join us, who is Hindu. When I asked her if she wanted to join, she looked at me like I was crazy because she had no clue what I was talking about. Dash is from Singapore, and she told me last night she had never met a Jew until she arrived here in February to study at Sydney Uni. Lucky her, she got 4 of us to room with! Clair's sister lives in the apartment right next to us, so of course we invited her too. Then, Andrew, who is Catholic, walked in and I asked him if he wanted to join us as well. Wanting to keep it small since we did not want to spend any more time in the kitchen, we thought it would be nice to have a small sedar. Everyone was invited under one condition: they had to dress up! We like to keep things classy :).
Adam bought everything needed for our Passover sedar plate, but no one but me knew what to put on it or why we put the things on it that we do. I guess all of those years in Hebrew School and Sunday School paid off. I was in charge of cooking the chicken to use as the shank bone on the sedar plate and for everyone to have as a main course. I guess I didn't reiterate it enough to my roommates that my cooking skills are not par. I tried putting oil on the skillet then placed the chicken legs on top, but I quickly learned that legs take forever to cook and my method did not work at all because the chicken began to burn. I got frustrated and told everyone I tried cooking the chicken enough, but to not touch the sedar plate or chicken because it was still raw. Hey, it's the thought that counts, right? I even learned last night how to make a hard boiled egg to put on the sedar plate. Here it is, the sedar plate with the shank bone, the hard boiled egg, the parsley, charoset, horseradish, and celery. On the side, we had the salt water to dip the parsley in. I hope we did not leave anything out!
Lucy, Clair's sister, brought the Matzah. Weirdly enough, they do not sell any Matzah in the city of Sydney, only at Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is takes about 1.5 hours on a bus to get to, and to me was way to far out of the way. Luckily, Lucy did not think so and went all the way over to get us Matzah for our sedar.
After hours and hours of cooking, this is what our meal consisted of: Latkes with apple sauce, Pasta, Charoset, and matzah. I wanted to make peas and corn, but everyone stuck up their noses. Plus, why mess up our carbohydrate meal with something healthy?! Grandma Jody would be so proud of me.
Before eating though, we wanted to say all the prayers and do the traditional ceremony. Since we did not have a haggadah, we looked one up online but it was 50 pages to print out. We decided not to print out the 50 pages, just do the four questions and the other basic prayers. Lucys only job was to print out the four questions, in which she did, but she left out the answers. Therefore, as each person read the question, I would make up the answer to the best of my ability to what I thought the right answer was. Adam and I even sang the 4 questions in Hebrew, while Dash and Andrew sat there confused. The entire time, I tried to remember to explain the process to the 2 non-Jews, but I think I made them even more confused with my explanations. I wanted to do the part of the service where you dip your finger in the salt water or your wine, and recite the plagues while placing the droplets onto your own plate. Since we did not have a haggadah, I tried to remember the ones that came to my mind. When I began to forget, I started making up my own rendition of Australian plagues such as, kangaroo kicks to the stomach, box-jelly fish sting, koala clawing, and a stone fish bites. After this, we ate our meal and then at the end of the meal, Adam decided to hide the afikomen. He did not do a very good job because everyone saw where he hid it earlier, but we still had a fun time "trying" to find it. I really wanted to let Elijah in to drink the wine, but we realized that we would have to go all the way downstairs to open the main door to the apartment, then walk all the way upstairs to our main apartment door to open it. Elijah, sorry you could not experience Passover with us in Australia but our laziness outnumbered your presence. After all of the "prayers," it was time to eat! The meal actually came out pretty good, and the latkes were a huge hit!
Yes, you counted right. There were 4 Jews, 1 Hindu, and 1 Catholic celebrating Passover together. As I have stated many times before, studying abroad is about experiencing new things and doing something I have never done before. This Passover sedar definitely fell into this category, because it probably will never be like this ever again. 6 people from different places around the world who celebrate Passover differently or even another religion all formed together for an amazing night. I got to learn about Dash's religion of Hindu while I explained Judaism and Passover to everyone else. Even though our service was not 100% the correct way to do it, all our efforts combined made a Passover I will remember for the rest of my life. We were laughing the entire time and enjoying each others company because on a day to day basis, everyone is doing their own thing and we never have a sit-down meal together. Passover 2011 in Australia, you will be in my heart forever.
Happy Passover,
Heidi
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