So what an insane weekend I had two weeks ago!  You’ve seen Goodfellas right?  You know the scene towards the end of the movie where Henry is being chased by the Helicopter while he’s running all his errands?  Got to make the sauce, take his brother to the doctor, check on the sauce, bring a bag of guns to the Colombians, go to the girlfriends house to get the coke, go home and stir the sauce,  get the girl who’s his drug mule  , pack the cocaine in the diaper bag etc…   Well that’s how I felt by Sunday (except for the cocaine and guns of course).
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[This is me on Saturday morning.  Except I didn't need drugs to look that wiped out]

It started on Friday with the roadshow at K.J. Ferrell’s in Bellmore.  It was a godsend because with everything I had to do, being close to home on Long Island saved my cheese.  So we do the show, I hop in the car and head to the Supermarket on the way home.  I buy everything for the Passover Seder (pronounced “SAY-derr” in case you were wondering) we are hosting for TWELVE PEOPLE!  I know that doesn’t sound like a big crowd but try it some time.   Also only one of them is Jewish and two are complete Passover Virgins so I’ve got the reputation of my people to uphold!

 

I get home and start cooking.  The brisket goes first, it’s in the oven and rolling.  A delicious apple-matzah kugel is next.  Kugel is Yiddish for pudding or casserole.   It is NOT the exercises that a lady might do to … ahem… “tighten”.  Like most Yiddish words there isn’t a true direct translation.  There’s as many types of kugels as you can imagine.  This one is full of sugar and butter along with matzah, fruit and more sugar.  The process of assembling is long and involved.  By the time I’m done there’s just enough time to get that in the oven and done before it’s time to leave and come in for my shift. 

 

So I do the shift, get back home, sleep for about 5 hours, get up and start cooking again. I make a tzimmes.  More Yiddish which basically means a stew of sweet potato, carrots, dried fruit and some sweetener like honey or o.j. which takes hours to cook hence the phrase “don’t make such a tzimmes out of it” which my great aunt used to say instead of “quit yer bitchin’” (Yiddish makes everything sound funnier). 

                                        

                               [mmmmmmm.......   tzimmes! ]


In the meantime the draft has started so I’m keeping track of the Jets, checking Mel Kiper’s grades and fielding phone calls from Gerry Martire about the picks.  Plus there’s baseball.  Plus there’s playoff hockey.  So In the midst of all the cooking I’m also trying to manage flipping between three different things on t.v..

  I make another kugel out of cauliflower and leeks topped with dill, parsely and toasted almonds – it’s WAY better than it sounds. I make the Charoseth which is a delicious mix of apples, walnuts and sweet kosher wine which you mix together to represent the mortar which the jews used to build the pyramids as slaves in Egypt.  (It looks like crap but it tastes so good it makes you want to eat a pyramid.).  Lastly I make fresh horseradish which if you’ve ever cried  chopping onions, you’ll wish you could stick an onion directly into your eyes since it would be less painful than the fumes from grating fresh horseradish.  [By the way, the cashier at the supermarket wasn’t sure what the horseradish root was when I was checking out.  I told her and said it’s easy to remember because it looks like a certain part of the horse.  See if you can guess which one…]
                                               
[This is what a whole horseradish root looks like.  Wonder how it got it's name?] 


With all that done it’s time to clean (which my wife did most of mercifully), shower and dress.   The guests arrived around 7 including my friend Andrew, the only other M.O.T. (member of the tribe) who brought the worst of all Passover traditions – The Slivovitz (I can’t complain, I asked him to bring it).  Slivovitz is a form of plum brandy that somehow is Kosher for Passover.  I think it’s because it’s actually jet fuel.  Everyone attending the seder had to do at least one shot.  It’s best to do it quickly like ripping off a band-aid - except that the band-aid is covered in acid. 


                                                  
        [If you see this bottle run away!  Unless you're looking to fuel up a 747]
 

We sit, we roll the seder, we eat.  When we’re done everyone is full and happy and they roll out around midnight and I can breathe.  Of course I’m looking forward to Sunday when I can relax and unwind and recover on my couch.  But no, it was not to be this weekend.  Sunday we were getting A Visit From Aunt Barbara!