h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tomorrow night is the Seder - big family dinner for the beginning of Passover - and preparations are in full swing.
We're actually very few, this year; just our family and my aunt's, which will make us just ten people altogether (eleven if you count my cousin's three-and-change months old baby girl). But in the time-honoured tradition of big family dinners everywhere, we are making much too much food. There are going to be four and a half desserts. And this is only because I stood my ground and refused to make some truffles or meringues (just in case it's not enough, yaknow).

It looks like we've got almost everything ready, though...

(Here there was supposed to be a big list of foods and the preparation stage they are currently in, but I decided it wasn't that interesting and nixed it.)

Of course, it only seems that way. I'm sure that tomorrow we'll end up working until practically the last minute.
I wonder how that happens. Or really, I wonder what it is that makes people overdo all the food stuff on such events. We make so much food, and eat so much, and end up regretting it... don't take me wrong, I love food. And I love cooking. And some of the extra work was my own initiative (hey, those strawberries would've just gone bad if I hadn't made jam out of them, why throw food away? ) But I just wonder what is it about us that makes us act this way. Even when it's a small event with just close family, it's still the same pattern.


Quite looking forward to the Seder itself, anyway. Good food, good times. I know a lot of people don't like the whole ceremony part of it, but I think in our family we got a pretty good balance between tradition and sanity.


Anyway, it's getting late, and I'm pretty exhausted, and I'm obviously starting to ramble on here. But everything is _almost_ ready...
Good night, h2g2. And happy Passover.

Happy Passover to you

I've not a clue really... but I'd be there in a jiffy were it not so far to 'borrow' some* of your food have a good time and try not get too* flustered with all the preperations

I pass over Passover this year, like I did with Christmas last year. I hope you'll recover soon from this family gathering. Good luck and 'may the force be with you'.

Hope it all goes well. As an observer, I think the Passover traditions are marvellous - probably more evocative than most of the traditions from my own faith.

Hope everyone behaves, everyone enjoys themselves and none of the food goes to waste.

Everyone behaves? In a large family meeting?

Heheh. Thanks everyone. We did have quite a good time. And the food was excellent (although some things have now been written off as nice-but-not-worth-the-fuss, as often happens).
As far as big family dinners go, this was rather small - just the two families, and we're rather close as it is. So no faraway relatives, or hidden grudges, or meaningful silences, or embarassing drunken speeches, or all those things that indy film writers feel are integral to every big family dinner. There was a lot of joking around the table, but mostly, yeah, people behaved. Even the baby girl, once she got to sleep anyway.

I do like the Jewish Passover tradition of reading the Haggadah (it's a... book, with... text, and songs just ask Wiki, okay?) before the meal. We don't take it very seriously - it's more fun when you make jokes while reading - and we never really get to any of the parts that are supposed to come after the food, but we still do all the reading and singing and such before the food, and I like that. It makes it something more than a regular dinner.

You know what would make it EXTRA special?


ROBOTS!

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/29/-in-celebration-of-f.html

Robots make everything extra special!


My brother broke his leg in a car accident a few weeks ago, and had to have an operation to get some steel plates and screws and stuff in there to patch things up; I was really excited when I heard the surgery was going to be done by a robot.
I think it ended up just being some sort of 3D imaging thing, but I still imagine a robodoctor ordering around some robonurses in a metallic voice.

Robodoctors would be awesome! Nurses like Rosie from Jetsons.

Happy Passover (if that's the OK greeting to use). It sounds like it will be a lovely time.

I went to a seder with a friend, at his sister's house, once. He tried to convince me gefilte fish isn't real fish. Just because it no longer resembles fish in any way doesn't mean it doesn't count.

The proper comparison to compel one to try it is "Hey, at least gefilte fish isn't lutefisk."

I've had lutefisk more times than I care to think about- we had it every Christmas when I was a kid. I liked herring, creamed or otherwise, except for the onions, but the lutefisk always made me gag.

It might surprise you, but gefilte fish is in fact _not_ an official part of the Jewish Passover tradition (what with it being an Eastern European dish, which most definitely looks and tastes like one).
In our Seder, for example, we had baked seabass with a red pepper and hazlenut salsa. And PC - while I know you won't eat the fish on ideological grounds, I heartily recommend the salsa! You take some red peppers (we used a breed that is called Shoshka over here, which kinda looks like huge bright red chilies but is not spicy at all), quarter and clean them, mix with a little olive oil and salt and roast in the oven until they start to look a little bit charred; then you close them up in a plastic bag for a while, because that makes them easier to peel, and then you peel them and chop them up. You mix that with a bit more olive oil, juice and zest of one lemon, a little apple vinegar, some garlic, salt and pepper, and a small bunch of chopped chives. Then you toast, peel and roughly chop a handful or two of hazelnuts, and you add those at the last moment (I apologise for the vague measures; the original recipe, from the [very lovely!] Ottolenghi cookbook, had very exact ones, but we kinda went 'by the eye'). It is very delicious.