Prepare for Passover one step at a time

By ALLISON ASKINS - aaskins@thestate.com

Experienced Jewish cooks know how demanding preparations for Passover can be. The tradition that celebrates the liberation of Hebrew slaves from Egypt has surely worn out many a host.

All leaven must be removed from the home, a second set of Passover dishes and cookware must be put in the cabinets and the sink, and countertops and refrigerator must be properly prepared for kosher cooking.

Also, in a city such as Columbia, where the Jewish community is small and stores carry select “Kosher for Passover” items, purchases must be made well in advance. This ensures that Jewish homes have enough of the proper foods to last the eight days of the holiday.

All of this before the first dish is prepared!

To ease the strain a bit — Passover begins at sundown Saturday, April 19 — we asked three Jewish cooks to share some words of wisdom, learned through the years.

Here are 10 tips garnered from their experience to help you navigate the demanding task of preparing for a Passover Seder.

1. Go easy on yourself.

“If I were going to advise my daughter, the first advice would be ‘Don’t panic,’” said Rebecca Pinsker, who is the director of education at Beth Shalom Synagogue in Columbia.

Make a plan, ask for help when you need it and stick with traditional dishes that are tried and true.

2. Pinsker notes that heavy-duty tinfoil is a Jewish cook’s friend. This kitchen supply can be used to line countertops and sinks when preparing a kitchen for Passover. During Passover, Jewish laws about food preparation take on heightened significance.

Similarly, Pinsker has learned to keep a Passover storage bin, which holds items such as extra dish towels and easy-to-clean place mats, which she uses to line the shelves of her refrigerator during Passover. She uses the dish towels as an extra layer over the foil to prevent the foil from tearing.

And “at the end of Passover, I wash and put them away with all my Passover items,” Pinsker said.

3. Decide your Passover menu early so you can buy “Kosher for Passover” items as soon as they start appearing in grocery stores several weeks before Passover. These items have been made with special care to ensure they contain no leavening or leavened byproducts.

This is significant to the Jewish story because when the Jews fled Egypt, they had to leave quickly, unable to allow the bread they were making to rise. Hence, it is tradition to eat unleavened products during Passover. Symbolically, it is more important to be free and eat humble foods than to be enslaved and eat well.

“There is a limited amount of Passover goods available in Columbia and so you really need to prepare early,” said Gloria Goldberg, whose husband’s family owns The Tile Center on Two Notch Road.

Another hint: You may want to stock up on boxed items that will last from year to year, storing them for next year.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but, if asking, know how your friends keep kosher.

If they don’t keep a kosher kitchen in a way that makes you comfortable, Pinsker recommends assigning them specific task.

For example, ask the friend to bring fresh fruit to your Seder and allow time to cut it and prepare it in your kitchen. Or if a non-Jewish friend is attending, ask him or her to bring a specific item such as boxed macaroons from the grocery.

In the Goldberg family, each family member brings his or her special dish. This never varies, and plans for the Seder are easily made around these preparations.

Carolyn Kressler Greenberg, a Columbia obstetrician and gynecologist, also notes that if you need help preparing your home before the Seder, allow for that in your budget.

“We change our kitchen, change our dishes, change our cabinets. Passover is a lot of work,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to get some help.

5. Set your table the day before your Seder. This will eliminate one pressure point.

Pinsker recommends that you think through the service of the Seder as you set the table, holding back some dishes in the kitchen so you don’t have to go back and forth between the kitchen and dining room too many times during the Seder.

6. If children will be attending your Seder, which can last several hours, here’s another tip from Pinsker.

Create “plague bags,” a fun, instructional tool that illustrates when Egypt was afflicted with 10 plagues before the Hebrew slaves were freed.

Following are the plagues and the items Pinsker has put in bags to illustrate them:

• Blood — dissolvable tablets used by dentists to identify cavities. Allow children to dissolve the tablets in a glass of water while the adults are drinking wine.

• Frogs — plastic frogs

• Lice — basil flakes or some other herb

• Wild beasts — buy a bag of plastic animals such as tigers, lions or even dinosaurs

• Cattle-plague — tiny toy cows

• Boils — packing bubbles cut into squares the children can pop

• Hail — cotton balls or Styrofoam popcorn

• Locusts — plastic grasshoppers

• Darkness — sunglasses

• The killing of the firstborn — a travel bag of tissues. Pinsker explains to the children how sad it was when the firstborn son of every Egyptian family was killed. “We can cry for those mommies and the babies,” Pinsker tells the children.

7. Pace yourself in your food preparations, remembering that dinner won’t actually start until about an hour after the Seder begins.

The initial part of the Seder involves the telling of the story and the use of several symbolic foods: matzo, horseradish, charoset (a mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon and red wine), a roasted lamb shank or chicken bone, a hard-boiled egg, parsley, salt water and wine.

The dinner is served after the ritual storytelling takes place.

8. Boil the eggs you’ll need during the Seder the day before, peeling them and storing them in resealable plastic bags in the refrigerator. Also, make the salted water ahead of time and store in the refrigerator so all you have to do is pour when the Seder begins.

To ensure your eggs peel correctly, buy eggs about a week in advance. Older eggs peel better than fresh eggs.

When ready to cook the eggs, cover them with water, bringing to boil with a dash of salt in the water. Once boiling, cover, remove from heat. After sitting for 20 minutes, drain and run cold water over eggs. They should peel well and should not have a green ring around the yolk.

9. For light and fluffy matzo balls, Greenberg offers this tip: After preparing your matzo balls ahead of time, refrigerate them to ensure they are very cold before cooking them. If you like heavier matzo balls, this trick won’t work for you.

10. Don’t forget to invite someone who has no Seder to attend, or someone whose tradition doesn’t include Passover. Hospitality to the stranger is central to Passover.

Reach Askins at (803) 771-8614.