Passover

[liv]

I'm having a really good Passover this year. I want to write it up so I can look back on this week, but it's mostly just boring to people who are not me diary stuff.

I finished listening to and marking about 20 first year students' presentations lunchtime on Thursday, and decided to hurry home early so I could get the off-peak train and avoid the pre bank holiday rush. So I got to enjoy a relaxedw evening before we met wildeabandon coming out of church in order to go out to dinner together We ended up at The Plough, very much one of my favourite pubs, and they served a vegetarian equivalent of fish and chips but with big chunks of halloumi instead of fish, just amazing. Nobody had room for pudding at all, and we had some excellent conversation including a fair bit of comparing what's going on liturgically with Passover and Easter completely coinciding this year. (That's also why I'm not at Eastercon; hearing about the con from friends is great for vicarious enjoyment.)

jack came with me to spend Friday preparing food for the first seder meal. It was remarkably calm, in fact; my family have pretty much got seder prep down to a fine art and with P'tite Soeur in charge, applying her experience from commercial kitchens, everything goes pretty smoothly. All three sibs arrived with through the course of the day, and it was mostly me and P'tite Soeur helping in the kitchen while everybody else socialized, with jack and my sister's long-term partner drifting between the two groups. So we had two new partners-of-siblings and two established partners who are regulars at seder by now, and a couple of friends of Granny's from synagogue, and that was it; in my family a "small" seder is 15 people, and this was a small one. Screwy did a great job of leading the service, getting through the formal liturgy briskly so we didn't end up eating too late for the two nonagenarians present but did have some time for actual interesting discussion. And then we had eggs and salt water, and butternut squash soup, and salmon and veggie moussaka and stuffed courgettes and half a dozen salads, and about half as many different puddings as there were people, a layered meringue, a caramel and nut tart, mango sorbet, fruit salad, orange and almond cake, and a slightly amazing matza and charoset pudding that Thuggish Poet's gf brought from a kosher bakery in Hungary. And both brothers gave out books as afikomen presents, and P'tite Soeur made up little packets of different kinds of Passover cakes. It was just lovely; I would have liked more time with my scattered family and I am really hoping that we'll have some actual children at the seder next year, but just everything went right.

I left earlyish on Saturday to return to Stoke and run the communal seder there. That went well too; we were full to capacity, which is 40 people (it's a physically tiny shul), including most of the community as well as a lot of interfaith guests. As well as leading the ceremony I ended up on a table with a lot of Christian priests who insisted on asking me questions about Christianity instead of more usefully asking about Judaism, but I did my best. Again, everything went well, people seemed to be engaged in the discussion and enjoyed themselves. adam_in_rabbinical_school was the wise son and asked me technical halachic questions in public, and his mother asked me about women's participation, and other people usefully poked at inconsistencies, and the visitors more than the literal children asked fairly simple questions about the symbolism of ceremony. (The actual kids cheated at hunting the afikomen, mind you, but I think they had fun at least.) I think I managed to talk through the bits of liturgy that pertain to Mediaeval persecution of Jews by Christians without offending the Christian guests too much. It was hard work; 40 is about the upper limit of how many people I can keep mental and emotional track of (more than that it's just a performance and I lose the interactive bits, basically), and an hour and a half of doing that plus circulating and answering people's questions during the meal left me fairly exhausted.

And Sunday there were basically no sensible trains back to Cambridge, but I really wanted to come back home anyway since the alternative was to be stuck on campus over the Easter bank holiday which would have been pretty miserable. So I caught the long-distance coach, changing at Milton Keynes like I used to do when I was living in Scotland and dating people in the south of England. I did a lot of whining to my friends about having to spend most of Thursday and Saturday and all of Sunday travelling, and ghoti did the most amazing thing: she offered to make dinner so that I could come straight home and have food on the table. I warned her that it's Passover and I'm difficult to feed this week, but she was undaunted and asked sensible questions about the food rules and bought many dozens of eggs and looked up recipes on the internet. I mean, I'm keeping a fairly basic level of observance this year, not worrying about kitniyot (pulses and rice) or the location where food is prepared being completely free of chametz, but even so, I'm extremely impressed that a non-Jewish friend was willing to deal with Passover restrictions at all.

I can not tell you how lovely it was to come home and find the house full of friends and have nothing to do except eat dinner that somebody else had prepared! I feel really really spoiled. ghoti's family even indulged me by having my family's quasi-ritual argument about whether Jewish children should have Easter eggs on Passover. And the food was amazing, various kinds of curry with eggs, tofu or potatoes, and cheesecake with a kfp base and actual real authentic plava with lemon curd. wildeabandon and obandsoller joined us after dinner, having spent the afternoon at emperor and atreic's Easter feast.

I've taken a couple of days off work to recover from all that, and we're enjoying getting a bit more chance than usual to see friends. Mostly inviting people here because going out to eat during Passover is a bit of a pain, but that's really really nice. So Monday we had a relaxing day just pottering about and clearing up Sunday's dinner and spending some time with wildeabandon and obandsoller. And I went running with ghoti and her daughter who is a very good running coach, first time it's been warm enough to run outside this year, and I really enjoyed it. In the evening cjwatson came over for dinner and I made MK's Thai curry and it was ever so ever so companionable.

And yesterday I spent most of the day hanging out with him and ghoti and the children, including watching Howl's moving castle. emperor and atreic came over for dinner; I made another moussaka which worked pretty well, I think. We've been trying to arrange time with the two of them for ages and we're all just that bit too busy, so I was especially pleased we finally found a date. It was just one of those lovely grown-up dinner-party evenings where the whole point was to talk to excellent people. Also it turns out that I'm still entirely confused about Trinitarian theology, particularly in the case of how it works with Jesus being dead for three days.

One of the topics of conversation was what drinks we ought to have available to offer guests, because jack and I basically just drink beer and wine and haven't got organized to have much else in our drinks cabinet. Between us we came up with a list of: whisky, brandy, gin, sherry, port, maybe some sweet liqueur eg Baileys. Do people have any opinions about that list, and specifically what representatives of each class we should have? Port we can manage, but if we're going to have just one gin, one whisky and one brandy, what are sensible brands / varieties to choose? It makes sense not to buy anything super-fancy because we won't be able to keep it well enough to justify that, but we'd obviously prefer to get something decently drinkable to offer guests.

Tonight ghoti is coming over so it can be my turn to cook for her. And tomorrow jack and I are looking forward to an evening to ourselves cos it's not very clever to be so busy socializing that we ignore eachother! And I am hoping to see my parents not in the middle of Passover panic at the weekend, and maybe doseybat and highlyeccentric too, but I will email you both rather than trying to arrange things through DW.

I'm a bit scared of getting back to work cos I have a lot of stuff that I've been slightly avoiding in favour of even more urgent things. But at least I'm working from home this week and a few uninterrupted days should help a lot.

Comments

[falena]

I adore diary stuff, because I'm a curious cat and I like seeing what other people's daily lives are like. :D

Drinks

[legionseagle]

Whisky doesn't go off (mind you, whisky in my vicinity tends not to get much chance) so there's no reason to worry about that when stocking a bottle which may not get much of an outing. (Same with gin, but that has the disadvantage that you do need to keep tonic or some other mixer on hand, and they go flat very quickly once opened, so small bottles are more expensive but paradoxically better value especially if you mix and match diet tonic, ordinary tonic and perhaps something else like bitter lemon.)

In whisky, I'd be inclined to go for a single malt in either highlands or speyside; I love Islay malts myself, but they taste a bit like throat gargle/disinfectant (iodine from the seaweed) which I see as a feature but other people see as a bug.

Re: Drinks

[wychwood]

For mixers, most supermarkets these days seem to do mini-cans of various sorts, which won't go off as readily but work fine if you're only providing one or two drinks at a time - my local does lemonade, tonic water both diet and regular, bitter lemon, ginger ale, soda water...

Re: Drinks

[legionseagle]

Ah, mini-cans like the ones you get on trains and planes? Brilliant idea, why didn't I think of those?

Re: Drinks

[wychwood]

Yes, exactly - they're obviously significantly more expensive by volume than buying eg a litre of soda water, but you can leave them on the shelf for six months no problem!

Re: Drinks

[ursula]

Yay Islays! But in my experience, people who don't like wine or beer but do like hard liquor tend to enjoy drinks with sweet mixers. Thus, if one is not personally inclined to develop a taste for single malt, it might make more sense to buy something that can mix with juice or Coke without heresy.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Whisky wise, we had Dalwhinnie for our wedding, because we thought it would please everyone, and it worked well enough.

I hope my tumblr/LJ post is actually helpful, if only by prompting you to know which questions you need to ask?

(3 days by modern thinking is a bit generous. 'On the third day he rose again' but He dies the day before the Sabbath, at the ninth hour, ie 3pm, rests on the Sabbath because Exodus 20:10, and by the time the women get there after the Sabbath is over - basically as soon after sunset as possible - He is risen already. So less than 48 hours dead.)

Re: Drinks

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I don't like beer, but would drink wine and whisky for different purposes. For example, we might want one drink, not a whole bottle of wine, or I have a wee dram in the evening but wine with a meal.

[liv]

We were just thinking that you are probably the person we should ask about whisky :-) And I love your LJ post, I will try to think of sensible questions.

I think with the Jesus being dead thing, my problem is not whether it's three days or two, it's with the Trinity. Let me see if I can explain it in a way that's not offensive and makes clear why our Christian guests last night thought I was hopelessly confused. Taken as read that I can't actually understand anything very much about the nature of God, I was working on the basis that if God stopped sustaining creation for even one second, let alone two days (or three, it doesn't change my fundamental confusion), everything would fall apart, matter, energy, time, everything. So I thought, well, during the time when Jesus was dead, the human body that he was incarnated as was dead, but God, who includes Jesus I guess because of the Trinity, had to be still alive. But apparently this is completely heretical and God was actually dead. But also still eternal, which is sort of like being alive, or at least a lot more like being alive than being dead, therefore allowing reality to continue.

(It's probably more useful for me to ask questions about liturgy than theology, all things considered. But just so you understand how ignorant I am of your religion.)

[cjwatson]

There's a Byzantine tradition (echoed in the Apostles' Creed) to the effect that, during that time, Jesus descended into Sheol and raised righteous souls to heaven: if taken literally that would imply that He was, well, busy rather than in a normal kind of dead state, even leaving aside matters of eternity which are even harder to wrap one's head around.

Re whisky, Dalwhinnie is indeed nice; I might also recommend Ardbeg or Bowmore as good standards that aren't too heroic in their acquired-taste nature. And yes, really not many of those things are likely to go off in any timescale that matters too much.

[cjwatson]

Yay lovely few days :-)

I'm glad you got to try the halloumi in the Plough! It was glorious when you and I went there and I had it.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I figured your problem was sort of like that, but I knew that Emperor is good at answering those sorts of questions.

(Also, dead != nonexistent. Humans also have immortal souls, and the choice at death is soul in heaven, hell or purgatory - in the creed it says 'He descended into hell'.)

[jack]

I guess I would have said Jesus was dead, but God the Father and the Holy Spirit were not dead, and I'm not sure if that can be described as "God is dead" or "God is alive" or not. But if God is "dead, not-dead, not-dead", I think saying "God is dead", even if technically true, is misleading. But I'm not sure that's what Christian theology would actually say!

[lethargic_man]

I was working on the basis that if God stopped sustaining creation for even one second, let alone two days (or three, it doesn't change my fundamental confusion), everything would fall apart, matter, energy, time, everything.

You're a mutakallima (or whatever the correct feminine form is)! And to think I never knew!

(Like the Rambam, I believe the universe runs by God-created natural laws, rather than being sustained by God from moment to moment.)

[liv]

Thank you! I always feel like my diary posts are much more rambly and boring than yours, which are always so organized with pictures and all. But yes, I do enjoy other people talking about their lives so I should stop feeling embarrassed when I do so.

[ceb]

Courvoisier is nice enough brandy to be drinkable unmixed but not so nice that it costs a bomb or is hard to find, and like whisk(e)y it'll keep basically forever.

(Or for about the same price you can get similarly nice rum, e.g. Flor de Caña 7-year old, nom.)

[davidgillon]

I'm not sure most Christians are much clearer on the internal logic here! Clearly theologians will have been poking the gears of Godhood for a couple of thousand years, but my reaction to your thoughts here was 'Oh, I never thought about that, interesting point'.

Re: Drinks

[liv]

Thank you, this is really helpful and that's a very good point about mixers which may go off faster than the spirits. I wasn't worried too much about whisky literally going off, but I thought that really top-end whisky would be like fine wine, that if you don't keep it in the proper conditions of temperature and humidity and so on, you lose the advtanges over merely good wine. And yes, I was hoping there would be such a thing as a fairly middle-of-the-road whisky rather than a more minority taste.

Re: Drinks

[liv]

Good thought, and that might well be a better idea if we just want to have things available to offer guests rather than for us to drink. Thanks for the tip!

Re: Drinks

[legionseagle]

I'd suggest you get a bottle of the Macallan if you can find one at an honest price; it's often discounted as a loss leader by the likes of Tesco.

Re: Drinks

[liv]

Thank you, that's a good point, and other people have brought up the idea of mixers. My guess is that very high-end stuff is going to appeal to particular fans, and if we're just going to have one example it's better to get something more middling (though obviously we don't want to offer our guests cheap disgusting stuff).

Re: Drinks

[naath]

I like Islays, and I like Islays in things too. So ner, heresy be dammed ;-p However most people do not, and you'd probably be better off with something more mainstream, unless you like them yourself. (Islays are sort of the whisky equivalent of Lapsang)

Gin - Gordons is basic but decent (supermarket own brand is probably horrid) but you need Tonic. You can get cans of tonic, or indeed cans of *gin and tonic* which is a HORRIBLE HERESY but obviously much much better than having bottles of tonic hang around for months (unlike gin, tonic actually goes off).

[naath]

I expect this is the difficult kind of theology that most people find hard to get. I mean, I went to church for years and years, and it never even occurred to me? or got brought up?

Re: Drinks

[liv]

True true, and I think for us it's not so much that we specifically prefer beer and wine over spirits, it's that we rarely drink in a situation where spirits would be appropriate. We have wine with meals, especially when it's three or four people and a whole bottle seems like a reasonable amount. And beer (or cider, I don't really like most beer either) at general parties where you want something you can have a glass or bottle of to carry around.

Re: Drinks

[liv]

I do love that in a post that also discusses thorny theological issues, it's inappropriate mixers which bring out the comments about HERESY in all caps... But ok, I'm thinking that I should get something more mainstream than Islays unless I happen to have occasion to try something along that line and find I like it. Unlikely, given my limited experience of whisky, but stranger things have happened. And yes, tonic and other mixers will go off faster than the spirits themselves, very well worth pointing out, as it's the sort of thing I would forget when I don't drink the stuff.

If Gordon's is basic but decent, what does the next rung up the scale look like? If we're talking readily available in supermarkets and not too specialist, is the range of options already too broad?