Tag Archives: Pesach

April 8, 2014 · 2:57 pm

New food writing: “Passover, with a strictly biblical flavor”

I’m pleased to share my article “Passover, with a strictly biblical flavor,” my first piece in the Washington Post Food section. I hope you enjoy it!

As I mentioned before, you can also catch me tomorrow from noon to 1 in the weekly online chat Free Range on Food. I’m honored to be invited, even if my fingers shake on the keyboard every time I think about it! Softball questions welcome.

Many thanks to the gracious and knowledgeable people I interviewed, the daring friends who tasted my recipe trials, and to everyone who gave me feedback.

Thank you for reading, and happy Passover!

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March 31, 2013 · 3:42 pm

Sepharaeli Charoset

Photo by Flickr user Yucca2k6, used under Creative Common license.

Photo by Flickr user Yucca2k6, used under Creative Common license.

For a Passover seder last week, I was charged with bringing the charoset. I decided to make a batch in the Sephardi style with Israeli influences to compliment the traditional Ashkenazi version I’ve made and eaten since I was a kid.

Charoset is one of the symbolic foods on the seder plate. Whatever your ethnic take on it, it represents the mortar that enslaved Israelites slathered on bricks under the Egyptian sun.

My Middle Eastern melange of dried fruits, nuts, orange zest, and spices received about 100 times as many comments as the familiar Old World mixture of apples and nuts. It also drew an emphatic email request for the recipe, comparing the sweet paste to a certain highly addictive drug. Here is what I wrote up–stat–for the fellow seder guest.

So, just in time for Easter, I figured I would post it here. We still have a few days of Passover left (it ends at sundown on Tuesday, April 2) and it’s never too early to plan your fix for next year. (Recipe after the jump) Continue reading →

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March 24, 2013 · 8:21 am

Sprout your own karpas

The Jewish sustainability organization Hazon put out a great post earlier this month. It’s called 10 Ways to Make Your Passover More Sustainable. I think my favorite is the idea of sprouting your own karpas, the leafy greens that hold a symbolic place at the seder table (#7). Using a “pascal yam” in place of a shank bone (#9) is a close second. Even though Passover is just about upon us (eliminating the option of #2: “Plan ahead,” by the time you read this), I couldn’t resist posting about it.

Check out the list, and feel free to leave a comment about making your Passover seder — or any dinner party — more positive for the environment, people, and the economy.

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