Passover (I)

We like to spread Passover out over a few nights, to make it less onerous and more fun for all involved. It really started yesterday, with a truly grand quantity of cleaning done pretty much entirely by Dale. A truly thorough sweeping and mopping turned up an amazing quantity of chametz. Jordan was delighted to sweep some of it into a paper bag with a giant blue feather he had gotten at religious school, and according to tradition, we took the paper bag outside last night and burned it. Way cool. I hope we are not struck down by lightning for doing the bedikat chametz without actually intending to keep kosher for passover... We're just not up for that level of observance.

Tonight we assembled the seder plate, matzah, juice, and salt water, using my cake platter as a seder plate and substituting arugula from the farmer's market for parsley. (It just has to be greens, right?) Then we carefully brought these fine items upstairs, and did the first few blessings (the openers and the karpas).... in a TENT. In the playroom. (Which Dale had not only cleaned to a shine, but had also totally rearranged and reorganized. wow!) We pretended we were camping in the desert. After just a few minutes of ceremony, we went downstairs for a delicious dinner of slow-cooked farmer's market lamb, root vegetable kugel, and radishes. Delicious. The lamb was shoulder, rather than shank, which is why the bone on the seder plate is not the usual shape. Aaron tried to eat it and said it was too crunchy.