Sunday, April 08, 2007

Redemption: this time with visual aids and a menu

As we stumble toward the end of Passover (tuesday night, for you hard-core holdouts) it seems like time to get more descriptive about what we’ve been experiencing at the seder table.  Let’s start with the visuals: here’s what it looked like to go through the courses at chez chucklehut, starting with the pre-ceremony set-up (with fish plate, seder plate full of ceremonial objects, candles, wineglasses and wine, and mazoh in its silk mazoh cover (with aphikomen napkin at the ready)):

Then we moved on to the soup:

Of course there was a roast chicken (our favorite never-fail recipe):

the chicken seemed quite at home with all its friends on the supper plate:

(sadly, dessert was non-photogenic.  use your imagination.)

It also should be mentioned that, on Friday, Mitch and Cath had us over for one of the finest passover experiences I’ve ever had, winningly paired with some of the finest food I’ve ever et anywhere, anytime.  No photos, but here’s the menu:
* Chicken soup with floating Moroccan chicken and pistachio tartlet
* Hamachi tartar and ponzu granita with radish and watercress, in a sukang maasim vinaigrette (paired with sparkling Vouvray and an angostura sugarcube)
* Chuck blade steak with horseradish greens on a bed of mashed potatoes with reduction gravy
* Five-spice walnut brownies with portwine sauce and vanilla ice cream

Also, Charles brought two versions of charoset - one for general consumption and one for Catharine:
* Regular: Fuji apples, walnuts, pecans, Montana holy clover honey, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, dried ginger, crystallized ginger, Deglett noor dates, Salamanca wine (with a pinch of salt to trigger the electrolytes)
* Catharine’s: Bartlett pears, pecans, honey (as above), cinnamon, cloves, dried ginger, black pepper, and Knob Creek bourbon. 

As a coda to all this pesachdik deliciousness, yesterday we met our old yoga teacher Nina for a misty morning brunch at Q, where she filled us in on the wild wonderful things going on in her life; and then this morning for easter I set up blueberry buttermilk pancakes with blueberry-maple syrup for the family, which were cheerfully and vigorously consumed:

Then there was the candy: 

(Z’s first peep:)

Then there was the hike in the headlands. 

Then some reading and napping, and now it’s now.  I’m having some coffee; soon I’ll take a bit of a jog in the park.  Tonight - pierogies from the muy autentico Polish deli down the street, with black forest ham and some of that excellent Schellhardt Pinot we just learned about.  I think there’s still some chocolate lurking around for dessert, too.  If this is what redemption is all about, I’m up for it!