Here's a first: last night I came home from church and wrote a post. I was in a good mood and thought once I logged on the words would come. What came was dull drivel, but I forged on and posted it. This morning I thought about it--in the grocery store of all places!--and decided to delete it, which I did. In its entirety. For those few of you who might have read it, apologies.
But lots more interesting things are going on than I seemed to have on my mind last night.
For one thing I was at church for the annual Maundy Thursday supper, which this year we made into a seder-like supper. (Not being Jews, we could not in good faith do a real seder--and besides they take about four hours, and we had to cram everything into 45 minutes!). But we served food that would be traditional at a seder--roast brisket, oven roasted potatoes, green beans, and salad. No bread, no croutons. Matzoh on the table, and macaroons for dessert. A plate on each table held the traditional things of the seder plate--bitter root (horseradish), hard-boiled egg, salt water, parsley, charoset, and a bone. A minister explained the meaning of the things on the plate and the parts of the seder, including leaving the door open for Elijah.
Oh those bones! I'm chair of fellowship at the church so the seder was my responsbility but I delegated to good friends Dick and Kristi Hoban who did a terrific job of organizing. My responsibility: charoset and bones. Charoset (spelled a variety of ways but I always thought pronounced haroses) is a mixture of ground nuts, diced apple, sweet red wine (yes, Mogen David), and cinnamon. Unfortunately, I made enough for the entire tribe of Israel, and we threw bunches away. The bones were worse--every seder I've ever been to had a small clean and dry bone on the plate. So I called Central Market, ordered 12 shank bones (we figured on that many tables). When I picked them up, they were huge bones from legs of lamb, with red raw meat still clinging to them. I brought them home, roasted them, cleaned off what meat I could (I probably could have made lamb stew!), and roasted them again. They still looked awful, and Jeffrey, the Hobans' 14-year-old son, thought they were dinner. "Is the church having financial trouble?" he asked. We had lots of wonderful volunteer help in cleaning up, and I'd call the evening a success.
My ex-husband is Jewish, and the evening brought back many funny memories of seders--like the half-Jewish man who came to our house one year and said, "I've never been to a seder before. I have the feeling I still haven't been to one." And then there was the night my brother pointed out the cat was eating the gefilte fish I'd carefully laid out on serving plates. Jamie used to love gefilte fish, so one year recently I got some for him. He tasted it, looked at me, and said, "It doesn't taste like it did when I was a kid."
At Central Market, I laughed at myself. I was buying bones for a seder and ham for Easter, surely a contradiction in terms. But today it's all about Easter. I've boiled two dozen eggs--one for dyeing and one for deviling, made a marinated veggie salad and am trying to soften butter to make mustard butter. Tomorrow I'll make southwestern twice-baked potatoes, a fruit dessert that sounds so easy it's sinful, and the deviled eggs (always sounds like a pain to me to devil a dozen eggs!). The Frisco Alters will come in the afternoon, and I expect the girls to dye eggs.
And Easter Day, though it makes me a bit sad, I'll miss church. Going to church alone has been hard for me lately, and I particularly don't want to do it on Easter. Between that and having family here and preparing a big meal, I'm just not going to try. I'll listen on the radio, particularly when our church choir does the "Hallelujah Chorus." We'll have nine adults, two children, and Jacob, who will crow his way through dinner, which is set for noon.
It's going to be a cold Easter. I was used to that in my childhood in Chicago--I can remember having frilly, summery Easter gowns and having to wear my winter coat over them. But not in Texas ! It is however supposed to come close to freezing tomorrow night, with the possibility of snow flakes. I called a neighbor to ask him to bring in my basil--it was drooping, and I decided it did not like the cold. He wasn't home, and I struggled it inside myself, along with the hanging basket of impatiens--don't know that I can get that back up myself on Sunday. We'll hunt eggs inside, but I had thought to send the girls and one adult to the schoolyard to play while the Easter bunny hid the eggs--may not work.
I hope the blessings and messge of love of Easter reach everyone, those who believe in it and those who don't. The love is still there.
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