Matzo Madness

This past week has been Passover. It has been quite a challenge this year.

On the first three days Max and Rebecca would have a tantrum over lunch. I was denying them their shells and macaroni and they did not understand why.

I thought breakfast was going to be harder than lunch. Due to various factors out of my control I was late in getting all of our Passover foodstuffs. I resorted to calling Meryl while she was still in NJ and asking her to bring some. Sadly she was unable to find the Honey Stars cereal. The kids love the stuff, but I can not stand it. This guy agrees with me. As a result I ended up pushing fruit and eggs at breakfast. This went over very well. Nate would have plain scrambled eggs and an apple. The rest would have cheesy scrambled eggs and assorted fruit. Occasionally Max would request buttered matzo. Jake observed that we normally eat a lot of bread products at breakfast. He was unaware of that until this week when he had to go without.

Lunchtime it was just Max, Rebecca and I at home. I’d make things like farfel and cheese (busted up matzo baked in a cheese mixture, a distant cousin to mac and cheese) and they would roundly reject it. After a great deal of fussing and howling they would settle on peanut butter and jelly on matzo. Even that was rejected at first, but I stood firm and refused to make anything else. Meanwhile Jake and Nate would be at school. I’d pack them matzo sandwiches or allow them hot lunch. Generally we don’t eat leavened products at home during Passover, but outside of home we are a bit more flexible. Jake was a bit more conscientious than Nate. Jake would get the vegetarian offering and skip the crackers. Nate was fine until Thursday. The school was serving spaghetti, his favorite. He was almost in tears. In the end I relented. It was only fair since the previous night Larry and I ended up having pasta.

We didn’t mean to have pasta; it just ended up that way. We were at a farewell party for one of Larry’s co-workers. At first we were very good and passed on the bread. I was looking forward to having the duck breast for dinner. Then we got the bad news. The policy of the restaurant was that with very large parties (I think we were 11) the table gets a choice of four platters.

This meant pasta.

It was good, but I didn’t eat as much as I would have. We couldn’t even have dessert since it was school night and we had to get back home at a decent hour.

Personally I think the kitchen should have sucked it up. Then again I don’t want my food to be spit on.

Dinner during the week was a little tricky, but we managed. Matzo ball soup was a big hit as were the matzo pizzas. I was able to find some kosher for Passover egg noodles (blah at best) that Nate and Max love. Meryl even came over one night and brought a Passover chocolate cake. The kids inhaled it; we enjoyed it with some ice cream. I have a bit more to say on the subject of Passover cake mixes, but I’ll save it for a later post.

Tonight we celebrated the end of Passover with some candy fruit slices. Then it was off to bed.