A Deeply Religious Experience
Saturday night was our monthly Supper Club dinner. We hemmed and hawed about a topic for weeks, from Irish foods (corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, beer....) to "Hamburger and Pickle Month," before we settled on Easter and Passover foods.
I made a wonderful Moroccan Lamb dish that I originally discovered in mom's New York Times Passover cookbook. It's like Passover lasagna - layer of matzah, then ground lamb with tomatoes and spices, then roasted eggplant slices, and repeat. It's pretty labor-intensive, since the ingredients have to be cooked before you layer them. (I have noticed that I manage to pick the most labor-intensive dishes for supper club!) I held on to the recipe because the lamb with tomatoes filling is really tasty, and I thought I would make it even when it wasn't Passover. Hm. I forgot that ground lamb is not inexpensive.
The rest of the menu: devilled eggs and kulich (Russian Easter bread), smoked fish spreads (with matzoh), mini macaroons with lemon curd filling and whipped cream (YUM), matzoh ball soup, lamb in egg and lemon sauce, baklava cake... and I'm forgetting something. At any rate, it was mighty tasty. I was particularly impressed that our hostess made matzoh ball soup for the first time, and the matzoh balls came out very well. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to the dinners!
We also had a very interesting dinner conversation about the relationship between various religions and food. Clearly, the Jews are well known for this - the 10-word motto for every holiday is "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." There is always a direct relationship between the holiday we're celebrating and the food we eat -- Fried latke's to represent the oil for the flame that burned for 8 days during Chanuka; triangle-shaped cookies to represent Haman's hat at Purim; salt water, charoset and matzah to show the hardships of the exodus from Egypt at Passover; etc. Christians have meals that are commonly associated with holidays (mostly, ham at Easter and Xmas, as far as I could tell) ;) but not direct relationships or meanings tied to the foods.
And in case you're wondering, I did share the story of why we put an orange on the Seder plate. Needless to say, the ladies at the table loved it. :) [Oops! It turns out that the story that I like to tell is an urban legend, but the original reason for the orange is far more compelling, so I'll keep doing it!]
I also find it highly amusing that the gentiles in the group (only 2 of us are Jewish) really enjoy eating matzoh, but even they admit that being forced to eat it for a week would get old pretty fast. ;) And in a happy turn of events, I now have a Seder to go to in Austin! That'll be fun.
Next month: foods from the farmers market. (I see this as sort of Iron-Chef like... take the fresh fruits & vegetables and pair them with the protein or pastry of your choice.) Any suggestions?
I made a wonderful Moroccan Lamb dish that I originally discovered in mom's New York Times Passover cookbook. It's like Passover lasagna - layer of matzah, then ground lamb with tomatoes and spices, then roasted eggplant slices, and repeat. It's pretty labor-intensive, since the ingredients have to be cooked before you layer them. (I have noticed that I manage to pick the most labor-intensive dishes for supper club!) I held on to the recipe because the lamb with tomatoes filling is really tasty, and I thought I would make it even when it wasn't Passover. Hm. I forgot that ground lamb is not inexpensive.
The rest of the menu: devilled eggs and kulich (Russian Easter bread), smoked fish spreads (with matzoh), mini macaroons with lemon curd filling and whipped cream (YUM), matzoh ball soup, lamb in egg and lemon sauce, baklava cake... and I'm forgetting something. At any rate, it was mighty tasty. I was particularly impressed that our hostess made matzoh ball soup for the first time, and the matzoh balls came out very well. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to the dinners!
We also had a very interesting dinner conversation about the relationship between various religions and food. Clearly, the Jews are well known for this - the 10-word motto for every holiday is "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." There is always a direct relationship between the holiday we're celebrating and the food we eat -- Fried latke's to represent the oil for the flame that burned for 8 days during Chanuka; triangle-shaped cookies to represent Haman's hat at Purim; salt water, charoset and matzah to show the hardships of the exodus from Egypt at Passover; etc. Christians have meals that are commonly associated with holidays (mostly, ham at Easter and Xmas, as far as I could tell) ;) but not direct relationships or meanings tied to the foods.
And in case you're wondering, I did share the story of why we put an orange on the Seder plate. Needless to say, the ladies at the table loved it. :) [Oops! It turns out that the story that I like to tell is an urban legend, but the original reason for the orange is far more compelling, so I'll keep doing it!]
I also find it highly amusing that the gentiles in the group (only 2 of us are Jewish) really enjoy eating matzoh, but even they admit that being forced to eat it for a week would get old pretty fast. ;) And in a happy turn of events, I now have a Seder to go to in Austin! That'll be fun.
Next month: foods from the farmers market. (I see this as sort of Iron-Chef like... take the fresh fruits & vegetables and pair them with the protein or pastry of your choice.) Any suggestions?
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