Taste With The Eyes: PASSOVER - Let's Share Our Culinary Traditions!

4.14.2008

PASSOVER - Let's Share Our Culinary Traditions!

This is our Seder Table from last Passover. We have 2 long tables that seat a total of 32 people. Guests come from across the U.S. and abroad. This year Passover begins on April 19th.

You may notice the Haggadahs, salt water, karpas, maror, haroset, matzohs, Elijah's cup, and the Seder plate already on the tables.

We tell the story, we eat, we drink, we sing, we laugh. I wanted to show Kristy's beautiful modern-style table, complete with frogs (one of the plagues). All newcomers to the Seder ask, what can I bring, we say, bring a frog. She has quite a collection after all these years. Kristy designs the table while I cook with help from family and friends, of course.

The menu doesn't change much from year to year now, as we've got it down to a science. For those of you who have never hosted a Seder, imagine that well before you ever serve the first course, just like Iron Chef, you must "walk-away!" and then have the food hot, tasty and ready to serve when it is time, at least an hour into the Seder. My fellow cooks who have done this can attest to the degree of difficulty.

First Course
Geri’s Gefilte Fish
Davida’s Chopped Liver with Pistachio
Kristy’s Haroset
Vicki’s Beet Salad, Fresh Horseradish & Matzohs
Hard Boiled Eggs

Second Course
Chicken Soup with Spring Vegetables & Herbed Matzoh Balls

Main Course
Chicken Breasts Roasted with Orange Ginger Glaze, Apricots and Lemons

Tomato Onion Beef Brisket. This recipe was submitted to the wonderful Tried, Tested, and True event hosted by Equal Opportunity Kitchen. 32 people a year for eight years have been giving this brisket the thumbs up.

Red Bliss Potatoes with Thyme and Meyer Lemon

Grilled Vegetable Kebabs with Dipping Sauce

Dessert
Passover Trifle
Passover Cakes
Chocolate Macaroons
Coffee

Our Four Cups of Wine will include:

Kristy's Top Wine Pick This Year: Carmel, Petite Sirah, Judean Hills 2005 Israel

Gallil Mountain, Yiron, Cabernet/Merlot/Sirah Blend 2003 Israel

Ramon Cardova Rioja (100% Tempranillo) 2005 Spain

Do you have a Kosher wine recommendation?

ROUND-UP

I thought it would be fun to include photography from other Passover Seders on Taste With The Eyes, too! If you are so inclined, please email a photo of your fabulous Passover dish, image, or table setting and a link to your post.

Bloggers please include a link to this event announcement and feel free to use the icon.

Non-bloggers are encouraged to participate as well. It's easy, just email your photo and tell me a little about it and where you're from!

Email to: sweetbay AT cox DOT net

I will compile the photos after 4.27.08.

Wishing you and your family a Wonderful Pesach! Next year in Jerusalem!

Julia Child Quotes - TOUJOURS BON APPETIT!

“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.'"

"In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport."

"It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters." Paul Child on speaking French

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. "

"Life itself is the proper binge."

"It was a Morsel of Perfection."

"I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu."

Julia Child sees herself on TV, July 1962, she saw room for improvement, and still she can say it was fun : "There I was, in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on...But it had been fun."

She has her own opinions on kitchen equipment: "Clairborne sniffed at our use of a garlic press, 'a gadget considered in some circles to be only one cut above garlic salt or garlic powder.' I happened to like garlic presses..."

Understanding Julia's captivation by French food: "This is the kind of food that I have fallen in love with: not trendy souped-up fantasies, just something very good to eat. It was classic French cooking, where the ingredients have been carefully selected and beautifully and knowingly prepared. Or, in the words of the famous gastronome Curnonsky, 'Food that tastes of what it is.' "

"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." Julia's instructor, Chef Bugnard at Le Cordon Bleu

"Oh, 'crise de foie,' that French sole was so delicious!"

Julia's passion comes through loud and clear as she describes a fish dish: "La Truite's true glory was the Sole a la Normande, a poem of poached and flavored sole fillets surrounded by oysters, and mussels, and napped with a wonder-sauce of wine, cream, and butter, and topped with fluted mushrooms. 'Voluptuous' was the word. I had never imagined that fish could be taken so seriously, or taste so heavenly."

Julia's unique way with words, on Crepes Suzette: "The creature named Suzette may or may not have been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, but whoever she was, she long ago inspired a magnificent dessert that is still one of our favorites."

"I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Caesar Cardini making his salad. I was about 9 when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over."

"With a handsome package such as Jacques's, you can neatly cut the top open at the table with a pair of scissors..." Julia on Salmon en Papillote

"There's no reason to be intimidated by the idea of making pâté. You can just think of it as meat loaf."

From Julia's dear friend Jacques Pepin, "You are what you cook."

"Understanding egg yolks will make you a master of hollandaise sauce."

Julia encouraging us not to be intimidated: "When you know how to saute your meat so it browns rather than steams, you're cooking. What's difficult about that? You heat the pan, you dry the meat, you don't crowd it into the pan, and you're browning it. Is that difficult?"

Food Quotes

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit."
Charlie Trotter

"Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. "
Thomas Keller

"I love to make people happy."
Wolfgang Puck

"Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cooking as olive oil is to Italian."

The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le

"I wish, I wish lunch could last forever...waiter, bring us one more bottle of wine..."

Jimmy Buffett

"My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis."
Emeril Lagasse

"Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I'm not a chef."
Nigella Lawson

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."
Mario Batali

"I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food."
Robert Mondavi

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at his/her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers."
Laurie Colwin

"Food is a central part of our lives. It provides the body with fuel and raw materials for maintenance, growth, and repair. It draws together family and friends, anchors celebrations and rites of passage, and sometimes soothes the soul."
Ethan Becker